The Housing Bubble Blog

The Herald Tribune has this update from Florida. "For months, real estate pundits have been talking about..an erosion of pricing. In May, in Southwest Florida, it happened. Prices in the Charlotte County-North Port market dropped 2 percent when compared with the same month in 2005. It might be the...

The Patriot Ledger reports they are still talking about a shortage in Massachusetts. "Where have all the buyers gone? A single-family home on the market now takes an average of 121 days to sell, compared with 96 days a year ago. Condo sales are almost as sluggish. Those trends have led to a record...

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The California press reacts to the May numbers. The Daily News, "California's residential real estate market continued its decline in May with the median housing price making its first single digit increase in more than six years and a trade association on Monday issuing a big downward revision in...

Some highlights from a recent speech by Emil W. Henry Jr., Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions, U.S. Department of the Treasury. "Imagine for just a moment if some of our most prominent complex financial institutions announced major accounting improprieties, significant restatements and...

Bloomberg has this report on the 'housing decline. "Ko Ueno hasn't found a buyer for his one- bedroom condominium in Cambridge, Massachusetts, even after cutting the price three times since October and offering a $6,000 cash rebate. Ueno, whose apartment near Harvard University went on the market...

Some quotes from the Reuters housing summit. "A potential housing bubble and rising inflation are the two biggest threats to the U.S. economy, the head of General Electric Co.'s vast real estate operations said on Tuesday. Excessive interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve also pose a danger to...

The Florida Press reacts to the May numbers. "Local sales of existing single-family homes and condominiums in May continued their double-digit downward spiral for the fifth straight month, the Florida Association of Realtors said Tuesday. " "'When prices have been artificially increased by...

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Some housing bubble reports from Arizona. "Metropolitan Phoenix's new-home market has slowed drastically from last year's record pace. People who signed contracts to buy homes are canceling deals as they discover they can't sell their existing home for what they had hoped." From the East Valley...

The Massachusetts realtors have the May numbers out. "Sales of detached single-family homes fell for a second consecutive month in May from the same month a year earlier, declining a modest 2.9 percent to 4,055 homes sold in May 2006. Sales have decreased for seven of the last eight months compared...

The California realtors have the May numbers out. "The median price of an existing home in California increased 8 percent in May and sales decreased 21.1 percent compared with the same period a year ago, CAR reported today. 'The median price of a home continued to increase in May, but at a more...

The Florida realtors have the May numbers out. "With mortgage rates still ticking upwards, Florida's housing sector in May continued to adjust to changing market conditions, including a greater inventory of homes available for sale in many areas. A total of 18,680 existing single-family homes sold...

The realtors association has the May numbers out. "Sales of existing homes experienced a minor decline in May with home prices rising near normal rates, according to the National Association of Realtors. Total existing-home sales eased 1.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate1 of 6.67...

The Philadelphia Inquirer has this update. "Observers of the Shore market say, as higher interest rates are beginning to dampen sales, and condo construction, mostly involving investors, adds to a growing surplus of properties. 'Whenever interest rates rise, the second-home market is the first one...

The Oregonian has this update from that state. "Last year's frenzied housing market has noticeably calmed this year, even if home prices don't yet show it, many of the area's top real estate agents say. 'Last year, we were managing traffic; now we're trying to create the traffic,' said Kathy Hall,...

A pair of reports on smaller housing markets, starting with the Tahoe Daily Tribune. "Deemed a market 'correction' of sorts, the South Tahoe Association of Realtors reported 495 single family listings on the market with 59 in escrow. That's up from the average inventory of 300-plus homes." "Two...

Many eyes are on the Fed meeting this week. "The pause in the campaign to normalize short-term rates that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke suggested in April is now a fond memory. One by one Fed officials have picked up the inflation-fighting gauntlet, reinforcing the bond market's distaste for dovish...

Some reports on Massachusetts. " Sales of Massachusetts single-family homes and condominiums fell again in May compared to the prior-year period, according to a report released today by The Warren Group of Boston." "Single-family home sales fell 5.1 percent, with 5,208 units moving during May 2006...

The new home sales numbers are out. "Sales of new one-family houses in May 2006 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,234,000, according to estimates. This is 5.9 percent below the May 2005 estimate of 1,311,000. The median sales price of new houses sold in May 2006 was $235,300. The...