The Housing Bubble Blog

The Missoulian reports from Montana. "While still booming, the market for houses priced between $250,000 and $400,000 is seeing slightly longer waits, and motivated sellers are adjusting their asking prices downward in response. At least part of that is due to national news reports that markets in...

Some housing bubble news from Wall Street and Washington. CNN Money, "Centex Corp., the fourth-largest U.S. home builder, reported a wider-than-expected fourth-quarter loss Monday as it responded to the U.S. real-estate slowdown by writing off and revaluing land and by exiting the sub-prime lending...

The Tampa Tribune reports from Florida. "Condos For Sale. Developers advertise slashed prices and promise flat-screen TVs and computers. All the hype hasn't worked. The white-hot trend to change apartments into condominiums has long passed, and developers that overestimated the demand have found...

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The Voice of San Diego reports from California. "New downtown condos were gold in 2004. Buyers rushed to deposit thousands of dollars to secure their spot. And so the company building apartments on Little Italy's West Beech Street decided, eight floors in, it'd be better as condos." "The project,...

Some housing bubble news from Wall Street and Washington. "National City Corp., the Ohio bank that sold its subprime mortgage unit to Merrill Lynch & Co. last year, said profit fell 31 percent as it set aside more money to cover bad loans. National City put $107 million into a reserve to cover bad...

Chicago Business reports from Illinois. "Dashing hopes that the housing slump would soon bottom out, new-home sales in the Chicago area fell even faster in the first quarter as the market meltdown spread from the suburbs to the city. Residential developers in the Chicago area sold 5,341 homes in...

The Journal News reports from New York. "In Westchester, the median price for houses was $635,000, down 2.3 percent from a year earlier and the second quarter in a row of year-over-year declines. Real estate agents said buyer resistance to high prices in the county had helped drive them down; last...

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The Orange County Register reports from California. "Former Fountain Valley residents Billy and Betty Lambright moved to this dairy land east of Chino in July, paying $620,000 for a new two-story house. A few months after they moved into their tile-roofed dwelling, the builder dropped the price for...

Readers suggested a topic on the conventional wisdom on home prices. "Weekend Topic suggestion: 'Spinning sound housing bubble remedies to appeal to political activists.'" "The idea is that with presidential media coverage just warming up and campaign platforms being formulated, now might be a good...

The Star Telegram reports from Texas. "Buying a home? Even in some of Tarrant County's most-popular neighborhoods, the ball is in your court these days. After years of steady increases, sales of existing homes in North Texas decreased in the first quarter this year. The same trend is happening in...

The News Press reports from Florida. "Scott Ayers is about to become a landlord, whether he wants to or not. Wryly referring to an 'unintended consequence of the current real estate market,' Ayers has decided to rent his Gateway home after trying to sell it for about six months." "'If you don't...

What do you see in your housing market this weekend? Falling prices? "Ann Smith in Danbury (Connecticut), said sales have been falling since last fall. Home prices have dropped about 10 percent in the region since last fall, she said. Robert Budnik, with Century 21 in Bethel, said houses in the...

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The Mercury News reports from California. "It wasn't until a bank rejected his application for a credit card that Kulwinder Singh checked his credit report and found out he owed $579,000 on a San Jose condominium that he'd never seen. Worse, the condo was facing foreclosure and his credit was in...

In Business Las Vegas reports from Nevada. "In his latest take on the Las Vegas housing market in light of new home sales remaining weak, new home prices dropping and inventory of existing homes increasing, local housing analyst Dennis Smith said he appears to have underestimated what was happening...

The St Petersburg Times reports from Florida. "Ballooning tax bills fueled a storm of citizen unrest that now has state leaders searching for a fix. But the root cause of the tax revolt was a record surge in property values over the past few years." "On both sides of the bay, however, there are...

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It's Friday desk clearing time. "Hawaii Island home sales dropped by 18.4 percent, from 527 sales in last year's first quarter to 430 this year, according to statistics provided by the Hawaii Island Board of Realtors. Condominium sales were down by almost half. Overall, it's a buyer's market, and...