Archives: July 2005

Affordability drops, yet sales surge

Posted by: Amey Stone on July 29

We already know that home prices surged yet again in June. On a national basis, the median price of an existing home (as opposed to a newly built home) jumped...

Flipping in Florida

Posted by: Dean Foust on July 27

The latest sign of the Apocalypse: In south Florida, where housing speculation is white hot, some entrepreneurs have unveiled a pair of Internet-based exchanges – USCONDEX.com and CondoFlip.com -- where...

Short Countrywide?

Posted by: Peter Coy on July 27

Let's say you fear housing prices are bound to fall but you still want to own. Is there any other way to protect yourself? Here's one unorthodox idea I got...

Trapped

Posted by: Dean Foust on July 27

I suspect there are a lot of homebuyers (particularly investors and speculators) who believe that even if they're buying in at the top of the market, they'll be able to...

The $1 trillion home sale

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on July 26

With stocks in the doghouse, one of the hottest things to sell on Wall Street has been your home, or least the mortgage on it. Credit rating agency Standard &...

Tag Team Mortgage Schemes

Posted by: Amey Stone on July 26

Here's how this real estate-related financial scheme goes: A mortgage professional convinces you to refinance your home, pulling out a chunk of equity. Then he or she refers you to...

No mass exodus from the Golden State

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on July 25

You may have read stories about Californians bailing from the bubble. They are selling their sharply-appreciated homes, pocketing the proceeds and renting apartments or moving to cheaper neighboring states. It's...

Impact of higher mortgage rates?

Posted by: Amey Stone on July 22

This week Greenspan indicated that the Federal Reserve is likely to keep raising rates for the foreseeable future (or at least two or three more times) this year. That news...

David Miles Speaks!

Posted by: Peter Coy on July 20

I got David Miles on the phone today and he sent me a picture. Here is the real David Miles, chief U.K. economist of Morgan Stanley. As you can see,...

Homeowners Less Worried About a Bubble

Posted by: Amey Stone on July 19

A new study sponsored by ING Direct came to the surprising conclusion that homeowners are less concerned about a housing bubble this year than they were last year. Of 1,000...

Housing Bubble? Most People Don't Think So

Posted by: Peter Coy on July 18

Bulls on the housing market like to say there can't possibly be a bubble because almost everyone thinks there's a bubble. According to this contrarian logic, if everyone thinks there's...

An ARM Warning From Across the Pond

Posted by: Peter Coy on July 18

Because people who get socked in the ARM by rising interest rates are going to be madder than that guy in the picture.

Down on upgrades

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on July 15

People like to joke that the bank owns their home. The reality is it's likely a mutual fund or institutional investor in the booming secondary mortgage market. Issues of mortgage-backed...

Ominous signs in the U.K. housing market

Posted by: Amey Stone on July 14

I met today with Pamela Holding, portfolio manager of Putnam Investments' International Growth and Income Fund (PNGAX). She has been keeping watch on the U.K. and Australian housing markets to...

Fannie Mae Sees Mortgage Risks

Posted by: Peter Coy on July 13

Thanks to economist David Kotok of New Jersey money manager Cumberland Advisors for pointing out a fascinating economic commentary by David Berson, the chief economist of mortgage giant Fannie Mae...

Past Housing Bubbles

Posted by: Amey Stone on July 12

It has been six weeks since I wrote a story that discussed the experience of homeowners who experienced a real estate meltdown in their local markets in the past (See,...

Sell your house on Wall Street

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on July 08

It's not just on Main Street where real estate is hot. Fund tracker Morningstar reports that the best returns of the 2nd quarter came from funds specializing in real estate,...

Selling is work

Posted by: Amey Stone on July 08

My apartment has officially been on the market for two weeks now and I have learned one lesson so far -- selling a home takes serious effort! Our apartment is...

Is the Fed Propping Up Housing?

Posted by: Peter Coy on July 08

Societe Generale, the big French investment house, came out with a report today arguing that the Federal Reserve wants to--needs to--prop up the U.S. housing market. The firm e-mailed copies...

Too Many Contingencies

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on July 07

Thanks to our friends at The Smoking Gun http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0706051realestate1.html for this creepy sign of a market top. A Wisconsin man allegedly offered a real estate broker at an open house...

Be Careful About Cash-Out Refis

Posted by: Peter Coy on July 06

Taking out some cash when you refinance a fixed-rate mortgage seems like the closest thing there is to picking up free money. But there's a big, hidden cost in the...

All house, no furniture

Posted by: Amey Stone on July 05

Here's a new trend a colleague just told me about -- in certain New York suburbs, buyers are putting so much of their savings and monthly income into the purchase...

Guess How Much These Houses Cost

Posted by: Peter Coy on July 05

How much do these two four-bedroom houses cost? Clue #1: They're in different cities....

Washington DC bubble?

Posted by: Dean Foust on July 05

In response to my earlier posting questioning whether home prices were outstripping income gains, one reader (IDed as "Audiorich") writes... "Not in the Washington D.C. area! House prices here may...

More Flipping Tales

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on July 01

This one comes from Mandi Collins, a broker in Los Angeles. "And how hot is the market right now?" she asks before telling the tale of 2215 Scott, a home...

Manhattan Floats Skyward

Posted by: Peter Coy on July 01

News bulletin: The island of Manhattan--never firmly moored to Planet Earth--became fully detached in the second quarter of 2005 and is on its way toward the asteroid belt. That, at...

Real estate in IRAs

Posted by: Dean Foust on July 01

A fascinating story in the New York Times earlier this week noted that some investors--burned after the stock market bubble burst earlier this decade--put part of their IRA or retirement...

Cable's new Discovery

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on July 01

Discovery Communications, the cable tv network that brings us Animal Planet and The Science Channel, has discovered a new beast: the real estate speculator. A new show called Flip That...