The Housing Bubble Blog

The Gazette reports from Colorado. "Colorado Springs' housing woes continued last month, as November foreclosures pushed the area's year-to-date total to 3,106 - the highest in 20 years. Another bad month in December could give El Paso County the dubious distinction of breaking its yearly...

Some housing bubble news from Wall Street and Washingon. Bloomberg, "H&R Block Inc. shut its subprime home-lending unit and will cut 620 jobs after an agreement to sell Option One Mortgage Corp. to Cerberus Capital Management LP unraveled. H&R Block will try to sell the portion of Option One that...

The Boston Globe reports from Massachusetts. "The recent spike in home foreclosures in Massachusetts is caused primarily by falling housing prices, and not by rising mortgage payments, according to research released yesterday by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. The contrarian report suggests the...

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The Press Enterprise reports from California. "Unable or unwilling to sell their homes at declining prices, homeowners in Riverside and San Bernardino counties are converting them to rentals, glutting the market and causing rents to fall for the first time in years, according to Inland property...

Fox 23 reports from Oklahoma. "If you're thinking about buying a home, right now might be the time. Realtors say we're in a buyer's market. But just as fast as homes are being sold here in Tulsa, they're also being foreclosed. For a lot of people owning a home is an American dream, but realtors say...

Some housing bubble news from Wall Street and Washington. CNN Money, "In another sign of the collapse of the market for new homes, builder Lennar Corp. has dumped a portfolio of 11,000 properties for 40 percent of their previously-stated book value. Lennar, the nation's largest builder in terms of...

The St Petersburg Times reports from Florida. "When Laura Roorda's father died in March, a real estate agent advised her to put his Hernando Beach house on the market for $345,000. By the time she and her brother had it cleaned up and ready to show in July, the agent had bad news: $299,000 was the...

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The Desert Sun reports from California. "With sales of existing homes in 2007 expected to match the 2002 national sales record, REALTORS still must educate the public about the value of real estate as a long-term investment instead of a get-in and get-out stock strategy. That was among the key...

The Chicago Tribune reports from Illinois. "As soon as Trump International Hotel & Tower, the city's first new-construction condo-hotel, gets a city permit to begin its phased opening, developer Donald Trump will find out for sure whether Midwesterners and others are willing to fork over megabucks...

The Winchester Star reports from Virginia. "Residential permits in Frederick County fell by 30 percent, from 1,975 in FY 2006 to 1,379 in FY 2007, according to county data. In Clarke, the residential drop was more severe, with permits plunging 58 percent, from 125 to 52. The reason for the numbers...

What do you see in your local housing market this weekend? Lower prices? "Billy Joel has closed on his latest beachfront house, a 1-acre Sagaponack property. One of several celebs with a constant eye out for Long Island real estate, Joel paid a little more than $11.6 million for his latest home. He...

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The East Valley Tribune reports from Arizona. "Hundreds of Valley real estate agents rallied in Scottsdale on Friday in hopes of kick-starting the sluggish real estate market by thinking positive and being proactive. During the boom, real estate agents could sit and wait for buyers and sellers to...

Readers suggested a topic around the latest proposal to freeze interest rate resets. "Banks, U.S. near deal to freeze subprime rates: report. Now this is a new twist." One posted. "A continued attempt to reward bad behavior on the borrowers part. However a freeze will do nothing more than prolong...

The Bradenton Herald reports from Florida. "A record 372 foreclosure actions were filed against Manatee homes in November, the Manatee County Clerk of Circuit Court's office reported Friday. That shattered the previous monthly record, just set in October, and pushed this year's record-setting total...

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It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "John Davidson re-located to Horry County, South Carolina, a few years ago. 'We were real excited about the way the area was growing, no way it was going to slow down...how could it possibly slow down?' Davidson said. 'It's amazing how quickly it...

ABC News reports from California. "Two years ago, Kelley Lowry camped out overnight to buy a four-bedroom home in the upscale community of Fairfield, Calif., northeast of San Francisco. He paid $580,000. 'We bought at the top of the market,' Lowry said. Just six weeks later, his house was worth...