The Housing Bubble Blog

A report from the Globe and Mail in Canada. "February sales for various housing types in the Vancouver area have tumbled to a 10-year low, with the market for detached houses getting hit the hardest. The price for detached properties sold in the region averaged $1,442,863 last month, down 16.9 per...

A report from The Signal in California. "The sales inventory of homes and condominiums for the Santa Clarita Valley area rose for the eighth consecutive month as sales dropped and prices increased, the Southland Regional Association of Realtors recently announced. The 550 active listings at the end...

A report from the Arizona Republic. "It’s still a sellers market in metro Phoenix, but buyers are gaining ground. At the same time, the number of homes for sale is up. 'Buyers now might be competing with three other offers compared to 15 last year,” said Tina Tamboer, senior housing analyst with...

A report from the Globe and Mail in Canada. "A prominent Vancouver immigration lawyer and other experts are praising the surprising amount of information that the province has demanded on the declaration form for its new Speculation and Vacancy Tax (SVT). They say such data, which includes social...

A weekend topic starting with Gothamist in New York. "Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the city had issued a subpoena against the home-sharing giant Airbnb, demanding information on approximately 20,000 Airbnb listings in New York City. Chris Lehane, the head of global policy for Airbnb, urged...

A report from Bloomberg on Australia. "Australia’s worst property slump in a generation has created some obvious losers. Investors who bought at the top of the market are underwater; homeowners looking to sell are having to slash prices and developers are struggling to offload apartments as...

A report from Boise Dev in Idaho. "First they planned 126 apartments. Then, after pushback, 47 homes. Finally, after more changes and hearings, a plan for 42 homes won approval. A year later, the project is stopped, and the property is for sale. Will a new project near Harris Ranch in Barber Valley...

A weekend topic starting with Market Watch. "There’s new hope to phase out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from the housing sector, a Heritage Foundation research fellow said at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. Heritage’s Joel Griffith said while state zoning and environmental...

It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "Last year, 20,648 single-family and multifamily existing homes sold in Lee County and 10,527 in Collier — a 49 percent decline over 2017 when Hurricane Irma hit, slowing the market. There are still plenty of interested buyers in the market , but...

A report from the Union Tribune in California. "New home sales in San Diego County fell 20 percent in January from a year earlier, hitting an 11-year low, CoreLogic reported. 'We seem to be reaching that point at which housing prices are exceeding, at least perceived, affordability,' said real...

A report from Commercial Property Executive. "An inverted yield curve and forecasts of a dropoff in job growth are among the signals that the industry’s long, great ride may soon be ending, says economist Hugh Kelly. Lenders have generally been disciplined, but those financing projects at the...

A report from the Wall Street Journal on China. "On a recent winter workday, investors and representatives from private fund companies in Shanghai and elsewhere descended on Sandu, a county in the deep south where tens of thousands of locals live on less than a dollar a day. After taxi rides from...

A report from the Los Angeles Times in California. " The sluggish Southern California housing market took another hit in January, with sales plunging 17% from a year earlier, according to a report released Wednesday. The median is now $32,000 below its all-time high reached in June and sales,...

A report from Bloomberg. "Toll Brothers Inc.'s new home orders dropped 24 percent in the fiscal first quarter, the steepest annual decline for the biggest U.S. luxury homebuilder since the depths of the housing crash in 2010. Orders fell 62 percent in California, where Toll has a heavy focus. 'It...

A report from the Wall Street Journal. "Home prices in 2018 grew at their slowest pace in four years, while construction slumped, signaling that the housing market started this year on shaky footing. Economists cautioned that a rebound to the frenzied activity of early 2017 looks unlikely. 'This...

A report from the Globe and Mail on Canada. "Trevor Nicolle didn’t line up outside in 2018. The Toronto-based real estate agent, who specializes in new-build condominiums, joined the queues outside sales centres in 2017, when lines stretched far down the street before the launch of a new project....

A report from Sparefoot. "The influx of people moving from the west coast and an increase in apartment complexes in Arizona has created a huge demand for people to buy new self-storage facilities. The Arizona market is beneficial to investors right now, but there are some concerns that the market...

A report from Connect FM. "Thinking about buying a home? Bess Freedman, CEO of Brown Harris Stevens, a realty company in New York, says, 'We are definitely in a buyer’s market… very price sensitive, perhaps the most price sensitive market we’ve seen.' Freedman says this the main reason why:...

A report from ABC News in Australia. "There has been a dramatic increase in how long it is taking to sell properties over the past year. Pat and Shirley Tucker have put their four-bedroom home in Melbourne's eastern suburbs on the market. They want to sell so they can downsize for their retirement....

A report from the Sacramento Bee in California. "After months — and even years — of rising home sale prices, the Sacramento region could be seeing the first signs of a decline. The median home sales price in the Sacramento region fell by 5 percent last month compared to December, one of the...