The Housing Bubble Blog

A report from the Business Observer Florida. "Commercial real estate professionals surveyed by PwC believe 2020 will be as robust as the previous year or few years, according to an annual litmus test of the industry. 'What we’re not doing is re-inflating a bubble,' says PwC Partner Mitch Roschelle...

A report from CTV Vancouver in Canada. "There are dire warnings that the condo real estate market in B.C. could collapse unless the province steps in to stop it. A representative of a condo owners' association says recent changes to insurance rates mean that not only are buildings having to pay...

A weekend topic starting with two reports from the Wall Street Journal. "Builders are expected to complete some 371,000 new apartments in 2020, compared to 247,000 in 2019 and 119,000 in 2010, according to RealPage. The problem is that many of the new apartments will be too expensive for lower- and...

It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "If selling apartments at one of Manhattan’s most troubled residential condominiums wasn’t hard enough, now its owners can’t even afford to rent a sales gallery to sell them. The sponsors of the under-construction 125 Greenwich Street tower in Lower...

A report from The Real Deal. "For New York’s condo market, recent developments in China may simply confirm what has been common knowledge for some time — the once-booming market for mainland Chinese buyers has long died down, amid tight capital controls and trade tensions. Asked if coronavirus had...

A report from the South China Morning Post. "China's residential property market has come to a standstill as sales offices are ordered to shut amid the coronavirus outbreak. Some agents are bracing for a slump in sales of as much as 80 per cent this month. 'We sell 200 to 300 lived-in homes on the...

A report from the Wall Street Journal. "Chinese investors sold off billions more in U.S. commercial property last year than they bought, as other foreigners start to sour on the U.S. market as well. Foreign investors were net sellers of U.S. commercial real estate last year for the first time since...

A report from the Wall Street Journal on New York. "Despite a weak outlook for residential real estate, the number of building permits issued in New York City for new homes surged last year to the highest pace since 2015. It was the second-highest total since the end of the last big building boom...

A report from the Bakersfield Californian. "A partially built housing development off Highway 178 has become the focus of a police inquiry after contractors working on the project went unpaid and one of the development partners sued another alleging misappropriation of millions of dollars....

A weekend topic starting with Sheila Bair, the former Chair of the FDIC. "It’s been said of academia that the fights are so vicious because the stakes are so small. The same could be said of fights over bank regulation. Take the current heated debate over banks’ obligations to lend to low and...

It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "'Brace yourself!' warned Judi Desiderio, the C.E.O. of Town and Country Real Estate, as a lead-in to her analysis, which showed a 44-percent decrease in overall home sales during the quarter. 'In my three decades of reporting on Hamptons real estate...

A report from the South China Morning Post. "Mainland Chinese mall landlords have moved to relieve the pressure on stores and restaurants brought on by the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, by cutting rents and offering zero-rent periods. 'The developers are answering the summons of the government. [The...

A report from Malibu Magazine in California. "Tom Clements, a Sotheby’s agent with 35 years of experience in sales and investments. 'The 2019 statistics have been daunting. The number of sales from the first 6 months of 2019 were down 50% from 2018! The dollar sales volume through November of this...

A report from Senior Housing News. "Pam Kessler joined LTC Properties and has not looked back, becoming CFO in 2007. The last few years have once again brought industry dislocation in the form of oversupply and new payment models, she said during a recent interview for Senior Housing News. Q: Have...

A report from the Wall Street Journal. "Housing markets across the world, from the U.K. to China to Australia, are losing steam. In 18 large economies, world-wide residential investment dropped on a year-over-year basis for four consecutive quarters through September, the longest stretch of...

A report from Boston Real Estate Times in Massachusetts. "The 2019 Greater Boston condominium market stabilized from what has been a five-year run of price escalation, absorption and diminished supply, according to a report from the Collaborative Companies. The current oversupply at the high-end of...

A weekend topic starting with a report by Auction.com Vice President of Market Economics Daren Blomquist. "Growing competition from a new breed of foreclosure auction buyer is evident in proprietary foreclosure sales rate data from Auction.com. More than 37% of Tampa-area properties brought to...

It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "San Diego County’s median home price was $575,000 in December, a slight decrease from the previous month but still near record highs. Rich Toscano, who predicted the housing crash in November 2005 on his housing blog Professor Piggington’s...

A report from the Wall Street Journal. "Fair Isaac Corp., creator of FICO scores, will soon start scoring consumers with rising debt levels and those who fall behind on loan payments more harshly. The changes are an about-face from recent years, when FICO and credit-reporting companies made changes...

A report from the Miami Herald in Florida. "Moving trucks may be parked near Virgin MiamiCentral soon. Park-line Miami at 100 NW Sixth St., the two 30-story apartment buildings for rent above the train station, opened its leasing office in mid-January. Najam Syed, head of asset management at...