The Housing Bubble Blog

The Naples News reports from Florida. "The Cape Coral-Fort Myers area was once again named — for the second month in a row — as having the highest foreclosure rate in the nation, according to RealtyTrac. Not only are properties being left vacant with trash, weeds, debris and worse, but parties...

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The Seattle PI reports from Washington. "Karen Waters thought she got a good deal last March when she paid $425,000 for a new house in the SouthRidge at Silver Creek development near Puyallup. After all, the price was about $100,000 less than buyers had paid builder Centex Homes for similar houses...

Some housing bubble news from Wall Street and Washington. Bloomberg, "JPMorgan Chase & Co. agreed to buy Bear Stearns Cos. for $240 million, about 90 percent less than its value last week, after a run on the company ended 85 years of independence for Wall Street's fifth-largest securities firm. The...

The News Journal reports from Delaware. "From the moment in March 2006 when Melissa and Greg Thomas moved into the $445,000 house they built on five acres in Clayton, they knew they could barely afford it. Because of various problems that arose during construction, the Thomases have been unable to...

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The San Francisco Chronicle reports from California. "Foreclosure used to be a last resort, something that hard-pressed homeowners would scrimp and plead to avoid. But some are deliberately choosing foreclosure as an early option. 'It's throwing good money away after bad' to pay an escalating...

The Santa Fe New Mexican. "When my wife and I sold our Santa Fe townhouse in 2006 and moved to Austria to spend some time with her family, we didn't think we'd be able to afford to live in Santa Fe again. The price of housing was just too high for us. Then, in November 2007, we took a peek at the...

CBS News reports from Florida. "Home appraisers Pam Crowley and Joyce Potts knew the roof was caving in on the housing industry four years ago, CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports. That's when they noticed their profession being turned on its head. Instead of letting them do their job...

What do you see in your housing market this weekend? Speculation? "A dream chance of owning a brand new condominium in the heart of Manhattan has turned into a nightmare for dozens of Irish-based investors who signed contracts to purchase apartments in a new development on the East Side two years...

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Readers suggested a topic on the talk about falling house prices. "Discussions with the Sheeple on declining home prices are… interesting. I was talking to an incredibly bright coworker yesterday who is convinced that real estate prices are only going down in really undesirable areas. So he is...

The Toronto Sun reports from Canada. "The cost of carrying a home hit highs not seen since 1990 -- when a real estate bubble burst -- the price pressure will ease as our hot real estate market cools off, house price gains shrink and mortgage rates drop. Still, no one's talking crash, 1989-style....

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It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "From the streets lined with for sale signs to the stacks of foreclosure files, Brevard County's clerk of courts is seeing twice as many foreclosures per month as home sales. 'Florida has been in a recession for a year,' Brevard County Clerk of...

The LA Times reports from California. "Southern California home prices are now 19% below their peak last year. Home values also plunged 19% during the last real estate bust, but that was over a six-year period ending in 1997. Prices have now fallen just as much in less than a year. Betty Palacios...

The News & Observer reports from North Carolina. "When flames destroyed Tricia Warner-Peterson and Scott K. Peterson's dream home in January...the neighbors stood and watched as 61 Shepherd Drive burned. It was another in a long string of disturbing incidents that have them worried about the value...

Amd send in your housing bubble pics to: hbbphotos@gmail.com

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The Associated Press reports from California. "Median home prices plunged in many of California's most populous counties in February, with Southern California leading the slide with an overall drop of 17.9 percent compared to a year earlier. Median home prices fell this year in 15 major counties,...