Archives: May 2009

Spain=Florida. The amazing similarities of these two housing-bust markets

Posted by: Peter Coy on May 29

Spain and Florida are both in the middle of terrible housing busts. Florida's bust is one of the worst in North America and Spain's is one of the worst...

Home sales are improving only in a handful of states (and they're declining everywhere else).

Posted by: Prashant Gopal on May 29

The National Association of Realtors reported May 28 that home purchases rose 0.3% in April (the second increase in the past three months). Is this the latest sign that the...

Mortgage securities: They aren't all lemons

Posted by: Peter Coy on May 29

Investors in mortgage securities swung from irrational exuberance to equally irrational pessism. Not long ago, they seemed to have concluded that just about every house in America was going...

Tell Us Your Real Estate Story

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on May 29

Reader Alan Cohara reminds us how seemingly minor details such as a certificate of occupancy can lead to major troubles. He bought a $1.5 million home north of Fort...

As foreclosures soar, Jobs are the New Problem

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on May 28

New foreclosure data out today illustrates two important trends. One is that the problem has spread from adjustable rate loans to borrowers with bad credit to prime borrowers, an...

Existing Home Sales Up 2.9%

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on May 27

The battered housing market has some spring it its step, at least according to the National Association of Realtors. The trade group says sales of existing home sales rose 2.9%...

It took only three years to wipe away six years of boomtime home-price gains

Posted by: Prashant Gopal on May 26

Home prices fell 19.1% in the first quarter compared to the previous year, the largest decline in the 21-year history of Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller Home Price Index series. Case-Shiller's...

Tell Us Your Real Estate Story

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on May 22

Agent Debbie Blumenthal tells us how she tapped into a retirement account to pay for an investment property she's now renting out for $1,150 a month. "I'm a realtor...

How much is prestige worth in this new age of frugality?

Posted by: Prashant Gopal on May 22

Luxury consumption -- even for those who can still afford it -- is falling out of fashion. Some wealthy Americans are cutting back, not out of necessity, but because it...

NYC's evolution in a single building: Life Savers mints factory-->Gay leather bar-->Planned public relations agency-->Costly condos

Posted by: Peter Coy on May 21

If these walls could talk ... A new high-end condo building on Eleventh Avenue in Manhattan's West Chelsea section has a history that says a lot about the changes...

Are Banks Keeping Foreclosed Homes Off the Market?

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on May 21

Buyers looking to purchase foreclosures should still have plenty of opportunities. Only 30% of bank-owned properties are listed on the multiple listing services, says Rick Sharga, senior vice president at...

Are these housing markets poised for a recovery?

Posted by: Prashant Gopal on May 20

Barbara Corcoran, founder of the New York real estate firm The Corcoran Group, has come out with the top 5 markets on the verge of recovering from the housing downturn....

Zillow.com measures the 'shadow inventory' of unsold homes

Posted by: Peter Coy on May 19

A new survey from Zillow.com confirms what I've been saying for months: There is a huge amount of "shadow inventory" in the housing market. Except the shadow is even...

Housing Starts Down, Housing Sales UP

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on May 19

The stock market's in a tizzy. The Commerce Dept. reported that housing starts fell 12.8% to a record-low pace of 458,000 in April from a revised 525,000 in March....

Lenders to Tell Homeowners When Mortgage is Sold

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on May 18

Got this note from California Senator Barbara Boxer: The Senate recently passed an amendment (SA 1035) I authored requiring that homeowners be alerted within 30 days if their lender...

Fico 780? 20% down on a $135,000 condo? No dice.

Posted by: Peter Coy on May 18

The credit crisis is still making lenders ridiculously cautious. Check out this story by Kevin Chiu on the HousingPredictor.com website. A Realtor in Auburn, Ala., home of the mighty...

Are prisons good for home prices? Maybe in one Maryland metro where prices jumped 21%.

Posted by: Prashant Gopal on May 15

Home prices in the Cumberland, Md. metro area, which have been rising steadily for years, shot up a startling 21% in the first quarter compared to the same period a...

Real Estate Web Sites See Surge In Traffic

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on May 15

Right up there with Twittering and people seeking info about the swine flu at the Centers for Disease Control, online real estate sites are seeing a boom in traffic....

Pipebombs Found In Foreclosed Home

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on May 13

City News Service is reporting that a 42-year-old man in Riverside, Calif, east of Los Angeles, was arrested for allegedly putting pipe bombs around his home, which had been...

The Coming Foreclosure Tsunami

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on May 13

National Short Sale Center, which helps homeowners negotiate the sale of their homes for less than what they owe their bank, says the country is due to experience record-setting amounts...

Foreclosure sales drive down home prices

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on May 12

Here's the latest from the National Association of Realtors: A total of 134 out of 152 metropolitan statistical areas reported lower median existing single-family home prices in comparison with the...

Jobs and Housing Prices

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on May 12

How closely related are job losses and housing prices? Very close, according to Integrated Asset Services, a mortgage consulting firm which found a direct correlation between home prices and initial...

Tata wants to sell its new $7,800 Nano homes to India's slum dwellers

Posted by: Prashant Gopal on May 08

It looks like Tata -- the company behind the $2,000 Nano car and India's no-frills Ginger budget hotel chain -- wants to market the 1,244 low-cost homes it will...

Tata's Nano Home: Company behind world's cheapest car to sell $7,800 apartments

Posted by: Prashant Gopal on May 07

Tata, the Indian company that made worldwide headlines with its $2,000 Nano car, now plans to build 1,000 tiny apartments outside Mumbai that will sell for $7,800 to $13,400 each....

Number crunching with Krunching.com

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on May 07

I’ve said from time to time I’d like to profile some real estate related Web sites. Here’s one I found recently Krunching.com. The site was founded by Time VanDermyden, a...

A Look at the Vacation Home Market

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on May 06

With summer upon us I figured it was time to take a look at vacation property. Despite all those time share pitches, this is still a sliver of the...

Ideas for improving tax credits for homebuyers

Posted by: Peter Coy on May 05

Guest blog from BW Banking and Finance Editor Mara Der Hovanesian Ronald S. Temple, portfolio manager and co-director of research of Lazard Asset Management in New York, is one of...

Two Views of the Housing Recovery

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on May 04

More from the Milken Institute’s Global Conference last week. Two big players in the housing market, two views of what’s going on. Richard Smith, President and CEO, Realogy Corp,...

Tell Us Your Real Estate Story

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on May 01

This edition of Tell Us Your Real Estate Story comes from New York City developer Van Velle, who took over a four unit project in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen and...