The Housing Bubble Blog

The Massachusetts realtors have some numbers out. "The sales decline of 32.5 percent that took place between December and January is not unusual and generally reflects seasonal changes that occur in the local housing market each winter as cold weather settles in and the holiday season occupies...

The NAR has the existing home sales numbers out. "Total existing-home sales; including single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, declined 2.8 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate1 of 6.56 million units in January from an upwardly revised pace of 6.75 million in December. Sales were...

A recent report from Santa Barbara. "The housing market in Santa Barbara County has gone from hot to lukewarm, and it's likely to stay on the cool side over the next few years, according to state and local economists. 'The boom is over. But the market won't collapse, and we don't expect home prices...

The media reacts to todays housing report. "The pace of new home sales slowed in January, according to a government report Monday that included the latest sign of a growing glut of new homes on the market in some areas. The Commerce Department said Monday that sales of single-family homes decreased...

Reuters reports on Fannie Mae's portfolio. "Fannie Mae, the largest U.S. home funding company, on Monday said that its mortgage portfolio fell by an annualized 3.1 percent in January after expanding 21.4 percent in December. The retained mortgage holdings ended last month at $725.3 billion, as the...

Business Week did an interview with some housing industry professionals. "I caught up with three housing heavyweights, CEO Angelo Mozilo of mortgage lender Countrywide Financial, CEO Bruce Karatz of KB Home, and real estate bear Professor Bob Shiller of Yale University, and asked how worried we...

The Honolulu Advertiser reports on Hawaii's housing bubble. "In January, the median list price of a single-family home was $699,000, according to the Honolulu Board of Realtors. Last year, the high point for single-family list prices came in October, when the median list price was $698,000." "While...

The new home sales numbers are out. "Sales of new homes in the United States fell 5% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.233 million in January, the lowest in a year, the Commerce Department said Monday. The number of new homes on the market increased 2.5% to a record 528,000, representing a...

A mortgage REIT has some news for Wall Street. "ECC Capital Corp., a mortgage finance real estate investment trust, said on Monday it would not pay a first-quarter dividend on its common stock, citing losses in its mortgage banking segment." "'Given current conditions in the whole loan market and...

The Sun Sentinel has an advice piece for home sellers. " If you think you're seeing a lot more 'Open House' signs springing up on street corners these days, you're not mistaken. The open house, which seemed so unnecessary in South Florida just a few months ago, is making a comeback." "There's good...

The Arizona Daily Sun reports on Flagstaffs housing bubble, titled, 'Housing market deluged.' "Drive through the condominiums in Boulder Pointe and you'll find about 10 homes with sales signs. North San Francisco Street also has a handful of for-sale properties in a two block section. And new...

A Baltimore Sun report shows a serious slowdown one market. "Home sales in Carroll County plunged in January, but industry insiders say they expect the market to rebound, possibly as soon as this month. Sales in Carroll County fell last month more than 38 percent below the level of January 2005,...

One reader suggested a thread about incomes and home prices. "Let’s discuss the latest report showing median incomes declined: 'Income growth was held back in from 2001 to 2004, largely because of a 6.2 percent fall in median wages, the largest source of family income, the report said.'" "While...

The Arizona Republic has the 'bad news' for homowners. "On Tuesday, Maricopa County residents will start getting the news: Your homes are worth a lot more, and you're likely to be paying more in property taxes. More than 1.3 million notices of property values will begin hitting Maricopa County...

Some readers got a jump start on the market observations in the topics thread. "I’d like to see pictures of the most outrageous property for sale. I mentioned two the other day that were hilarious. I’ve since gone by to look at these dumps and they were the size of my living room selling for 1.3mm...

One reader has news on the appraisal aspect of the housing bubble. "Is everyone aware that they changed the new Fannie Mae forms to place more liability with appraisers shifting away from lenders. It’s an old tatic of blaming rouge individuals instead of the system. As a long time appraiser in the...

Bloomberg reports on the new Fed chiefs approach to the housing bubble. "Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, like his predecessor Alan Greenspan, doesn't plan to get in the way of surging home or stock prices. Bernanke, staking out a key policy in his first month on the job, said yesterday at...

One reader points out the difficulty of tracking housing statistics. "Although the problem of sellers’ denial is likely to prolong the agony, it does provide an opportunity to get around some of the difficulties in interpreting median price data. For example, when we see median prices decline, we...

The Miami Herald reports on one mans search for the American dream. "In the past five years, the housing crunch in South Florida has moved up the economic ladder from the low-income to the middle-class, pricing a whole new layer of workers, thousands of Quintin Taylors, out of the market. A family...

The Record.net reports on the housing market in California. "Building permits for single-family homes in San Joaquin County were down even more sharply in January year-to-year than in December, a reflection of a slowdown that has some homebuilders cutting prices and offering incentives in the past...