The Housing Bubble Blog

The Chicago Tribune reports from Ilinois. "In the Chicago area the housing market continues to suffer from an overhang of unsold homes and from price discounting, said Bill Gronow, a partner with Kennedy Builders in South Barrington. 'We were overheated and the market isn't bad, but it has returned...

Some housing bubble news from Wall Street and Washington. "Declines in home prices in 20 U.S. metropolitan areas accelerated in the 12 months ended in March as the supply of homes exceeded demand, a private survey showed. Home values dropped 1.4 percent from March 2006, after declining 0.8 percent...

The News Post reports from Maryland. "The average price of a home sold in Frederick County in the first quarter of 2007 fell by $5,800 and spent more time on the market. In April, 196 homes were sold in Frederick County, dropping nearly 27 percent from 268 in April 2006, according to the Greater...

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The North County Times reports from California. "Mortgage fraud is on the rise in California, according to recent reports, and analysts say the cooling housing market is helping to reveal more suspicious mortgage transactions. According to the U.S. Department of Treasury's Financial Crimes...

The Daily Mail reports on Florida. "Hundreds of British investors who pumped their money into Florida's soaring housing market have been caught out in its spectacular collapse. They have been left with property they can't sell, even for less than the original price, because of rising interest rates...

Readers suggested a holiday topic on predictions. "I’d like to see a weekend topic generally doing a critical analysis of predictions of when [insert any generic real estate market prediction here] is going to happen. The real estate people love to predict there will be a big turn around in the 4th...

What do you see in your housing market this holiday weekend? A confession? "Realtors had to temper their sunny market optimism this year. Former NAR head economist David Lereah was often heavily criticized for claiming that the housing bubble did not exist and there was no danger in extending loans...

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The Denver Post reports from Colorado. "During the first quarter, new-home sales were down 39 percent over the same period last year, according to the Genesis Group. 'It's a painful thing for the homebuilding community to have to deal with that kind of loss in sales activity,'said Mike Rinner,...

Readers suggested a topic on the pros and cons of owning a home. "Anybody out there who will never buy a house no matter how cheap it gets? I had a mortgage broker send me a GFE for a loan on a place I was fairly interested in (severely discounted) and when I looked at the list of fees, charges,...

The News Press reports from Florida. "The median price of an existing home sold in Lee County edged up in April, but experts say that’s not the whole story in a market flooded with inexpensive houses. Real estate broker Denny Grimes said the higher median doesn’t translate into a recovering market....

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The California realtors report on April sales. "Home sales decreased 27.8 percent in April in California compared with the same period a year ago, while the median price of an existing home increased 6.2 percent, CAR reported today. 'April sales fell in part because of tighter credit standards and...

Readers suggested a topic on housing bubble prices, "I propose a discussion of a topic the MSM-quoted cheerleaders avoid like the plague: How will the market absorb the huge glut of new homes targeted at the $500K+ price range now that home equity appreciation has gone into reverse?" "Consider who...

The Palm Beach Post reports from Florida. "April's existing-home sales report released Friday dashed all hope that the spring selling season would pull the local real estate market out of its post-boom doldrums. The inventory of unsold homes from Boca Raton to Hobe Sound soared to a stunning...

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It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "Prices in the majority of Sydney suburbs were down compared with three years ago. The inner-west suburb of Homebush West, and Casula in Sydney's south-west were both down 42 per cent compared with early 2004. Liverpool, Monterey, North Parramatta,...

The Union Tribune reports from California. "DataQuick expects to report today that the six-county Southern California region saw defaults rise nearly 159 percent last month to more than 9,200, compared with 3,562 in April 2006, and that foreclosures skyrocketed from 311 to more than 2,800 over the...

Some housing bubble news from Wall Street and Washington. CNN, "The battered real estate market was even weaker than expected in April, as the pace of existing home sales fell to a nearly four-year low, and a glut of homes on the market continued to cut into home values, according to the National...