Category Archives: housing

Wow, those house prices are looking dreadful, aren’t they. Check out the headline on the front page of nytimes.com: "Home Price Index Down 15.8% in May" is the story. And the official press release from Case-Shiller is also very alarming: … Continue reading →

I got an email this morning from a reader who will, for obvious reasons, remain anonymous: Let me give you a brief history and see if you have some advice from me. I am a physician who bought an investment … Continue reading →

My latest column at Spectator Business is up online: New York, one would think, is being hit by a double whammy: monster job losses on Wall Street, combined with the deepest nationwide housing recession since the Great Depression. Given that … Continue reading →

UK house sales: down 50%, year-on-year. UK house prices: up 1.8%, with London prices up 6.9%. SAR: "Please explain". Not easy. Call it the upside of seller denial. In a down market, some homes will be sold even if nobody … Continue reading →

Nick Timiraos has an important front-page WSJ article today on the reappearance of no-money-down mortgages. At 1,500 words, it’s far too long – Robert Thomson clearly has a ways yet to go before he achieves the Murdoch dream of short … Continue reading →

Donald Trump’s Palm Beach mansion has been sold for $100 million to "little-known Russian fertilizer billionaire, Dmitry Rybolovlev": "This acquisition is simply an investment in real estate by one of the companies in which I have an interest," Mr. Rybolovlev … Continue reading →

Courtesy Michelle Leder: City State Original listing price Current price Drop Coral Gables Florida $663,000 $305,900 54% Orlando Florida $294,000 $89,000 70% Palm Beach Gardens Florida $619,000 $242,000 61% Sarasota Florida $755,000 $184,000 76% Antelope California $1,290,000 $213,000 83% Oh, … Continue reading →

Mike Simonsen shows us what’s been happening over the past year to house prices in Oakland and Berkeley: He puts forward a number of theories why this might be the case, but I think there’s one overarching reason: Berkeley, like … Continue reading →

Up until now, Robert Shiller has been spectacularly unsuccessful in (a) finding ways for investors to short the housing market, and (b) designing ETFs. So, naturally, he’s now trying to do both at once! Matthew Hougan explains the idea – … Continue reading →

Harvard’s Cassi Pittman has written a heartbreaking paper detailing the results of a series of interviews with black homebuyers in Atlanta. It turns out that if you want to know whether someone’s likely to have taken out an unsuitable or … Continue reading →

Many congratulations to David Leonhardt, who has just bought a house in Washington. Leonhardt is the person behind the NYT’s truly wonderful rent vs buy calculator, which should be the first stop of call on the internet for anybody thinking … Continue reading →

In April last year, the New York Observer declared the GM Building to be "the most valuable building in the world," and quoted Scott Latham of Cushman & Wakefield as saying it was worth more than $4 billion. Today, the … Continue reading →

The gimlet-eyed SAR found this gem in a Bloomberg story from Friday: Potential homeowners approved by [Fannie Mae’s] automated computer program will be able to borrow up to 97 percent of the value of the property, the company said… The … Continue reading →