The Housing Bubble Blog

Some housing bubble news from Wall Street and Washington. CNN Money, "New home sales slipped to a nearly 13-year low in January, according to a Census Bureau report showed, down 2.8% from 605,000 in December. Sales fell 33.9% from the same month last year and hit their lowest levels since February...

The Naples News reports from Florida. "The Cape Coral-Fort Myers area had the highest rate of foreclosures in the nation in January, a mortgage research firm said. Charlie Green, the Lee County Clerk of Courts, said there were 2,297 foreclosures in the county during January. During the first four...

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The Mercury News reports from California. "Home sales around the Bay Area fell in January for the 36th month in a row, and four Bay Area counties saw median prices drop below $500,000, something not seen since 2005, DataQuick reported. A total of 3,586 new and resale houses and condos were sold in...

The Rocky Mountain News reports from Colorado. "New home construction in the Denver area last year fell to its lowest level in 16 years, as builders cranked down on construction because of a sluggish and overbuilt market. Permits for single-family homes dropped 34 percent to 10,986 in 2007, down...

The Miami Herald reports from Florida. "Home prices in South Florida sank by double-digit percentages in January, posting some of the steepest declines since the housing market slowdown began more than a year ago. The number of single-family homes sold fell 48 percent in Miami-Dade, while the...

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The Used House Salespeople report from California. "Home sales decreased 29.8 percent in January in California compared with the same period a year ago, while the median price of an existing home fell 21.9 percent, C.A.R. reported today. 'The slight increase in sales predates the president's...

Some housing bubble news from Wall Street and Washington. CNN Money, "The new year picked up where 2007 left off, as sales of existing homes fell in January to the lowest level in nearly a decade, according to the National Association of Realtors. The reading was the lowest since the group began...

The Chronicle Telegram reports from Ohio. "The idea seemed simple enough. Buy a foreclosed home through a sheriff’s sale at a below-market price; fix it up and then resell it making a small profit. It’s called flipping. Gary Cahill of Elyria knew the plan wouldn’t net him millions, but he and his...

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The Whittier Daily News reports from California. "Yvonne Herrera's blue-gray, two-bedroom family home on a quiet, dead-end road in Covina was astonishingly cheap when she and her husband bought it: only $129,000. Ten years later, after refinancing several times and borrowing money against the home,...

The Telegram reports from Massachusetts. "Foreclosures more than doubled in Massachusetts in 2007, according to The Warren Group. There were 7,653 foreclosure deeds in 2007, up 148 percent from the 3,086 in 2006, and up 600 percent from 1,092 in 2005. For those who purchased homes at the peak of...

What do you see in your local housing market this weekend? Builder defaults? "Red Bank-based builder Kalian might want to recalculate the price of the 48 units of its Harbor Lights on the Bayshore project in the wake of a federal lawsuit that contends it has defaulted on two loans. Prices for units...

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The Mercury News reports from California. "For what one expert thought was the first time, the number of monthly foreclosures exceeded the number of monthly home sales in California in January, according to data compiled by two research companies. A Discovery Bay real estate research firm said...

The Daily Camera reports from Colorado. "The trucks and earthmovers have been out there so long that some Rock Creek residents joke that the construction zone along McCaslin Boulevard is beginning to resemble a training academy for heavy equipment operators rather than a building site. For 18...

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It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "While Harvard has not escaped price adjustments on its real estate values, the foreclosure rate continues to remain relatively low in comparison to its neighboring communities in northern Worcester County, according to local real estate brokers....

The Flathead Beacon reports from Montana. "With 252 foreclosures, Flathead County had the highest foreclosure rate of any county in the state last year, according to RealtyTrac. That meant a 66 percent jump over 2006’s 152 foreclosed homes. Local real estate professionals are short on answers for...