Category: Financing

Foreclosures reached the highest level on record in June as foreclosure filings rose for the fourth month in a row, according to the latest RealtyTrac foreclosure report. Notices of default, auction sale notices and bank repossessions were reported on more than 1.5-million properties in the first half of the year. Some 1,528,364 properties received notices… Continue reading Foreclosures Set New Records

Housing Market Conditions Improving Housing indicators are showing that markets are making slow strides towards improving conditions. Boosted by the first time buyers’ $8,000 federal tax credit and other incentives, home sales are up in many of the hardest hit urban markets, including Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Phoenix. Additionally, government insured mortgage applications hit… Continue reading Housing Market Conditions Improving

By Mike Colpitts The repeal of the law that produced the current housing depression was made by Congress in 1999, and it took just eight years before it would nearly destroy the U.S. economy. At the peak of the real estate bubble lobbyists gave more than $350-million to members of Congress. Lawmakers passed laws that… Continue reading Money Trail of Housing Bust Leads to Congress

Graveyards of the Housing Bust By Mike Colpitts They are littered from coast to coast and do not discriminate. Zombie subdivisions and housing developments are scattered across the nation like nothing since the Great Depression. They are the wreckage of failed developments and urban sprawl gone mad during the real estate boom, left to rot… Continue reading Graveyards of the Housing Bust are Zombie Developments

As the U.S. government attempts to repair the broken capitalistic system and come up with a full housing rescue plan, hopes rise that the troubled market will recover from the worst economic housing depression in history. The bottom of housing market price deflation is now forecast by Housing Predictor to develop in the final quarter… Continue reading Forecasting the Bottom of the Housing Market

By John Hines Economist A surge in multiple offers to buy homes is sweeping the country and pumping up home sales. The Obama administration’s housing plan is beginning to make an impact from Fort Meyers Beach, Florida to the Great Lakes all the way across to hard hit California. In Sacramento, California where the housing… Continue reading Surge in Multiple Offers Sparks Markets

By Kevin Chiu They’re not known for being real estate hot beds, but small college towns have been recognized by real estate investors for being the rare exception in economic downturns for decades. San Luis Obispo, California and Auburn, Alabama deep in the heart of Dixie are an unlikely pairing that illustrates exceptions in America’s… Continue reading Happy Housing Times in College Towns

By John Hines Economist As financial bubbles pop negativity eases. The negative feed back loop in economics goes like this: Negative feedback begets negative feedback and the economy worsens. When people think things are bad they reinforce the idea that the economy is bad and then spend less, scrimp and save and the economy worsens.… Continue reading Negativity Eases as the Bubble Pops

By Mike Colpitts All economic downturns have their own identifiers. Mega-sized government bailouts are intended to produce a return of powerful market forces, and this economic recession has more than a large chance of turning into an economic depression. But for all of its failures this current financial crisis is taking on its own powerful… Continue reading Preparing for the Next Real Estate Boom

As many as 12-million more homes could be in jeopardy of foreclosure in the nation’s growing foreclosure epidemic, which accounts for nearly 1 out of 12 homes. The rise in homeowners at risk has resulted from the senate’s failure to pass a bill forcing “cram downs” in bankruptcy courts. The senate’s decision came on a… Continue reading Foreclosures May Top 12 Million