The Housing Bubble Blog

A mortgage REIT has earnings results out. "Mortgage lender Aames Investment Corp. on Monday said its losses narrowed in the fourth quarter. The company said it raised rates on production during the quarter, a trend that is continuing into the first quarter." "Cutting costs in reaction to a tough...

The Wall Street Journal reports the 'new rules of real estate.' "As the spring selling season moves into high gear, the cooling housing market is upending the conventional wisdom that guided buyers and sellers during the housing boom. Some brokers are advising sellers to price their homes in the...

A pair of reports provide an update on the housing bubble in Arizona. "New home permits in February dropped more than 20 percent from the same time last year, perhaps a signal that the Valley's incessant new home price increases will end. The 3,729 permits issued last month marked the lowest total...

A Las Vegas developer talks about condos. "John Restrepo sat down with In Business Las Vegas to discuss the state of the Las Vegas..real estate market. 'I think we are going to a period of a more realistic view of our high-rise condo market here. We've had a period of irrational exuberance on the...

A pair of reports on the mortgage industry. "A crackdown by regulators of the Federal Home Loan Banks threatens to shrink a subsidy long enjoyed by thousands of lenders, including giants such as Washington Mutual Inc. and Citigroup Inc. The Federal Housing Finance Board proposed rules this month...

A housing bubble report on Orlando, Florida. "Competition has thickened in Central Florida's residential real estate market during the last year. Existing and new home inventories have grown exponentially, forcing properties to remain on the market longer and sellers to do more to get their homes...

Danielle DiMartino has this at the Dallas News. "The mortgage market remains a mystery to virtually every American. For starters, the sheer size is inconceivable; it's hard to get your mind around a fast-growing $8.7 trillion market. Even saying it's more than twice the size of the U.S. Treasury...

The Enterprise has this report on a housing market in Massachusetts. "Across the region, real estate agents and assessors say home prices have been on a downward trend for several months. And the 'for sale' signs are staying up a lot longer. And nowhere is that more apparent than in Brockton."...

The Washington Post has this report on the DC area. "As 'for sale' signs sprout at the start of the high season for home-buying, properties are staying on the market longer, and prices have leveled off across the region. The pullback has been most marked in areas of red-hot growth such as Loudoun...

One reader is interested in Fed policy. "Ok; the housing market is rolling over. I’d like to hear from the minds on this blog if it will continue to do so, and why, if Ben Bernanke stops raising interest rates soon?" "What if he starts cutting rates towards the end of this year like some are...

This San Francisco Chronicle report shows why the housing bubble is spreading. "For nearly 2 1/2 hours one night recently in Mill Valley, a capacity crowd of 300 people looking for the next hot real estate deal listened raptly as an insider revealed the best cities to buy bargain houses. None was...

What's going on in your housing market this weekend? Open houses? Price reductions? Here are a few observations from the press: "Many Tampa Bay area real estate agents and builders say local new home sales began slowing this fall, and some think it's because the investors who helped launch the...

One reader suggests that housing prices have hit an all-time high. "Here’s a topic for debate: IMHO, residential real estate may never again reach the same price heights, adjusted for inflation, as during this bubble. [Nominally speaking, of course they will; future inflation is a lock.]" "Why?...

Florida is struggling with it's housing market. "Florida lawmakers, desperately seeking a fix to the state's troubled homeowners insurance market, could force the wealthy to pay more for coverage by kicking thousands of them out of Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the high-risk insurer of last...

The Deseret News reports on the housing bubble in Utah. "Land speculators, a wave of retiring baby boomers and second-home buyers are fueling the biggest real estate rush in the Washington County's history. 'In absolute terms there has been no period like the past three years in Washington County...

Another look at the California housing bubble, first in Santa Barbara. "Home prices cooled throughout Santa Barbara County in February. For the first two months so far this year, appreciation in all areas of the county has dropped to single digits or even gone negative." "On the South Coast, one of...

A pair of reports provide an update on the Arizona housing bubble. "National new-home sales took their worst drop in nearly a decade in February, and early indications are that it also wasn't a good month for builders in metropolitan Phoenix. February numbers for metro Phoenix's new-home market...

Some readers want to discuss lesser known bubble areas of the US. "I am interested in a thread on 'non-bubble' areas, like North Carolina, Georgia, the midwest, etc. We all know that California, New York, Boston, Florida and DC are in for a world of hurt, but what about the non-bubble areas?"...

One reader has posted a topic idea patiently for several weeks that has a little edge to it. Let's make it more a question of 'fitting' a just deserve to possible personal responsibility for the housing bubble. "My favorite topic is 'What is the most fitting form of punishment for David Lereah?'"...

The Washington Post has this viewpoint of the housing bubble. "The real estate market has become an obsession for a lot of people in this region, and James Cave is one of them. He has spent the past eight years saving for a down payment. Cave navigates smoothly through the congested streets of...