The Housing Bubble Blog

A report from the Wall Street Journal on Canada. "Tougher rules for new borrowers, rising mortgage rates and new taxes for home buyers have been put in place by Canadian regulators in recent years to tame some of the most overheated housing markets in the developed world. " "But they have also shut...

A report from Hamptons.com on New York. "'The housing market continues to soften across the country -- particularly in some of the most expensive areas like the Hamptons and New York City. With so many homes for sale right now, and listings lingering on the market for longer than in the past, it's...

A report from the Wall Street Journal. "A long rally in the housing market stumbled in 2018 and looks poised to slow further. 'Suddenly the light turned off in the second half of the year, with sales tumbling down and inventory rising,' said Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association...

A report from Bloomberg on Canada. "After a three-year non-stop party, Toronto’s condo market is likely to settle down in 2019, some of the city’s biggest developers say. Shamez Virani, president at CentreCourt, added: 'There is, for the first time in a little while, at least in the last 24 months,...

A weekend topic starting with the Wall Street Journal. "An important indicator in the U.S. commercial real-estate market is signaling that a decade long bull run is on shaky ground heading into the new year. The gap between long-term borrowing rates and what some types of commercial properties on...

A report from the Marin Independent Journal in California. "California Association of Realtors chief economist Leslie Appleton-Young said the country is entering the 10th year of positive economic growth, but the pace of growth is decelerating. 'A shift is afoot,' said Appleton-Young. ' The...

It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. " The year 2018 was one of ebbing expectations. Early in the year the local market was still rather robust with limited inventory and relatively strong demand from buyers. Sellers were still seeing multiple offers – though fewer than last year – and...

A report from the Herald Sun in Australia. "Home values have peaked and begun to fall in every Melbourne SA3 region, with the declines tipped to continue into the new year. New CoreLogic figures show the drops range from just 0.6 per cent in the Sunbury region through to a substantial 14.5 per cent...

A report from 5280 on Colorado. "Will 2019 be the year you finally find (and get!) your Denver dream home? The metro-area’s hot housing market has definitely cooled, so much so that in the suburbs, the luxury sector has officially become a buyer’s market. According to the DMAR Market Trends...

A report from the Atlanta Journal Constitution in Georgia. " The number of houses for sale last month in metro Atlanta was higher than the number for sale a year ago, signaling that the market may be entering a new phase, experts say. Yet the number of homes that actually sold continued to decline,...

A report from the Wall Street Journal. "Sales of previously owned U.S. homes edged up in November from a month earlier but clocked the largest annual decline in more than seven years, signaling the sputtering housing market may finish the year on a soft note. Sales in November decreased 7% from a...

A report from New York Daily News. "Real estate agents have historically lured people to outer borough nabes like Long Island City in Queens, Williamsburg in Brooklyn and St. George in Staten Island by touting their proximity to Manhattan. But now, the opposite is happening too in a telling role...

A report from the California used house salespeople. "California home sales remained on a downward trend for the seventh consecutive month in November as prospective buyers continued to wait out the market, the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® (C.A.R.) said today." "November’s sales figure was...

A report from the Star Tribune in Minnesota. "During November sellers listed 3,992 properties, 12.6 percent more than last year, according to monthly report from the Minneapolis Area Realtors. At the same time, buyers signed 5.2-percent fewer purchase agreements, leaving 10,181 listings on the...

A report from CNBC. "Each new housing data point is worse than the last, and they are prompting a leading industry analyst to say the market is in a correction. 'I definitely think we’re in a correction,' said John Burns, CEO of John Burns Real Estate Consulting. 'Sales, according to our survey...

A report from Bloomberg on Hong Kong. "Amid all the doom and gloom in Hong Kong’s housing market, there appeared to be a silver lining, when a developer sold all 488 apartments on offer in a single day. Sino Land Co Ltd. reported the sellout in Kowloon East on Thursday. But the average price of...

A report from Bloomberg. "Sentiment among U.S. homebuilders fell in December to the lowest level since 2015, missing all forecasts and signaling that the industry's struggles are intensifying amid elevated prices and higher borrowing costs." "The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo...

A report from the Orlando Sentinel in Florida. "Orlando’s red-hot real estate market may be cooling off. The November real estate report from the Orlando Area Realtors Association shows sales fell 6.9 percent to during the month to 2,575 while the number of homes for sale grew to a 3.3-month...

Two reports from the Australian Financial Review. "Sydney-based mortgage broker Zenik Finance Solution, which made nearly $1 billion in home loans for the big four banks and Macquarie Bank, has engaged in "widespread and systemic mortgage fraud" for years while the corporate watchdog ASIC watched...

A report from Bisnow on California. "Speakers at Bisnow's Silicon Valley Construction & Development Forecast event last week had differing opinions on just how dire the construction cost situation is. 'We're in a unique bubble in the Bay Area' said Project Executive Preston Hoopes . 'We're all...