The Housing Bubble Blog

It's Friday desk clearing time. "'There's a lot of inventory out there. There are some properties that have been sitting,' said Gus Tsamouras, a Realtor in the Baltimore area. Tsamouras said the market has now shifted from a seller's dream into a market where the buyers now have the power. 'Prices...

The San Francisco Chronicle reports from California. "As of September 2006, Novato had experienced substantial price declines and plummeting sales volumes. But since it currently only has about two months of inventory, perhaps prices will stabilize." "The stabilizing influence of limited inventory...

The Denver Post reports from Colorado. "Farm fields around the metro area are selling more slowly these days as national builders scramble to sell new homes they've already built, buyers and sellers involved in the transactions say." "For example, Brighton-area developer Craig Carlson said he...

Bloomberg reports on home loans. "Defaults on adjustable-rate mortgages made this year to the riskiest borrowers and packaged into bonds surged 25% in October to the highest level for new loans in five years, Friedman Billings Ramsey Group Inc. said." "Defaults on this year's sub-prime loans in the...

The South Coast Today reports from Massachusetts. "The shakeout continues in the housing market in SouthCoast and throughout Massachusetts, as many owners, mortgaged to the hilt, face foreclosure at a rate double that of a year ago, which was in some communities double the year before that." "'I...

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The New York Observer. "In 2005, Wall Street investment houses handed out a record $21.5 billion in year-end bonuses, according to the State Comptroller. This year may be even bigger. A very healthy bonus season means a very healthy Manhattan home-sales season in the spring, right?" "Not really....

The Contra Costa Times reports from California. "As the housing market slows down, many areas in the East Bay are showing a growing inventory of homes sitting on the market. Antioch's inventory would take more than a year to catch up, while Rossmoor has close to 10 months of sales sitting on the...

The Rocky Mountain News reports from Colorado. "Doug Milliken, the newly elected Arapahoe County treasurer who ran on a platform that promised to help families avoid foreclosure, is in the process of losing his house. Milliken's Centennial home in the Parkview Meadows subdivision is scheduled to go...

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The Statesman Journal reports from Oregon. "Real-estate agents, such as Bob Riggi, spend their days working with buyers and sellers concerned about the recent cool-down in the housing market. Question: Has Salem experienced any consequences from the cooling of the national housing market?" "A: I...

A housing report from the Kansas City Star. "The metropolitan housing market was down again in October compared with last year’s booming pace but still did better than the nation as a whole. The number of single-family unit permits issued last month was 666, down 39.7 percent from October 2005,...

The Arizona Republic. "For sale at public auction: Two parcels of prime real estate next to Chandler Fashion Center. Amenities include a partly built tower called Elevation Chandler. The mortgage holder is foreclosing on the stalled high-rise condo-hotel project, according to documents filed with...

The Naples News reports from Florida. "The deadline for closing on properties purchased in an Oct. 21 auction has been moved back to Dec. 6. Auction operator Paul Drake said he wasn’t aware that one of the properties for which he’d announced a high-bid price is now in foreclosure." "In legal ads...

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The San Francisco Chronicle reports from California. "It may take the California housing market three years to recover from its downturn because homes have simply gotten too expensive for most buyers, whose salaries haven't risen nearly as fast as housing prices, economist Ken Rosen, at UC Berkeley...

The Review Journal from Las Vegas. "Earlier this month, the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors reported 1,689 single-family home sales in October, down 34.4 percent from the same month a year ago. It was the 10th straight month of double-digit, year-over-year sales declines." "'It's an...

The Journal Online reports from Wisconsin. "The secret to Wisconsin's soft landing from the 2000 to 2005 U.S. housing boom? Caution, said Marquette University economist David Clark, whose company has a contract to analyze Realtor data. 'California, Washington, D.C., Virginia and Florida, where they...

The MetroWest Daily News reports from Massachusetts. "For Realtors, it was the slowest, or, at least, ,more relaxed,' summer in a decade. Single-family home sales plunged 23.4 percent during the July-to-September quarter, further shifting the market to the buyer's side as prices continued to...