Housing Blogs

The San Francisco Chronicle reports from California. “A total of 343,220 single-family detached California homes closed escrow in February (seasonally adjusted), down 28.5 percent from 480,170 a year earlier, the California Association of Realtors said. Median sales price in the state was $409,240, down a stunning 26.2 percent from February 2007. In the Bay Area, the Realtors said sales were down 32.5 percent in February compared with a year ago. The median price was $706,880, a 5 percent drop compared to a year earlier.”
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Econ 101 says lower interest rates are good for the housing market. But the chief economist of the National Association of Realtors, Lawrence Yun, worries there could be too much of a good thing. In a recent visit to BusinessWeek (see video), Yun said he fears that if the Federal Reserve cuts rates too much more, it will stir fears of inflation, which will push up rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages. Lenders will charge more for loans to make up for the higher inflation they expect. Higher rates on 30-year mortgages would be another blow to the reeling housing market.
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From Screaming Frog Productions:
http://www.screamingfrog.com

More information about this clip can be found here:
http://www.thejobtheshort.com/
Hat tip to chicagofinance for this gem.
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Dude doesn’t say anything on the housing issue for months and months and then today he comes out and is the smartest guy in the room? Hmmm… Looks like some of McCain’s advisors are reading HP. Hello McCain advisors! …
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From the WSJ: Clear Channel Communications’ Privatization Deal Is Near Collapse The $19 billion privatization of Clear Channel Communications Inc. was near collapse as the private equity firms behind the deal and the banks financing it failed to resolve their differences over the terms of the credit agreement … This is a deal no one wants - except Clear Channel’s current owners….
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The Register Guard has been notorious for posting Realtor fluff in the past.My jaw dropped when I read this months summary of the February RMLS.The signs were even clearer in February that the Lane County real estate market is tipping toward the down side.The median price for a Lane County home fell 6 percent, compared to a year ago, to $220,000, according to the Regional Multiple Listing Service.T…
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The majority of bubble markets are experiencing large prices declines. In general price declines continue to accelerate. Hat tip to H…
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From Bloomberg: Wall Street May Face $460 Billion Credit Losses, Goldman Says Wall Street banks, brokerages and hedge funds may report $460 billion in credit losses from the collapse of the subprime mortgage market … according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. A few excerpts from the report: Leveraged Losses—Still Out There (no link) R…
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The January Case-Shiller Index was released today and Portland’s Index was down 0.5% year over year and down 4% from the peak in July.I’ll post the graphs tonight….
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Today, the UK financial system is in a crisis. Northern Rock – a small regional bank has already collapsed, the interbank market is frozen and the spectre of higher loan defaults threatens the entire system. Far too many banks are under-capitalised and excessively dependent on wholesale funding. After a decade of reckless lending, the banks are looking for an exit strategy, and the taxpayer has deep pockets.Unfortunately, the banks might have some justification for looking towards the government for a bailout. Successive governments created the enabling environment that allowed the banking sector to go mad with credit. Competition was encouraged; supervision was relaxed and banks always knew that if things became sticky, the Bank of England would come to the rescue as the lender of last resort….
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Some housing bubble news from Wall Street and Washington. Reuters, “Prices of existing single-family homes slumped for the 18th month in a row in January, for a record annual drop, according to Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index released on Tuesday. The composite month-over-month index of 20 metropolitan areas fell 2.4 percent to 180.65 from December, bringing the measure down 10.7 percent from a year earlier and 12.5 percent from its July 2006 peak.”
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Home prices only go up.There’s hasn’t been a fall in US home values since the Depression.It’s always a great time to buy.If you don’t buy now, you’ll be forever priced out of the market….
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Read full story for latest details.
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Residential real estate posted another record decline in January 2008, according to a survey released Tuesday.
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Looking at the Case-Shiller house price indices in real (inflation adjusted) terms give us an idea of how much further house prices might fall. …
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Home prices in Seattle continue to decline, at an increasing rate, according to the latest data from the Case-Shiller Home Price Index.
Down 1.76% December to January.
Down 1.25% YOY.
In a big surprise to absolutely no one, Seattle is now officially in the realm of year-to-year price declines. What a change from just one year ago, when prices were up 11.14% year-over-year. It only took six months of declines from the peak to get here. Home prices in Seattle have now declined a total of 5.55% from their July 2007 peak.
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This morning’s Case-Shiller home prices report shows prices fell by 16.5% in Los Angeles over the past year — one of the steepest levels of decline in the nation. It also shows that Los Angeles no longer has the distinction of having America’s biggest housing bubble — that honor now goes to Miami.

More data from the report, which many analysts consider the most accurate measure of home prices because it tracks individual houses over time:
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The Bradenton Herald reports from Florida. “In February, the prices of existing-homes continued to fall - to $254,200 from $319,000 from February to February. Locally, the median price of a single family home was down 20 percent, tying with Miami for the second-largest price tumble. Punta Gorda experienced the largest price fall with a median price 25 percent below where it was just one year ago… according to numbers released by the Florida Association of Realtors.”
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OFHEO is now releasing a monthly House Price Index. Note that this is a National index, but only uses data from Freddie and Fannie. From OFHEO: New U.S. Monthly House Price Index Estimates 1.1 Percent Price Decline in January U.S. home prices fell approximately 1.1 percent on a seasonally-adjusted basis between December 2007 and January 2008, according to OFHEO’s new monthly House Price Index. For the 12 months ending in January, U.S. prices fell 3.0 percent. Since its peak in April 2007, the monthly index is down 4.1 percent….
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From MarketWatch: Home prices fall a record 10.7% in past year Home prices in 20 major U.S. metro areas have plunged a record 10.7% in the past year as prices continued to decelerate, Standard & Poor’s said Tuesday.The 20-city Case-Shiller home price index fell a record 2.4% in January, the 18th consecutive decline in prices. For 10 major cities, prices fell 2.3% in January and 11.4% for the past 12 months….
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