The Housing Bubble Blog

A report from the Herald Tribune in Florida. "The 'West of the Trail' neighborhood has been the golden child of Sarasota’s residential real estate market for decades. But there is a change happening, says real estate appraiser Don Saba, who lives in the neighborhood. 'We are starting to see more...

A report from the Washington Post. "Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell gave a speech a couple of weeks back that showed that financial regulators have learned many lessons from the 2008 financial crisis, but not the most important one, namely: If regulators wait to act until they can say with...

A report from the New York Times. "A year ago, many housing markets were in a 'frenzy,' with multiple buyers competing for properties, said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the Realtors association. But the inventory of homes for sale has notched upward this spring, tilting the balance of power...

It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "'California has some of the highest taxes — the highest [priced] housing in the country,' said Jonathan Miller, CEO of Miller Samuel. 'So what you're seeing first is... a slowdown in sales activity. Markets like the Hamptons, Manhattan, and most of...

A report from the San Francisco Chronicle in California. "Bay Area home prices stalled out for a second straight month in April. 'We are seeing more price reductions, more contingent sales, we are not having the spring we had last year,' said Joan Ulibarri, a Compass real estate agent on the...

A report from Market Watch. "Pending home sales fell a seasonally adjusted 1.5% in April and were 2% lower than a year ago, the National Association of Realtors said. The trend is solidly downward. April marked the 16th-straight month of annual declines. Housing seemed to be bouncing back from the...

A report from Domain News in Australia. "Savvy Sydney buyers can snap up houses in a handful of suburbs for prices last seen in 2015 as the property market continues its slide. Epping’s median house price has fallen to $1.45 million, Domain data for the March quarter shows. North Rocks fell to...

A report from the Orange County Register in California. "Southern California’s home prices boomeranged back in April from a rare price drop in March as lower mortgage rates and an increase in the number of homes for sale lured more home shoppers back into the market, CoreLogic reported. Southern...

A report from Marketplace. "It’s never easy to set the price of a home. It gets even trickier in a cooling housing market. Nancy McInerny of Aberdeen, Maryland listed her four-bedroom house for $399,000 in January. Four months and two price cuts later, she sold it for $375,000. Her husband had...

A report from the Review Journal on Nevada. "Las Vegas home prices continued to tap the brakes in March but still grew more than twice as fast as the national average, a new report shows. The downshift is one sign of Las Vegas’ housing pullback. Sales totals are tumbling as well, and the...

A report from Market Watch. "The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-city index rose a seasonally adjusted 0.1% in March, compared to February, and was 2.7% higher compared to a year ago. That was the slowest pace of annual growth since August 2012." "'Given the broader economic picture, housing...

A report from the Santa Cruz Sentinel in California. "On some blocks in Old Palo Alto, $9 million doesn’t even buy a roof. Take the nice vacant lot with the for sale sign on Bryant Street near Coleridge Avenue. But will the mansions with eight-figure price tags be even too rich for Bay Area titans...

Two reports from the Globe and Mail in Canada. "In a letter to the House of Commons finance committee, Evan Siddall, chief executive of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., offered an aggressive defence of the controversial mortgage qualification standard, saying it is needed to forestall potentially...

A weekend topic starting with Geekwire. "Q&A: Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman on competing with Zillow, and the potential of real estate tech. GeekWire: It feels like we are in the wild west for real estate technology in the middle of a crazy housing market. What’s your take on the landscape right now?...

A report from Boston.com on Massachusetts. "Anyone who’s paid even just casual attention to the Boston residential real estate market knows that home values continue to rise, and out of that a phenomenon has emerged: the $1 million one-bedroom, one-bathroom condominium. 'Some of them just stay...

A report from the Associated Press. "Andy and Stacie Proctor made a bid on a house in the Salt Lake City suburbs, only to rescind it upon learning there were 13 rival offers. At one point, they almost decided not to buy a house just yet, figuring the bubble was going to burst eventually, said Andy....

It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "The global financial outlook 'kinda sucks,' said UC Santa Barbara professor Peter Rupert. This year, because of an 11 percent drop in the median house price, from $718,000 to $655,000, Santa Barbara sits in the middle of the pack as more affordable...

A report from the Tampa Bay Times in Florida. "Tampa Bay home sellers take note — the steady price gains of the past few years might be coming to an end. Charles Richardson, senior regional vice president for Coldwell Banker, thinks there is still room for bay area prices to grow despite a few...

A report from the Buffalo News. "Over the course of 13 years, Robert Morgan built a real estate empire that stretches across 14 states and includes 36,000 apartments. But federal prosecutors said he did so with the help of nearly $500 million in fraudulent bank loans. Morgan is also named in a new...

A report from ABC News on Australia. "One of the policies the Coalition took to the election was a scheme to lower the amount first home buyers need to save to buy a property. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said it would enable first home buyers to access the market with a deposit of only five per...