The Housing Bubble Blog

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Dataquick reports from California. "Home sales in Southern California plunged to the lowest level in more than two decades, as financing with 'jumbo' mortgages dropped by half. The median price paid for a home dropped sharply as a result. A total of 12,455 new and resale houses and condos sold in...

A report from the Arizona Republic. "The 3,050 recorded sales in September 2007 heralds in the local resale housing market's traditional period of doldrums. The activity of September followed August 2007 at 4,240 sales and was below last year's 4,875 transactions. The month of September brought the...

Some housing bubble news from Wall Street and Washington. Bloomberg, "D.R. Horton Inc., the second-largest U.S. homebuilder, said orders in the fiscal fourth quarter plunged to the lowest in almost six years as customers canceled and banks restricted lending. Buyers agreed to purchase 6,374 homes...

The Baltimore Sun reports from Maryland. "The Station North townhouses rise four stories and boast granite kitchens, open floor plans and the floor-to-ceiling windows that new-home buyers have come to expect. But the courtyard is deserted. In about half of the 32 homes, the oversized front windows...

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The Record Searchlight reports from California. "Here's another sign of a stagnant real estate market: Some developers in town are taking their homes off the market and turning them into rentals. Two weeks ago, East Oak Estates in south Redding announced this would be the last weekend some of its...

The Detroit News reports from Michigan. "Michigan's largest lender Quicken Loans Inc. is retrenching, including freezing hiring in the state, as it sets a new course in the turbulent mortgage industry. The Livonia-based mortgage giant is lowering goals for its loan writers, ending mortgages that...

Some housing bubble news from Wall Street and Washington. The New York Times, "Three of the nation’s largest banks, working together at the behest of the Treasury Department, announced this morning that they were creating a large fund to serve as a buyer of bonds and other debt at a time when many...

The News Press reports from Florida. "WCI Communities Inc. is the latest developer to be targeted by homebuyers trying to get out of deals now that prices have fallen drastically. A federal class action lawsuit filed recently claims there's a fatal flaw in the contracts used by the Bonita...

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The San Francisco Chronicle reports from California. "The dead lawns and for-sale signs are stark evidence of the Bay Area's foreclosure crisis, and Antioch's Meadow Creek Estates is at the epicenter of it. With 271 homes, or more than 2 percent of all residences, already foreclosed upon in the...

The Daily News reports from Texas. "Karen Smith and husband Gerald Cleveland had no ambitions to become landlords. But their custom-built West End home has been on the market for more than a year. Even a $100,000 price cut didn’t budge it. And the longer it sat, the warmer they got to the idea of...

The Providence Journal reports from Rhode Island. "The new property owners in some neighborhoods here mark their turf with padlocks, plywood and messages such as the one scrawled on a front door in Olneyville: 'Copper Gone. Vacant houses have always been easy prey for vandals, no less so when the...

What do you see in your housing market this weekend? An auction? "Laguna Oaks Condo development is the latest to take the auction route. On November 4th, 50 units will go to the highest bidder in the space of two hours. The two bedroom units will open at $145,000, the three bedrooms open at...

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The LA Times reports from California. "Are you a homeowner who is having trouble selling your house? National housing experts say you can heap some of the blame on those big builders with their much-ballyhooed sales and the banks that have put too many foreclosed homes on the market." "Delores...

A report from the Arizona Republic. "A Chandler man slashed his price by $60,000 to sell his home so he and his wife could move to Ahwatukee. An east Mesa women accepted about $25,000 less than her original asking price even after installing carpet, remodeling a bathroom, upgrading the swimming...

The Sun Sentinel reports from Florida. "The future of historic home builder Levitt and Sons is in doubt as the crumbling housing market drains the company of cash. Fort Lauderdale-based Levitt Corp., the company's parent, said Friday it plans to take pretax charges of $160 to $170 million as a...

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