The Housing Bubble Blog

A report from SBS Comedy in Australia. "The New South Wales Government has announced that it is supporting Australians celebrating Christmas by turning the entire city into an enormous nativity scene by making it virtually impossible for any young couple to secure housing or accommodation. 'This is...

A report from the Sun Sentinel in Florida. "In May, Max Martin, an agent for the Keyes Co. in Fort Lauderdale, picked up a $1.25 million listing for a two-bedroom condominium with a direct oceanfront view at L'Hermitage in Fort Lauderdale. The owner recently authorized a fifth price cut in seven...

It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "Palm Beach County home prices softened in November, reflecting a shift away from the strong seller’s market of recent years. The median price of houses sold last month was just $300,000, the lowest point since March, the Realtors Association of the...

A report from CBS DFW in Texas. "Prices are rising seemingly as fast as the demand for newly built homes in Frisco. Ted Wilson’s company Residential Strategies, Inc. tracks the housing market in North Texas. Wilson said the median price of a new home in Frisco has now topped $500,000 for the first...

A report from MarketWatch. "Fresh data may confirm that the recent heyday for apartment construction is over. Fewer newly-constructed apartments are being rented out, according to figures released early in December by the Commerce Department. The 'absorption rate' — whether an apartment has been...

A report from Business in Vancouver on Canada. "The foreign buyer in B.C. was largely an unknown entity for most of 2016. Not many people were clear on where he was from, where he was headed, what he was after or what his end game was. One thing was clear, however: he had a lot of money and was not...

A report from Community Impact in Texas. "Austin Board of Realtors market data for single-family homes in Southwest Austin over the past five years indicates that inventory is increasing slightly in some areas and dramatically in others. ZIP codes where homes fall into a higher price range, such as...

A report from The Real Deal on New York. "Extell Development’s One57 has taken another hit. A 6,240-square-foot sponsor unit at the luxe condominium tower sold for $45.8 million, or roughly $7,343 per square foot, according to property records filed with the city Monday. That’s $12.7 million below...

A report from the Vietnam Bridge. "According to Dang Hung Vo, former Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment, a real estate bubble may be seen next year. Vo said that a property bubble usually happens when all financial sources are focussed solely on the real estate market, which...

A report from the Dorchester Reporter in Massachusetts. "The owner and developer of a 27-unit condominium building nearing completion on River Street near Mattapan Square last week asked for the community’s blessing to change it from condominiums to rental apartments, citing financial pressures and...

A piece by Murray Dobbin in Rabble. "In these days of economic stagnation, misery and insecurity, housing bubbles and the growing precariate, it seems appropriate to speculate on what Shakespeare might have written today were he penning a modern rewrite of Henry VI. In declaring, 'first let's kill...

A report from the Des Moines Register. "Iowa's average farmland value declined for the third year in a row, down 5.9 percent to $7,183 an acre over the past year. It's the first time since the 1980s farm crisis that land values have fallen three straight years, according to an Iowa State University...

A report from the Naples Daily News in Florida. "In November the Naples area saw a year-over-year drop in the median price paid for home resales — the first time that's happened all year. In November the median price for single-family homes fell 7 percent to $397,000, down from $426,000 a year ago....

It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "The price cuts at Extell’s One57 just keep coming. Last week, $2 million was lopped off the asking price of apartment 65A. It’s now on the market for $25.9 million, $3.3 million less than what the seller paid in 2014. It’s far cry from 2014, when a...

A report from Better Dwelling in Canada. "The Vancouver real estate party for speculators might be officially be over. The latest report from the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) showed prices dropping from peak, as well as declining sales and absorption from last year. West Vancouver...

Some housing bubble news from Wall Street and Washington. David I. Kranzler, "The yield on the 10-yr Treasury has blown out 109 basis points since July 3rd – 70 basis points since October 30th. 30yr fixed rate mortgage rates for 20% down payment buyers with a credit score of at least 720 are up 90...

A report from the Wall Street Journal. "With rent growth flattening out and home prices continuing to shoot up, renting is starting to look like a better choice than buying for the first time in years. Home-price appreciation is outpacing rent growth in all 23 of the metropolitan areas tracked by a...

A report from the Australian. "The direction of interest rates next year is in question, as house prices grow at the slowest rate in more than three years and business conditions remain uncertain. During the past year, Darwin property values slumped by 7.2 per cent while Perth fell by 4 per cent...

A report from Bloomberg. "Real estate developers who can’t get funding from JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s commercial bank may have another option: a JPMorgan trading desk. A group of traders in JPMorgan’s investment bank has expanded from selling commercial mortgage-backed securities to underwriting loans...

A report from Bloomberg on the UK. "London’s housing market is in a state of flux, as a combination of Brexit and increased stamp duty lead to forecasts that values will drop. In many parts of the capital, though, those falls are already happening. Stratheden, The Bishops Avenue, N2: The vendor of...