The Housing Bubble Blog

A report from Philadelphia Magazine in Pennsylvania. "The real estate sections in local and regional media of late, most definitely including this one, have been awash with stories about new luxury rental developments. Hardly a day passes without an announcement of a new high-end project on the...

A report from TV New Zealand. The number of houses sold in Auckland fell 24 per cent to 721 and the median sale price slipped 1.2 per cent to $840,000 in December, Barfoot said. The slowdown came as Barfoot, the city's biggest estate agency, had 3,270 properties on its books at the end of the...

A report from the Madison Park Times in Washington. "All real estate is local, goes the saying. Then this last presidential election happens, and that rule goes out the window. However you feel about the election of Donald Trump, it’s immediately affected the Seattle real estate market. Sales fell...

A report from National Mortgage News. "Houston's once-red-hot economy has cooled considerably since the days when oil was selling for more than $100 a barrel and that has forced commercial real estate lender Jody Proler to be far more selective when pursuing new business. 'Houston was clearly...

A report from the Dawson Creek Mirror in Canada. "Housing prices in Tumbler Ridge are recovering after a double-digit drop brought on by a crash in the region’s coal industry. The improved prices come one year after assessment values plummeted a province-worst 34 per cent following the shuttering...

A report from KSHB in Missouri. "Luxury apartments in the heart of any downtown are becoming quite the craze. In Kansas City, there’s River Market, Columbus Park, One Light, Two Light, to name a few. According to one research firm, the number of apartments nationwide may jump more than 25 percent...

It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "As the market slows, the sale-of-home contingency has escaped extinction. In the real estate environment that Nashville has experienced over the past five years, one of the major issues facing sellers was how to schedule the move when the house...

A report from Bloomberg on New York. "Manhattan resale home prices tumbled by the most in more than four years, a sign that sellers are lowering their expectations in a slowing market where buyers have the option to walk away. The median price of previously owned condominiums and co-ops fell 6.3...

A report from KJZZ in Arizona. "The short-term outlook for the Valley’s apartment market may be more attractive to renters than investors. Rent growth in the Phoenix market peaked in May 2016. That’s when the average rent jumped more than 8 percent from May 2015. Nick Fitzpatrick, an analyst with...

A report from the Calgary Herald in Canada. "Like many ends of the Calgary area residential market, the home ownership program through Attainable Homes Calgary Corp. recorded a dip in activity in 2016. The program offers homes for down payment of $2,000. Applicants must qualify for a mortgage and...

A report from the Wall Street Journal. "America’s luxury-apartment craze is coming to an end. Landlords of upscale properties in cities across the U.S. are bracing for rough conditions in 2017 that will likely force them to slash rents and offer deep concessions, including as many as three months...

A weekend topic on two papers, the first by Graeme O'Meara at the Economic and Social Review. "Abstract: This study contributes to the ongoing debate over the causes of housing bubbles. The argument that excessively low interest rates were responsible for the rapid increase in house prices over the...

A report from the Banker & Tradesman in Massachusetts. "The real estate market in Greater Boston may be on a record roll when it comes to home and condominium prices, but there’s trouble brewing on the horizon. And as we move into 2017, until now, simply irksome issues – the flood of new luxury...

What's your housing bubble prediction for 2017? Nashville Public Radio, "Home sales in Nashville have surged in recent years. The median price for a single family home is up by nearly half since 2012. Most realtors and analysts don’t see the market slowing down anytime soon. But we talked to one...

It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "Looks like all those reports of a luxury slowdown weren’t just speculative after all: The final Olshan Realty report of the year is out, and according to the real estate trackers there, 'the golden years of new condo development' are over. As Curbed...

A report from the San Francisco Business Times in California. "In 2016, around 5,000 units were completed in San Francisco, the highest level in decades. Will prices keep dropping? With supply on the rise, rents in San Francisco fell 2.1 percent in the past year, down to $3,390 per month for a...

A report from MarketWatch. "The number of investors who flipped a house in the first nine months of 2016 reached the highest level since 2007. About one-third of the deals were financed with debt, a percentage not seen in eight years. Now Wall Street, which was nearly felled by real-estate forays...

A report from the Australian Financial Review on the UK. "Never before in the history of London has there been so much uproar about so many buildings – many of them skyscrapers, and most built or approved during Boris Johnson's eight-year reign as London's Mayor. Investigative financial journalist...

A report from Harvest Public Media. "Cropland in the Midwest is losing its value as the downturn in the agriculture economy continues. Record-high crop prices contributed to record-high land values in 2012 and 2013. But now, that party is over. Iowa State University economist Wendong Zhang says...

A report from the National Post in Canada. "Since housing supply was a challenge in Fort McMurray long before the fires destroyed more than 2,400 buildings in what had been an overpopulated city, and since thousands returned after the fire to find their homes damaged beyond repair, you would expect...