The Housing Bubble Blog

Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.

A Lot Of Investment Money Looking For A Home

A report from the Los Angeles Times, "PennyMac, AmeriHome Mortgage and Stearns Lending have several things in common. All are among the nation's largest mortgage lenders — and none of them is a bank. They're part of a growing class of alternative lenders that now extend more than 4 in 10 home...
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The Apogee Of The Market

A weekend topic on a housing bubble phenomenon coming to an end. The South China Morning Post. "The case of Xun Wang, a Vancouver-area consultant jailed for masterminding the biggest immigration fraud in Canadian history, is startling in scope. Wang, 46, who was sentenced on October 23 to seven...
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Stuck In A Situation Of Their Own Making

It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "Developer Claudio Guincher is the head of Bellevue-based Continental Properties, which has been developing condos and apartments in the Puget Sound region for decades. Currently, the company is developing a 117-unit condo project, the Vik, in...
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A Merry Christmas Made Possible By Federal Officials

A holiday theme, with a re-post of this article for context to the second: National Real Estate Investor, "Lenders will keep pouring money into apartment properties over the next two years, originating about the same volume of loans in 2016 and 2017—with slight increases—that they are likely to...
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Some Figure Prices May Be Nearing Their Peak

A report from Bisnow. "The other real estate sectors may have picked up this year in North Texas, but, make no mistake, multifamily was still the darling of commercial real estate for 2015. Many deals are seeing several types of buyers competing for the same assets, and private investors and...
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Entering The Ponzi Stage

A report from Business Insider. "Quietly, over the last three months, Sotheby's auction house has seen its stock lose one-quarter of its value. This is, in large part, due to its high-end clients. Something is about to happen to them. The polite way to say it is that — as Sotheby's CEO Tad Smith...
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Once The Market Starts To Soften: 'Get Out Of Dodge"

The Real Deal reports on New York. "Forget about aspirational pricing. Sellers serious about offloading their luxury apartments will need to slash prices to find buyers who have plenty of new development alternatives to choose from, top brokers said. After a slow start to the typically busy fall,...
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Luxury Apartments … Going Up In The Hood

A weekend topic on rents, affordability and the housing bubble. WWLTV in Louisiana. "Uptown remains one of the most expensive places to live in New Orleans. Realtor Greg Jeanfreau said the current growth and demand for housing in New Orleans is unprecedented. It has its plus and minuses. 'You have...
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It's Investors Who Are In The Headlights

It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "Is Fed chair Janet Yellen a sorceress who needs to conjure up a new spell? One online retail executive seems to think so. Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock, said in the company's earnings release Monday that the United States economy has been...
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