The Housing Bubble Blog

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The Sacramento Bee reports from California. "Sacramento-area home sales ticked up for the second straight month in November. But the excess supply and rising numbers of bank-owned homes continued to push down sales prices. Much of November's slight sales increase can be traced to a rise in closings...

Some housing bubble news from Wall Street and Washington. BBC News, "Bear Stearns has posted its first quarterly loss in the company's history, as bets on risky sub-prime mortgages in the US turned sour. It revealed it had written down $1.9bn in the period due to these woes. This was more than the...

The Star Exponent reports from Virginia. "The bleeding continues. In the past six weeks - from Nov. 1 through Dec. 12 - 46 homes went into foreclosure in Culpeper, according to the commissioner of the revenue’s office. For the most part, the town foreclosures occurred in the newer housing...

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The Press Democrat reports from California. "Sonoma County home prices fell back to $500,000 for the first time in three years as the region's housing decline deepened in November, according to the latest Press Democrat real estate report. Sales dropped 24 percent compared with a year ago, and the...

Some housing bubble news from Wall Street and Washington. MarketWatch, "Hovnanian Enterprises Inc. reported a widened fourth-quarter loss, as home builders continue in vain to search for a bottom in the residential housing market. Hovnanian said it incurred a total of $383 million in pretax charges...

The Palm Beach Post reports from Florida. "Earlier this year, megabank National City Corp. aggressively entered the Florida market, buying Fidelity Bank & Trust in January and Harbor Federal Savings Bank in April for a total of $2 billion. On Monday, National City announced it would set aside $700...

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The LA Times reports from California. "Sales of Southern California houses in November fell by 43% from the year before, while median prices fell 10%. The price decline was the sharpest, and November sales level the lowest, in 20 years, according to DataQuick. The Southern California median home...

The Mail Tribune reports from Oregon. "During the euphoric final days of a gung-ho real estate market, Cathy Lemble didn't see the perfect storm brewing as she signed papers at LandAmerica Lawyers Title. Told by her real estate agent and lender that she was making a good move and further assured by...

Some housing bubble news from Wall Street and Washington. Reuters, "Home building projects started in November fell by 3.7 percent as the pace of single-family home construction was the slowest in more than 16 years, a government report on Tuesday showed. Housing starts plummeted 24.2 percent from...

The Journal News reports from New York. "For months Marie Chantale Joseph and her husband, Daniel, have been unsuccessfully trying to refinance their home before their interest rate spikes in April. Already, Daniel, a taxi driver, is working 18 hours a day and on weekends to pay the approximately...

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The Wall Street Journal reports from California. "The bedroom community of Corona is a microcosm of the looming devastation for homeowners in California's so-called Inland Empire. Corona lawyer Nathan Fransen says he has nearly 100 clients trying to avoid foreclosure but none appear eligible for...

The City Paper reports from Tennessee. "The Greater Nashville Association of Realtors has had to report yet another down month in sales. Nashville-area home sales dropped about 19.5 percent in November compared to last November. The median price has been declining since a peak of $196,000 in June,...

Some housing bubble news from Wall Street and Washington. Bloomberg, "IKB Deutsche Industriebank AG, the German lender bailed out by KfW Group, fell to its lowest in more than a decade on concern about further losses from U.S. subprime mortgage investments. The rescue of IKB may cost the German...

The Palm Beach Post reports from Florida. "The same issue that forced sellers to pull their properties off the for-sale market now dogs them in the rental market: inventory. There are nearly 35,000 residential properties for sale in Palm Beach County alone, according to Illustrated Properties Real...

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The San Francisco Chronicle reports frorm California. "Israel Medina admits he got too gung ho about the idea of getting rich by flipping Bay Area real estate. Medina, a Concord resident who ran a limousine company before wading neck-deep into the housing market, has seen not one, but 11, of his...