Archives: February 2007

New Home Sales Fall

Posted by: Peter Coy on February 28

The U.S. economy is doing OK overall, but housing is in its own private hell. Still. That was borne out by the Census Bureau's report today that sales of new...

Block's Blocked

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on February 26

When you hear the name H&R Block you immediately think of taxes. For a while during the housing boom, however, the well-known Kansas City company was actually making more money...

Is Your Mortgage Choking You?

Posted by: Peter Coy on February 23

For an article in BW, I'm looking to interview people who have subprime ARM mortgages and are feeling squeezed by resets. Please write to me ASAP at peter_coy@businessweek.com. Thanks....

Going Once ... Sotheby's HQ Is on the Block

Posted by: Peter Coy on February 21

The Upper East Side of Manhattan building that Sotheby's occupies (but doesn't own) is on the block. Jones Lang LaSalle Americas, which is handling the sale, is looking for...

Is This Really a Good Time to Be A Flipper?

Posted by: Peter Coy on February 20

You don't tug on Superman's cape. You don't spit into the wind. And you don't try to flip houses when the market is going through its worst slump in a...

A play on the sub-prime bust

Posted by: Dean Foust on February 16

I mention this not to offer investment advice, nor to shill for this firm (I, for one, wouldn’t invest in 99% of hedge funds out there, given their lack of...

Trump Jumps to the Caribbean

Posted by: Peter Coy on February 16

Donald Trump is lending his golden name to a resort and residential development at the eastern tip of the Dominican Republic. He invited some reporters to his Trump Tower...

A new way to extract equity from your home

Posted by: Dean Foust on February 14

Readers are no doubt familiar with the phrase “house rich and cash poor,” referring to the many Americans who have seen their property values soar so much that they joke...

Who's hot, who's not

Posted by: Dean Foust on February 13

Zillow.com just released a new report assessing the trend in home values across the country. Granted, you could question the accuracy of Zillow’s findings, since it isn’t based just on...

Country Homes

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on February 12

First came Dollywood, the theme park built by Dolly Parton. Then Martha Stewart began designing houses for KB Home. What's next? Brookwood. Ronnie Gilley Properties, a developer and no...

Hillary: A broker's best friend...

Posted by: Dean Foust on February 12

Came across this item on the Real Town web site that Hillary Clinton is sponsoring a bill that bars commercial banks from hiring real estate brokers/agents. Some were shocked that...

The latest amenity in subdivision living

Posted by: Dean Foust on February 08

Forget the pool. Forget the tennis courts, and even the golf course. Victory Lane is a new development outside of Savannah, Ga., that includes, in addition to the obligatory golf...

There was a bubble in dirt as well...

Posted by: Dean Foust on February 08

So much ink has been spilled over the bubble in housing, but it's now apparent that there was similar speculation in the raw land upon which developers built all those...

Everything Old Is New Again (Part Two)

Posted by: Peter Coy on February 08

Thank goodness: A business ethicist has weighed in on the question of whether it's right or wrong to yank a listing and then put it back in the system as...

Foreclosures are heating up...

Posted by: Dean Foust on February 07

You've probably seen stories in recent weeks about how foreclosures are starting to rise in the subprime mortgage market. Barry Ritholtz, a Wall Street research guru, has come across a...

The next hot real estate market is here...

Posted by: Dean Foust on February 06

This article from Business 2.0 editor Chris Taylor points out what's likely to be the next hot real estate market in coming decades. It's 225 million square miles of prime...

Isn't that a Hopper?

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on February 06

Apartment buildings--the nicer ones--and condo towers often decorate their walls with art. Azzurra, a high rise condo complex in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Marina del Rey, took that...

The Next Construction Boom

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on February 05

New homebuilders are taking it on the chin as sales slow, but another part of the construction sector is picking up, one that's likely to keep the folks in hard...

Should you pay points? The CV is wrong...

Posted by: Dean Foust on February 05

The conventional wisdom in recent years is that borrowers shouldn't pay points to buy down an interest rate when they take out a mortgage. That was the conclusion of an...

Moving Out of Michigan. Moving into North Carolina.

Posted by: Peter Coy on February 03

Jonathan Miller, the New York City appraiser who blogs at Matrix, has a good take on United Van Lines' annual report on where its moving vans went in 2006. Here's...

Flip to Flipper Nation

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on February 02

It's sign how far the housing boom as seeped into popular culture that one group of aspiring TV stars has put together an online series of Webisodes that play off...

Seinfeld: "Not that there's anything wrong with it... Judge: "Yes, there is..."

Posted by: Dean Foust on February 02

Perhaps some of us who used an agent to help us find a house, and then stumbled upon a property we liked and viewed it without him or her, have...

What's Up (or Down) With the Highest-Priced Markets?

Posted by: Peter Coy on February 02

I extracted this little table from a spreadsheet sent to me on Friday by Zillow.com. This data and lots more is going to be posted on the Zillow website on...