The Housing Bubble Blog

It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "Almost one-third of households, 32%, owed money for missed rent or mortgage payments from previous months at the beginning of August, according to Apartment List. It is best to give your landlord at least a partial payment if you can. 'Remember that...

A report from Habitat. "The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) implemented measures in March to ensure that millions of homeowners weren’t put out on the street in the middle of a pandemic. Protections include a moratorium on foreclosures for anyone with a mortgage backed by the federal...

A report from Arlington Now in Virginia. "What a difference a few months can make. We’ve certainly seen the COVID-19 pandemic make its mark on the Just Reduced column. At the beginning of the year we were seeing only a handful (seven or eight homes) reduced in price on a weekly basis. Now, very...

Two reports from the Wall Street Journal. "Brookfield Property Partners is canceling plans to redevelop a former Vermont mall as an office and residential development, a sign that the slumping economy could be upending the firm’s strategy of buying and repurposing faltering malls. The giant...

A report from 4WWL in Louisiana. "Many operators of short-term rentals in New Orleans are seeing a dramatic drop in bookings during the pandemic. 'So that’s become a real problem especially for the host that purchased properties as a function for paying for their mortgage. If they purchased a...

A report from the Globe and Mail in Canada. "In June, the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board reported that the average price in the Greater Toronto Area sailed to a record high of $930,869. Real estate broker Farrell Macdonald says some properties that sold three years ago are selling for less...

A report from Geekwire. "'We’re running naked through the jungle with a Bowie knife clenched between our teeth, which is the way Redfin was born to be,' CEO Glenn Kelman told analysts. 'We’re omnivorous. We’re going to try to take share on the big markets and in the small markets. We’re hiring...

A weekend topic starting with the Oregonian. "Despite stay-at-home orders, the coronavirus pandemic, high unemployment and an unsure global economy, people are buying homes in Oregon. 'People are willing to overpay for what they want because of lending rates,' says Israel Hill, the office leader of...

A report from Commercial Property Executive. "The expectation among many in the commercial real estate field is that commercial mortgage lenders are actively looking to make new loans, or refinance existing loans, at very low rates to match. This is just not the case. The spread between U.S....

A report from CNBC. "A surge in rental property evictions could have a domino effect on the broader housing market and economy, Tendayi Kapfidze, chief economist at LendingTree, told CNBC. 'This really could be catastrophic, and it extends beyond just the rental industry,' and could 'affect the...

It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "'It was becoming clear the economic boom of the past 10 years was not sustainable, and that the 2020 assessment roll would reflect the apex of 10 consecutive years of economic prosperity,' said Santa Clara County Assessor Larry Stone. 'I had hoped...

A report from ABC 7 in California. "Walking through San Francisco's South of Market and Financial District feels like a ghost town. 90-percent of the city's workforce is working from home and people are leaving the city. One pocket hit the hardest? South Beach. According to an ABC7 data analysis of...

A report from the Globe and Mail in Canada. "New condo sales in the second quarter in the Toronto region fell to their lowest level since the Great Recession. Condo weakness is also playing out in the resale market. For investors, who make up nearly 40 per cent of condo owners in the Toronto...

A report from Bloomberg. "The commercial property market has largely been frozen as buyers and sellers struggle to agree on what buildings are worth. Transactions for apartments plunged 70% in the second quarter compared with a year earlier, according to Real Capital Analytics. Commercial real...

A report from the Denver Post in Colorado. "It is unlikely that Denver Metro will experience a bursting housing bubble this year. The steady stream of demand from homebuyers should keep home prices within a healthy range. It is also important to consider that this lack of inventory will not plague...

A report from Now Toronto in Canada. "Toronto’s priciest real estate had the steepest declines. The Rosedale and Moore Park area plunged 15.2 per cent from $3,687,292 to $3,127,643. The Bridle Path and Windfields area were not far behind. The average home price dropped 9.5 per cent from $3,697,343...

A report from Market Watch. "For the past several months, wealthy buyers in search of safety and personal space have flocked to vacation and single-family home markets across the country, leaving some new condo developments out in the cold. But rather than offering overt discounts, many developers...

A report from the Philadelphia Inquirer in Pennsylvania. "Economic uncertainty during the pandemic has led banks to tighten their lending standards. The supply of mortgage credit has fallen by more than 30% from February to June, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s measure of how easy...

A weekend topic starting with Senior Housing News. "Senior housing capital markets remain unstable. Titan SenQuest Management CEO Kevin Kaseff believes that, while the pandemic hastened a bear market, this is actually the beginning of a market correction. 'This [looks like] a classic cycle....

It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "Hedge funds and mutual funds are among bond holders that could lose $2 billion as a consequence of U.S. lawmakers letting millions of homeowners delay their mortgage payments. At stake are so-called credit-risk-transfer securities. The securities,...