The Housing Bubble Blog

A weekend topic starting with Strong Towns. "Between 2000 and 2005, the median home price in Southern California grew by 117% from $241,350 to $524,020, an increase of more than $280,000, or $56,000 per year. In 2005, the median household income in Southern California was $53,600. In other words,...

A report from WKRN Nashville in Tennessee. "There were more newly listed homes in December 2023 compared to the previous year. That number was up by 9.1%. There also wasn’t a large drop in inventory decline, according to the data. It sat at a modest 5.5%, which is atypical. Jeff Checko, a...

It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "Gary Ferguson first noticed large cracks along the back wall of his garage in October. Ferguson, a Persian Gulf War veteran, bought the home with his wife and two children in March 2022. Because of the competitive housing market, Ferguson said he...

A report from the News Press. "When Hurricane Ian chewed through Southwest Florida more than a year ago its powerful winds and floodwaters wreaked havoc on thousands of properties. But in Island Park Village, a 55-and-over condo community in unincorporated south Lee County, it was the efforts to...

A report from Sarasota Magazine in Florida. "The latest report showed that the median price for a single-family home is now $500,000 in Sarasota County and $485,861 in Manatee County, reflecting increases of more than 52 percent and almost 41 percent, respectively, since 2020. The median salary in...

A report from News 4 Jax. "St. John’s County is one of the fastest-growing counties in Florida and the United States, but home prices are historically unaffordable and average rent is more than $2,000 a month. Right now, the average cost of a home in St. Johns County is around half a million...

A report from Barron's on Idaho. "It wasn’t so long ago that homes in Boise were a hot commodity. But now? 'Nobody wants to buy a house in Boise right now, and nobody wants to sell a house either,' Redfin agent Shauna Pendleton joked recently. The reality isn’t quite as dire: There are buyers and...

A weekend topic starting with the Telegraph. "The underlying crisis in the banking system continues to deepen as $5 trillion of commercial real estate debt taken out during the zero-rate era comes due in tranches. 'It’s not a liquidity problem; it’s a solvency problem,' said Professor Tomasz...

A weekend topic starting with Strong Towns. "In 2008, the list of investors swimming naked was long. Among them were America’s banks, big and small. Their reserves were investments believed to be the most secure, including AA- and AAA-rated mortgage-backed securities (MBS). By the end of the year,...

It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "Yes, the market is less frantic but experienced real estate professionals see that as a good thing. And they’re advising buyers to grab the opportunity that higher rates offer – more stable housing prices and fewer buyers in the market. 'The market...

A report from the Santa Fe New Mexican. "Santa Fe home prices, which have soared into the stratosphere for the past few years, are moving a little closer to earth. A little. Across the city of Santa Fe, the median price sunk 8.3% from the fourth quarter of 2022 — from $599,750 to $550,000. Those...

A report from the Naples Daily News in Florida. "In the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, Naples saw trophy mansions list at never-before-seen prices. In March, a sprawling waterfront estate hit the market for more than $174 million in the posh neighborhood of Port Royal. It's still for sale. So, too are...

A report from the Miami Herald. "Homebuyers and renters are in luck. Real estate experts predict you can expect better deals in South Florida in 2024. 'There’s that old saying of what goes up, must come down,' said Jack McCabe, owner of the Deerfield Beach-based real estate and economic research...

A holiday topic starting with the Herald Tribune in Florida. "After back-to-back double-digit yearly growth coming out of the pandemic, real estate prices in Sarasota-Manatee will round out the year mostly flat. Robert Goldman, a local Realtor with Michael Saunders & Company, said the 2021 and...

What are your predictions for the housing bubble in 2024? Six months ago, "1) Global residential real estate (RRE): It’s a big fat ugly bubble. 2) U.S. RRE: It’s also a big fat ugly bubble; a microcosm of the global one. The U.S. central bank, the Fed, is doing stealth QE already. There are many...

A report from KTVQ in Montana. "The once-unsure market appears to be stabilizing. Prices are trending downward, which will be a positive for potential buyers. 'We’re very close to what we were in 2022,' said Nicole Morrow, who is a realtor at 2Morrows Real Estate brokered by eXp Realty in the...

It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "Right now, throughout central and western Massachusetts, we have seen a lot of that cash kind of dry up. So, we’re back into a market that is very normal for our geographic area,' said Sara Lyman, owner of Athol’s Hometown Realtors. Lyman said this...

A report from Shreveport KSLA. "The real estate market in Southeast Louisiana is grappling with high interest and insurance rates, leading to a decrease in buyers heading towards the year’s end. 'The time to buy is when nobody wants it. The time to sell is when everybody wants it and this is the...

A report from the Journal Sentinel in Wisconsin. "VineBrook Homes Trust, Milwaukee's largest single-family landlord, might not be able to pay its bills next year. With a $1.2 billion debt coming due in 2024, VineBrook's Dallas-based executives told regulators in November they weren't sure VineBrook...

A report from the Citizen Times in North Carolina. "Mike Figura, owner of the Asheville-based Mosaic Community Lifestyle Realty, told the Citizen Times that the 2023 home market felt like 'a little bit of an enigma.' 'It looked like prices escalated and then flattened or even dropped in some price...