The Housing Bubble Blog

A report from Bloomberg. "Ram Konara, a real estate broker in suburban Dallas, is raking in freebies this year: trips to Lake Tahoe and Santa Barbara in California, Cabo San Lucas in Mexico, and a dude ranch in Wyoming. The homebuyers he represents are cashing in, too. They’re winning price cuts of...

A report from the Boston Globe in Massachusetts. "Secret buyers of luxury real estate in Greater Boston will soon get extra scrutiny. The US Treasury Department has added Suffolk and Middlesex Counties to a program that requires people who buy homes with cash through shell companies to share their...

A report from SCV News in California. "The number of active listings of homes and condominiums for sale in the Santa Clarita Valley rose in October 2018 for the fifth consecutive month while sales slowed and resale prices continued to move higher, the Southland Regional Association of Realtors...

A report from Buffalo News in New York. "DHD Ventures, the Rochester-based developer that built the Monarch 716 student-housing complex near SUNY Buffalo State, has lost possession of its sprawling 15-month-old property on Forest Avenue. A state Supreme Court justice in Buffalo last week approved a...

A report from the Press Democrat in California. "Sonoma County home sales rebounded in October, boosted by a spate of price reductions that pushed the median price to its lowest level of the year. The median price of $649,500 has fallen from its June peak of $700,000 and now is nearly unchanged...

A report from the Vancouver Star in Canada. "With its slightly kitschy but homey pine-panelled interior, stunning view of the ocean and backyard swimming pool, it’s easy to imagine a family living in the four-bedroom home on Russet Way in West Vancouver." "But today the house is empty, a court...

A report from The Real Deal on Florida. "The Naples Area Board of Realtors also reported that the number of houses and condos listed for sale in October rose to 5,992 from 5,010 last year, a 20 percent increase. 'There are some neighborhoods where I still see an oversupply in the spec home market,...

A report from the Herald Sun in Australia. "Melbourne’s long-suffering homebuyers are cashing in as three-quarters of homes sell for less than their initial listing price. The figures revealed in CoreLogic’s latest Property Pulse reflect an average 6 per cent discount, equating to more than $45,000...

A weekend topic starting with CNBC. "'The housing sector's a disaster,' said CNBC's Jim Cramer. 'We're building about half the houses we did when the country had half the people, and we still can't sell them. KB Home does a huge amount of housing in California. They can't sell them.'" "The U.S....

A report from the News Observer in North Carolina. "'There is a negative mood in the market,' said Stacey Anfindsen, a Cary-based appraiser with Birch Appraisal, who puts together the monthly Triangle Area Residential Realty Market Report. The buzz kill, Anfindsen said in a phone interview with The...

It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "Inventory in Lane County, excluding Florence, was up and median prices were down in October, according to the Regional MLS, when compared to earlier this year. The sales median price was $290,000, $9,000 less than the record-high set in August....

A report from Redfin. "Evidence that the market is cooling down can be seen in price drops. In October 31.3 percent of homes for sale had at least one price drop of more than 1 percent. This is the highest share of price drops on record since Redfin began tracking this metric in 2010, and 6.3...

A report from CNBC. "There's an oversupply of homes in most housing markets across the country and rising interest rates are making it harder for buyers to make deals, billionaire real estate developer Stephen Ross told CNBC Thursday. That includes the New York City market, where Ross, who is...

A report from Forbes. "My first tip-off that winds of change were brewing came from an interview with a New York City real estate agent back in June. Over the phone he told me that home prices were down in his area 5-10% from six months ago. I had to listen back through the recording and make sure...

A report from The Real Deal. "A decade-long apartment boom may be coming to an end. Federal data shows that multifamily building permits have declined every month since March, the Wall Street Journal reported. According to the latest Census Bureau data, permits were pulled to build 351,000 units in...

A report from the New York Post. "Keith Richards took a hit on this rock star apartment. The wrinkly rock royal and his wife, Patti Hansen, just sold their posh downtown digs for $9 million, according to city property records. That’s far less than the apartment’s $12.32 million original asking...

A report from the Palm Beach Post in Florida. "The economy is firing on all cylinders now, but executives and economists expect a slowdown in 2019 and 2020. The big question: When will the next recession hit? Many economists see a cooling but no contraction on the horizon, while a few predict a...

A report from Bloomberg. "The U.S. housing market has already begun to lose its momentum as rising mortgage rates have cut demand in cities where prices ran too hot for too long, such as Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle. If borrowing costs keep climbing next year, eventually real...

A report from the New Daily in Australia. "More than a year on from the end of the property price boom and home values continue to tumble, auction clearance rates are down, and demand for mortgages has hit a four-year low. But are Sydney and Melbourne in the middle of mild downturns, or is this the...

A report from The M Report. "More than three-quarters of Americans say their housing markets are cooling down as well, according to the Q4 2018 Modern Homebuyer Survey, released by ValueInsured. After five straight quarters of a majority of Americans saying their market was 'overheated,' 72 percent...