The Housing Bubble Blog

It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "For the fifth time this year, home prices in Ada County have reached record-setting highs. Even if it benefits him with higher commissions, Rick Gehrke, a real estate agent who sells in both Ada and Canyon counties, said he doesn’t like a red-hot...

A report from DS News. "Foreclosure auction inflow data points to a third wave of post-recession distress building in late 2019 and early 2020. A total of 43,232 residential properties nationwide were referred to Auction.com in Q3 2019 for a potential future foreclosure auction, up from the...

A report from the Wall Street Journal. "In China, a crowd of startups is looking to cash in on a hot real-estate market by disrupting the way apartments are rented. In some ways, their business model resembles that of U.S. office-space startup WeWork, but applied to residential housing, said James...

A report from Minnesota Daily. "For around $1,735 per month, you can rent a one-bedroom, one-bathroom penthouse apartment at Hub Minneapolis, one of the newest luxury apartments aimed at students near the University of Minnesota. The apartment complex is roughly a 10-minute walk from Folwell Hall....

A report from the Wall Street Journal. "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are pulling back on some mortgages meant to make homeownership more affordable, their latest effort to rein in risk at the behest of their regulator. The two companies are cutting back on the proportion of loans they back to...

A report from the New York Times. "For thousands of luxury condo owners in New York who have received deep tax breaks for a decade or more, the taxman is coming. The end of those benefits, through an expired program known as 421-a, could not have come at a worse time for many sellers, who are faced...

A report from the Times of London in the UK. "There are streets in London that may boast more expensive land. Others can claim to have higher average property prices. Yet none can compete when it comes to the sheer concentration of vast super-mansions. So why is The Bishops Avenue, aka...

A report from the Dallas Observer in Texas. "Khraish Khraish is no longer in the low-rent landlord business. Three years ago, Khraish was among several large-scale landlords targeted by the former mayor and City Council in a campaign to drive them out of business. Every single charge and accusation...

It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "The median price for a single family home in the nine-county region fell nearly 3 percent to $805,600 from the previous October, according to Zillow. The median price of a home in Santa Clara County continued a 10-month retreat, falling 5.9 percent...

A report from Crain's New York Business. "The market has changed since 2012, when Extell’s One57 tower in Midtown reached over $1 billion in purchases in six months, touching off the city’s luxury construction boom. Extell followed that Billionaires’ Row success with several more pricey condo...

A report from Mansion Global on Massachusetts. "October ushered in a sales slowdown in the greater Boston housing market, with year-over-year sales volume of single-family homes hitting a 20-year low. The number of closed units fell 38.7% annually, compared to October of 2018. The condo market,...

A report from Morningstar. "Real Estate sales in Canada are booming and as a result, prices are being pushed higher. For those who can't afford to buy investment properties though, at these prices, does it even make sense to invest in Canadian real estate? With me to discuss this is John Pasalis,...

A report from the Reno Gazette Journal in Nevada. "Although turning over houses at a profit was a popular strategy during Reno-Sparks’ housing rebound, flipping activity has cooled as home prices reached record highs. Since peaking at $420,500 in May, the median price for an existing single-family...

A report from the Commercial Property Executive. "Does multifamily property management have a particularly weak spot right now which could be hit in case of a recession? Diana Batayeh, the CEO of Village Green: Building new apartments and improving existing ones come with high costs. To drive the...

A weekend topic starting with two reports from 7 News in Australia. "CoreLogic reports that 2599 homes went under the hammer across all capital cities this week, returning a preliminary auction clearance rate of 72.9 per cent. It believes 'fear of missing out' is again starting to feature at...

It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "Softening luxury markets throughout major U.S. metros have pushed average sales prices down for top-priced homes from the turbulent highs of a few years ago, leaving many luxury homeowners—from New York City to Los Angeles to Miami—sitting on their...

A report from Bloomberg. "New York City’s struggling luxury condo market is providing a prominent developer with an opportunity to expand the lending unit it launched last year. Silverstein Properties Inc., looking to double its lending business to more than $1 billion in 2020, is eyeing so-called...

A report from Curbed Boston in Massachusetts. "It looks increasingly like a buyer’s market in the Boston area. Such a trend would’ve been laughable a short while ago, but new numbers for October from the Warren Group and the Greater Boston Association of Realtors seem to confirm the shift. Detached...

A report from the Wall Street Journal. "Once Silicon Valley’s highest-flying darlings, companies from WeWork to Uber Technologies Inc. have collectively lost about $100 billion in value this year. Vitaliy Katsenelson, chief executive of Investment Management Associates Inc., likens the current...

Two reports from the Times of London. "Tens of thousands of families have seen their inheritances decimated after elderly relatives paid inflated prices for new retirement homes that have collapsed in value, an investigation by The Times has found. Prices of retirement flats in developments built...