The Housing Bubble Blog

A weekend topic starting with the Orlando Sentinel in Florida. "Foster Algier, a real estate agent and owner of First Alliance Capital in Orlando, points to low-interest rates as one of the main drivers of the housing shortage, with 30-year mortgage rates falling to less than 3% last year. 'When...

It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate.com, told Forbes home prices are rising at an 'unsustainable pace' but as supply and demand return to somewhat of a balance, a 'plateauing in prices' is more likely than an outright decline by later...

A report from the Seattle Times in Washington. "Matthew Gardner, chief economist at Windermere, said in a statement the boost in inventory could cool off listing prices. The average list price in King County for single-family homes fell about 7% from March to April, according to Gardner. (Houses...

A report from Arlington Now in Virginia. "As we’re sure you’ve picked up on in recent times, inventory has been tight and houses are not lasting long out there. However, looking at this week’s Just Reduced figures, we’ve eclipsed the '50 price reductions in the past week' mark for the first time in...

A report from BC Business in Canada. "Senior economist with the division of real estate marketing firm Rennie, Ryan Berlin is one of four analysts tasked with offering a thoughtful take on the Metro Vancouver housing market. Q: Where do you think Vancouver housing prices are going after the...

A report from the LA Daily News. "The California Association of Realtors reported March’s statewide record $759,000 median sales price for an existing single-family house was up 24% in a year, the largest gain since 2013. Even crazier: It took about eight days for a listing to go into escrow, the...

A weekend topic starting with Market Watch. "Wit Solberg founded Mission Peak Capital in 2008 to snap up messy commercial real-estate assets after the last big crisis. A dozen years later, he’s looking to untangle another kind of property mess, but this time on behalf of others. Solberg invested in...

A weekend topic starting with the Powell Tribune in Wyoming. "By the summer, the market was heating up — and it never slowed down. Today, the housing inventory in Powell is at lower levels than anyone can remember. John Parsons, co-owner of 307 Real Estate said the strain on housing inventory is...

It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "Kootenai County's housing trend has become a looming menace in the area, but Jennifer Smock of Windermere/Coeur d'Alene Realty, Inc. believes that it is not a bubble waiting to pop. A sign that this housing boom won't burst is a new trend of what...

A report from the Flathead Beacon in Montana. "As an affordable housing general contractor, Layne Massie is struggling to reach his goal of bringing reasonably priced homes to the Flathead Valley. The developer’s home prices have jumped an average of $40,000 to $50,000 more in the last year as...

A report from TNN on Oklahoma. "Lawton real estate agent John Naberhaus said he’s been selling homes for 31 years and never seen a market quite like this one. 'What’s interesting is that used to a $300,000 house in our market was kind of the exception,' he said, 'and they were harder to sell and...

A report from Bankrate. "The U.S. housing market is on fire. Double-digit appreciation is the rule. Giddy sellers are sifting through multiple offers. Frantic buyers are forced to pay more than asking prices - sometimes by $100,000 or more. The last time the U.S. housing market looked this frothy...

A report from Westword in Colorado. "Victoria Macaskill, an independent broker and co-owner of Denver Homes, says there are things the average person can do to compete. Some of them carry a certain degree of risk, but all of them improve a house hunter's shot at winding up on top. 'Right now, all...

A weekend topic starting with Better Dwelling. "The Canadian property bubble was recognized by an unlikely entity — the Canadian government. MP Adam Vaughan dropped the b word this week. Vaughan isn’t just an elected official, but also the Secretary to the Minister in charge of most of the...

A weekend topic starting with The Intercept. "If you were reading the news back in 2008, then you probably remember how residential mortgage backed securities fueled by subprime mortgages tanked the global economy. Now John Flynn, a veteran of the mortgage securities market, says it’s happening all...

It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "Due to the rising cost of building, there may come a 'day of reckoning.' When a person pays $400,000 for a house that not much earlier was $300,000, 'you're going to be upside down from Day One,' meaning the house will cost more than it is worth,...

A report from the New York Post. "Looks like former MMA champion Ben Askren isn’t the only thing Jake Paul is knocking out. The multimillion-dollar California mansion that the controversial YouTube star bought in 2017 has been sold for $6.15 million. The Calabasas property sold for $775,000 less...

A report from Patch New York. "New Yorkers on the hunt for deals on one-bedroom apartments might want to start looking near the closest subway stop. Rents fell around 418 out of 473 stops across the city during the coronavirus pandemic, according to RentHop. All told, 88 percent of subway stops had...

A report from Money Wise. "Buyers in many parts of the country are diving full force into the housing market. '[Rates] are still incredibly low in people’s minds,' says Corey Burr, a real estate agent in Washington, D.C. Buyers feel like 'they’re getting very close to free money. Our market is...

A report from WTSP on Florida. "If history is any indication, Joe Manausa says we are not currently in another housing bubble. The Florida-based realtor and author, with 30 years experience in the business, says rarely do we see the average housing price in the U.S. decline. In fact, he says, it’s...