The Housing Bubble Blog

The Daily Business Review reports from Florida. "The owners of Villa Mare, a failed residential condo conversion project in Boca Raton, have seen the property's debt balloon from about $50 million to more than $70 million since last year. The debt is growing at the rate of $21,000 per day because...

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The Daily Bulletin reports from California. "Home prices in Southern California are racing downhill, but does that mean it's a buyer's market? Each month real-estate agents watch prices plunge and foreclosures soar, and several buyers are still in no rush to make deals. 'Prices aren't just falling...

The Seattle PI reports from Washington. "Seattle-area house values continued their record-setting slide in March. Values in the area in March were down 4.4 percent from March 2007, according to the Standard & Poor's S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, whose Seattle numbers go back to...

The Journal Gazette reports from Indiana. "The message to the City Council last week was crystal clear: The downtown Harrison Square condominiums will be built. But while developers can promise to construct the building, there is no guarantee people will buy condominiums, live in them and make...

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The North County Times reports from California. "San Diego County home prices took yet another beating in March, reaching the largest rate of decline yet, according to a report released Tuesday. Home prices in March were 20.5 percent below the same month a year earlier, the first time county home...

Some housing bubble news from Wall Street and Washington. Reuters, "Prices of single-family homes plunged a record 14.1 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, marking a pace five times faster than the last housing recession, the Standard & Poor's/Case Shiller composite index of 20...

The Bradenton Herald reports from Florida. "Christine Walker, some might say, should have known better. As a mortgage branch manager and then an account executive for wholesale mortgages for Bank of America, Walker had intimate knowledge of the mortgage process. But in 2005, when homes sales were...

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The Post Independent reports from Colorado. "Garfield County Public Trustee Bob Slade isn't concerned with the increase in foreclosures the county has seen in the first quarter of 2008, but it's still a little early in the year. 'Our numbers are up significantly over last year,' Slade said. 'But...

The Worchester Business Journal reports from Massachusetts. "The Falls at Arden Mills, a gated condominium development in Fitchburg, is eventually supposed to have 204 units. So far, though, only one building of the project, with 48 units, is standing, and only 11 of the condos are occupied. 'It's...

What do you see in your housing market this weekend? Lower prices? "A slowing housing market has led the Blaine County Assessor's Office to reduce 2007 property valuations in several areas, County Assessor Valdi Pace told the Blaine County Commission Tuesday. County appraiser Mickey Dalin told the...

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The Orange County Register reports from California. "A taskforce of attorneys general analyzed the number of subprime borrowers getting help from their lender. The study found that as of October 2007 about 70 percent of seriously delinquent subprime loans were not in any kind of workout with the...

Readers suggested a topic on decision making. "Land of the biggie house, the biggie mortgage, the biggie vehicle, the biggie belly, and the biggie cereal box. Cereal box?" "Yeah.. try this: Open a cereal box and remove the contents, squeeze the air out of the bag and look at what five bucks got...

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The San Francisco Chronicle reports from California. "Home sales volume in California and the Bay Area increased between March and April as lower prices brought bargain hunters out of the woodwork, according to numbers released Friday by the California Association of Realtors. Statewide, the median...

TC Palm reports from Florida. "Sales of existing single-family homes and condominiums in the region increased in April, a report from the Florida Association of Realtors showed Friday. However, home prices in the Fort Pierce-Port St. Lucie metropolitan statistical area dropped 34 percent to...

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