Archive for the ‘housing’ tag
More than a stimulus
The stimulus bill wasn’t quite enough. There had been criticism that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act didn’t address the heart of the current crisis - falling housing prices. Now we know why: yesterday President Obama unveiled a $275 billion plan dedicated to this very cause.
Currently, one in ten houses are in some stage of [...]
Renter’s New Leverage
In the same way a rising tide lifts all boats, a sinking one brings down those around it. With housing prices continuing to fall, renters suddenly have more leverage:
Early in the housing crisis, former homeowners were starting to rent again, supporting demand for rentals. Now, with more newly constructed condos being converted into rental units, landlords [...]
Foreclosures Up 81% in 2008
The American home is an asset in free fall - I have never been so relieved to be a renter.
Foreclosure filings in 2008 jumped up 81% from the year before:
U.S. foreclosure filings jumped 81 percent last year as falling house prices, tighter mortgage lending and the longest recession in a quarter century battered property owners, RealtyTrac [...]
Homeownership Subsidies
[Via Marginal Revolution]
An interesting post by Eric Posner about the subsidies we see in homeownership in this country, and the subsequent distortions it causes in the housing markets:
Home ownership has some attractive features—you needn’t fight with your landlord, or worry that he will terminate the lease—but it is basically an enormous financial gamble that many people, [...]
Housing Price Decline
Hardly news, I know, but housing prices continue to decline:
The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home-price index, a closely watched gauge, fell 2.2% in October from September and 18% from a year earlier, the sharpest declines in the data’s two-decade history. The index has fallen 23.4% since its mid-2006 peak, pushing prices back down to March 2004 [...]
Housing Price Hemorrhage
The news today shouldn’t come as a real surprise - mostly a corroboration of what we already knew: housing prices continue to fall:
Sales of single-family houses in the U.S. dropped in November by the most in two decades and resale prices collapsed at a pace reminiscent of the Great Depression, dashing speculation the market was [...]
