The Housing Bubble Blog

It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "Not counting carrying costs and real estate fees, Canadian-born 'Austin Powers' franchise star Mike Myers took a hair-raising, $675,000 blow to his bank account when he sold a four-bedroom and 4.5-bathroom condo in New York City’s TriBeCa...

A report from the Mercury News in California. "Choked by traffic and overwhelmed by skyrocketing housing costs, a greater percentage of Bay Area residents than a year ago now say they yearn to flee the region. In a new Bay Area Council poll released Thursday, 40 percent of the region’s residents...

A report from Bloomberg on the UK. "The number of London properties listed on Airbnb almost doubled in a year to 50,000 at the end of 2016, according to broker Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. A record 35,000 new high-end London properties -- enough to cover Hyde Park twice -- are planned in the coming...

A report from Bloomberg. "As members of Congress in Washington debate raising the minimum required to obtain a U.S. immigrant investor visa from $500,000 to $1.35 million, concern about the hike has set off a scramble among wealthy would-be participants in China. China’s wealthy, using...

A report from the Washington Examiner. "In a little-noticed statement, the Treasury bureau responsible for investigating financial crimes shared a remarkable money laundering statistic last month. Thirty percent of the cash purchases of high-end real estate by shell companies in six major cities...

A report from the Journal Sentinel in Wisconsin. "On a recent Friday, Shorewest Realtor Beth Jaworski listed a three-bedroom, 1½-bathroom Dutch colonial house with a single-car garage in a popular Wauwatosa neighborhood for $289,900. By Sunday night that same weekend, the house had five offers from...

A weekend topic starting with Imbibe.com. "Ever had a feeling that perhaps you missed the peak time to sell something? That by holding out for a better offer or chancing your arm a bit you ended up costing yourself money? Well if so, you can only imagine how the team at Ed’s Easy Diner feel. In...

It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "Mortgage giant Freddie Mac today announced a new program that will allow lenders to give mortgages to buyers without credit scores. While the program may remind some observers of housing bubble loans, Freddie Mac says the program is a 'responsible'...

A report from Business Den in Colorado. "A 400-unit apartment complex in the Ballpark neighborhood sold this week for $126 million. Greenwood Village-based Griffis Residential bought Skye 2905 just north of Coors Field on Monday, city records show. Monogram Residential Trust, a Texas firm, was the...

A report from the Denver Post in Colorado. "There were 25 percent more starter homes available in metro Denver at the start of 2017 than at the start of 2016, and about a fifth more trade-up homes, according to Trulia. Something may be changing in the market. The starter-home inventory has seen...

A report from the American Statesman in Texas. "Home sales in Pflugerville in January and February are less than half of what were sold in the same period last year. But Brandy Guthrie, president of the Austin Board of Realtors, said that dip does not indicate a weak market. Instead, she said, it...

A report from The Age in Australia. "A senior Chinese policeman has been jailed for 17 years for embezzling money to buy two Australian homes for his two daughters. The Australian real estate purchases were among a huge property portfolio, with no obvious legitimate source of funding, Chinese...

A report from the Commercial Appeal in Tennessee. "Among cities where at least 250 homes were flipped last year, Memphis ranks No. 1 for the portion — 11.7 percent — of all metro area home sales that involved a flip. Thomas Byrd generally sees house flipping as bad for Memphis. Flips and...

A weekend topic starting with a CNN opinion piece by William Poole. "Today, the Fed is again ignoring the GSEs and their potential contribution to future instability. According to Freddie's 2016 annual report, 'Expanding access to affordable mortgage credit will continue to be a top priority in...

It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "The Trump administration's budget plan for 2018 includes cuts to federal agencies that are so large, some economists say it would drive down federal employment and make a noticeable dent in housing prices in Washington, DC, Virginia and Maryland....

A report from Bloomberg. "Apartment rents in cities such as New York and San Francisco will need to fall as much as 15 percent for a glut of high-end developments to be absorbed, according to billionaire real estate investor Richard LeFrak. New York landlords are already feeling the pinch as...

A report from the Folsom Insider in California. "For probably the last 2 years, home buyers and their agents have been lamenting the fact that available housing inventory is low. It still is low, with 81 homes for sale in Folsom today, compared with 105 a year ago. The problem now is that the...

A report from Multi-Housing News. "Is the growth in residential development, coupled with decreasing construction costs, a sign that the industry is reaching the current cycle's peak? 'Yes, we expect multifamily completions to peak in 2017. We’ve already seen weakness in starts and permits data,...

A report from USA Today. "Riskier borrowers are making up a growing share of new mortgages, pushing up delinquencies modestly and raising concerns about an eventual spike in defaults that could slow or derail the housing recovery. The trend is centered around home loans guaranteed by the Federal...

A report from Better Dwelling in Canada. "The world’s greatest overseas real estate binge might finally be over. According to the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), China saw its foreign exchange reserves rise to over US$3 trillion. The unexpected rise is the first in 8 months, and may indicate that...