The Housing Bubble Blog

A trio of reports from outside the US. "Struggling Britons, who are weighed down by loans and credit card debt, are going bust in record numbers. HSBC today revealed that it has been forced to write-off £2 billion in the first half of this year, much of it loaned to British customers." "While the...

Bob Schwartz at Realty Times has this report on San Diego. "Reviewing the recently released real estate sales data for San Diego, the lay person might conclude that the June home appreciation figures were down approximately 1 percent as compared to June 2005. The reality is the decline is probably...

Some housing bubble reports from Wall Street. "Investment-grade homebuilders are well positioned to face the current slowdown in the U.S. housing cycle thanks to more conservative business practices, according to Standard & Poor's. But the outlook is less rosy for speculative-rated homebuilders."...

The St Paul Pioneer Press has the latest on the condo craze. "David Nelson came up with an idea: Why not build a..floating retirement community, that could treat its residents to nautical adventures similar to his own? The St. Paul native has finally translated that dream into the most unusual...

A housing report from Florida Today. "If there was any doubt that Brevard County's housing boom has ended, a new construction report should squash it. Housing construction permitting in Brevard dropped in June to its lowest one-month level in nearly four years." "After two years of sharp increases,...

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Some updates from California. "Sales of existing single-family detached homes dropped 25 percent in the Bay Area from second-quarter 2005 to second-quarter 2006, Prudential California Realty reported, while the inventory of active listings increased 34 percent. Sales of existing single-family...

Some housing bubble reports from Wall Street and Washington. Paul Muolo, "This past week Merrill Lynch declared that housing is in a bear market and that a 'buyer's market' for homes should last for 'years.' Merrill notes that the unsold inventories of homes continues to pile up, and that resale...

A pair of reports from the Arizona Republic. "State and local officials are investigating a months-long work stoppage that has left about 200 unfinished houses in Casa Grande and Maricopa withering in Arizona's summer as home buyers wonder whether they'll ever be able to move in." "As the Valley's...

Some housing bubble reports from New York. "Doctors Patricia Sheiner and Michael Silver loved their dream house in New York's suburban Westchester County. But they're not living the dream anymore. The family put the 7,000-square-foot home up for sale and moved to a smaller house in December to save...

The Sun Sentinel reports housing starts are up in parts of Florida. "Despite all the talk about a dearth of buildable land in South Florida, Broward County recorded an increase in housing starts during the second quarter. Broward had 900 starts, up 54 percent over the second quarter of 2005,...

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The news this Sunday is the price-problem recognition by the media. "Around the country, houses that used to sell in days are now sitting on the market for months. After five years of paradise for sellers, once again it's a buyer's market. The pressure now is on sellers, and especially builders, as...

The Washington Post has this report on tactics for selling in a down market. "If for-sale signs have sprouted like weeds in your neighborhood and the grass is growing up around them, it's no time to panic, say real estate experts. It's time to go back to the basics." "Some sellers also are dangling...

Readers want to talk about adjustable rate mortgages. "ARM is pretty scary stuff. One may say 'oh the interest rate only went up by a few percent!!' (1) Say, you purchased an over-priced but normal $750K house in California with 2.00% APR interest only ARM… (just to be cool, of course, no...

Some housing bubble news from California. The North County Times. "Higher rates have had an great effect on buyers who hold homes as part of their investment portfolio, real estate agents say. Many such investors plan to rent out the houses for a year or two before selling for a profit, and people...

What do you see in your housing market this weekend? Prices reduced? Builder incentives? "K. Hovanians Christmas In July Sale. Save Up To $100,000! Move in tomorrow, next week, next month or by Christmas. View our complete listings throughout Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, West...

The Arizona Republic has this update on Phoenix. "The business of buying and selling houses provokes extreme emotional outbursts. People yell, they lose sleep, they cry, they're stricken with buyer's and seller's remorse. That's especially true these days in metropolitan Phoenix's post-boom housing...

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Several readers suggested the topic of what's been getting built in this boom. "Since there has been an orgy of building along with this bubble, I am curious how people feel about what has been built, how it has been built and where it has been built." "How do people feel about all these cookie...