Archives: April 2008

Renters also are losing homes to foreclosure

Posted by: Prashant Gopal on April 30

The foreclosure crisis is causing hardship, not just for homeowners but for an unknown number of renters. The Houston Chronicle today tells the story of a contractor who rebuilds Louisiana...

New York real estate tax revenue way down

Posted by: Prashant Gopal on April 30

The New York City real estate market -- though strong compared to other major cities -- is finally losing steam. Although home prices continue to rise, homes aren't selling as...

KB Home co-founder says home prices could fall 20% more

Posted by: Peter Coy on April 29

Eli Broad, the co-founder of KB Home, told Bloomberg TV yesterday that home prices could fall another 20%. Here's a link to the story. That is an absolutely enormous...

California builders aren't building

Posted by: Prashant Gopal on April 25

Home production in California is grinding to a halt. The number of single-family home permits dropped 61% to 8,189 during the first quarter of this year compared to the...

Are you more likely to catch the flu or face foreclosure?

Posted by: Prashant Gopal on April 23

It depends on where you live. In Nevada, the odds of losing a home to foreclosure could soon be about the same as getting the flu if predictions in...

A Minnesota painting contractor with four houses in foreclosure

Posted by: Prashant Gopal on April 21

The Minneapolis Star Tribune tells the amazing story of a painting contractor, living with his wife and three children in a trailer park, who three years ago managed to buy...

Is Canada's six-year housing boom history?

Posted by: Prashant Gopal on April 18

The red hot Canadian housing market has shown tremendous resilience even as home prices on its southern border tumble. But a new Canadian Real Estate Association report indicates that...

Gas Prices and Home Values

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on April 16

Gas prices hit a new high today of $3.40 a gallon. In some markets they are already over $4. It seems the pain at the pump is even spilling over...

A really, really, really bad time to be a carpenter

Posted by: Peter Coy on April 16

The March report on housing construction was even worse than economists expected. Starts on construction of homes fell twice as much as expected. They dropped 11.9% in March from...

Buyers Beware

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on April 15

I wrote a story for the magazine last week about the surprisingly low prices I saw at an auction of foreclosed property in Los Angeles. One home that had...

Mr. Stern Goes to Washington

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on April 11

Scott Stern runs St. Louis-based Lenders One, which provides services to 110 mortgage banking firms. On Thursday he testified before the Senate Banking Committee on what he calls Scott Stern's...

Where did all the get-rich real estate books go?

Posted by: Prashant Gopal on April 11

The mountain of get-rich real estate books on my desk reached an unwieldy pinnacle back at end of 2005 -- so much so that I had to dodge the...

The McCain Mutiny

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on April 10

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. That’s how presidential candidate John McCain must feel after announcing his own plan to fix the housing mess today. McCain proposed...

Savor this one, borrowers: The Mortgage Bankers Association is feeling the credit crunch

Posted by: Peter Coy on April 10

Great article this past weekend in the Washington Post (maybe not as great as the six 2008 Pulitzer winners, but still great) about how the Mortgage Bankers Association is being...

The Jumbo Problem

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on April 09

Mortgage bankers lobbied hard to get the loan limits on Fannie Mac and Freddie Mac insured loans increased. In high-cost California the limit was raised to $729,000. The changes were...

Pending sales index points to declines ahead

Posted by: Peter Coy on April 08

Bad news today for the housing market. The Pending Homes Sales Index of the National Association of Realtors, which is based on contracts signed in February, fell 1.9% to 84.6....

Where foreclosures are rare and jobs are plentiful

Posted by: Peter Coy on April 08

MainStreet.com, a sister website of TheStreet.com, has put together a nice little story featuring five towns around the country that have low foreclosure rates as well as low unemployment rates....

Housing cycles: lessons learned

Posted by: Peter Coy on April 03

Take a few minutes to watch a pretty baby-blue house that's for sale ask a wise old bespectacled brown house for advice. It's in this instructional cartoon by John...

The poor get poorer

Posted by: Peter Coy on April 02

Isn't it always the way? In most parts of the country, folks at the bottom are seeing the biggest declines in home prices, according to a new analysis by Zillow.com....

Twilight of the vacation-home buyers

Posted by: Peter Coy on April 01

The National Association of Realtors announced last week that vacation-home sales dropped 31% in 2007 from 2006. Sales of homes for investment fell 18%. That compared to a drop...