The Housing Bubble Blog

What do you see in your housing market this weekend? Auctions? Related graphs? Builder incentives? A slowing market? "Year-end figures show the number of single-family homes sold in Southampton Town dropped about 25 percent. At least one insider, Judi Desiderio of Town & Country Real Estate in East...

The Times Dispatch reports from Virginia. "Gordon and Martha Mabey don't know their neighbors. But they don't have many any way. The Mabeys bought into the newly renovated Nolde Bakery Condominiums at Church Hill last fall. Now, some of the unsold units are for lease. 'It's better than cutting the...

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The San Fernando Valley Business Journal reports from California. "Last year at this time, Millennium Pacific Icon Group was selling units at its condominium conversion project in Winnetka at the rate of about 10 a month. These days the company is averaging two to three sales a month." "'Just in...

Readers suggested a topic surrounding the idea of a "tipping point." "The last couple of weeks in the world of real estate have sure been interesting. We have all read about new sub-prime lender problems, tightening credit standards, doubts about adequate compensation for lending risk, increased...

The St Petersburg Times reports from Florida. "Sales consultant Mike Morrell of David Weekley Homes was baking cookies last Saturday in the kitchen of a three-bedroom, 3,200-square-foot, $410,000 model home that was on display at the new Southern Hills Plantation, south of downtown on U.S. 41. The...

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It's desk clearing time for this blogger. "With fewer people relocating to Virginia and a large inventory of new and existing homes, builders are halting groundbreaking on new projects in Prince William County. According to the NVAR, there was a 3.99 percent decrease in average selling price for...

The Sacramento Bee reports from California. "How does the capital region's housing market look so far this year? Not unlike last year, but with a bit more hope that the free-fall in prices and sales may be ending. The new year opened last month with the fewest escrow closings for a January since...

Some housing bubble news from Wall Street and Washington. "U.S. home builders started the fewest homes in nearly a decade last month, as housing starts plunged 14.3% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.408 million, the Commerce Department reported Friday. Starts were down 37.8% compared with...

The Sun Herald reports from Florida. "Sales of existing homes dropped 28 percent statewide during the 2006 fourth quarter compared to 2005, according to figures released Thursday by the Florida Association of Realtors. The Punta Gorda area reported a 10 percent drop in median prices, a healthy step...

The Boston Herald reports fron Massachusetts. "Just trying to sell a deluxe downtown condo is no picnic in this market. Yet a few developers in Dorchester and Roxbury are finding buyers willing to shell out big numbers as if it were the summer of 2005 all over again. But hold the champagne." "Many...

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Also, send in your housing bubble pics to: hbbphotos@gmail.com

The Orange County Register reports from California. "For the first time in a decade, the median price of an Orange County home failed to post a gain from the year before, falling to $600,000 in January, DataQuick reported. It also was the sixth month-to-month price drop since the median hit a...

Some housing bubble news from Wall Street. "Major financial firms like Merrill Lynch, which bought large amounts of high-risk, high-return mortgage loans in 2005 and 2006, are now trying to force the firms that originated those loans to buy them back, The Wall Street Journal Online reported. The...

The Herald Tribune reports from Florida. "Hundreds turned out to a Long Island Marriott Hotel to hear one of several presentations that led many northeastern investors into perhaps the biggest financial catastrophe of their lives. As the historic 2003-05 Florida real estate boom peaked, Seashore...

The Wall Street Journal reports on New York. "Five-Fifteen Park Avenue has everything one could want in a Manhattan home. But on most days, the limestone and beige-brick tower at the elegant Upper East Side address lacks one thing: many of its residents. More than half of the building's 35 units...

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The Union Tribune reports from California. "San Diego County housing prices slipped last month to their lowest levels since mid-2004, DataQuick Information reported Wednesday. The median home price was $472,000, down 5.6 percent from January 2006's $500,000, and the lowest since the $470,000 median...