http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/S ... 0E7F86C%7D
Housing slowing in most regions, Fed says - MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Home sales and construction are slowing in most regions of the nation, according to anecdotal accounts reported by the 12 Federal Reserve banks on Wednesday in the Beige Book.
"Most districts report cooling and moderation in their residential real estate markets," the Beige Book said. "In general, year-on-year price appreciation seems to be lower than in quarters past, with [Fed banks in] San Francisco, Cleveland, Kansas City, Richmond, New York, and Boston all reporting more modest price growth in residential sales."
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogapr06/foreclosures.html
charles hugh smith-Foreclosures and Financial Ruin: How Bad Will It Get?
As stories of rising foreclosures become commonplace, one question comes to the fore: how bad will it get? A good place to start looking for answers is the government agencies tasked with safeguarding both depositors and lenders: the well-known guarantor of bank deposits, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and one of the most obscure agencies within the Federal Government, the U.S. Treasury's Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS).
Just to give you an idea of these agencies' research, consider this report from the FDIC: Scenarios for the Next U.S. Recession. Here's a very interesting chart from the report:
The FDIC staff reckons 10% of consumers will experience a "recession" (a polite term, apparently, for losing your home and/or suffering complete financial ruin). But as the Post article notes, a rising wind of foreclosures generates its own downdrafts.
That rather obvious feedback loop has ominous overtones, so the FDIC staff set out to prove all was well with a report entitled U.S. Home Prices: Does Bust Always Follow Boom? The FDIC, predictably, concluded that busts were uncommon; but their chart reveals an unmistakably unprecedented housing bubble has formed in the past five years:
http://www.boston.com/business/articles ... s_in_mass/
Housing slowdown deepens in Mass. - The Boston Globe
Single-family home sales and prices in Massachusetts fell 1.5 percent in March, capping a first quarter in which sales slowed dramatically from the previous year, according to a housing report released yesterday.
''Inventory is at record highs, so buyers are taking their time," said David Wluka, president of the Massachusetts Association of Realtors. ''They can pick among several houses so they don't feel the pressure."
http://www.rismedia.com/index.php/artic ... 14241/1/1/
Foreclosures Soar 63 Percent over Last Year
RISMEDIA, April 19, 2006—RealtyTrac(TM) (
www.realtytrac.com), the leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties, today released its March 2006 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, which shows 101,597 properties nationwide entered some stage of foreclosure in March, a 13 percent decrease from the previous month but a 63 percent increase from March 2005. The report shows a March national foreclosure rate of one new foreclosure for every 1,138 U.S. households.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/business/c ... _0426.html
Condo construction halted; lender files for bankruptcy
When a Las Vegas lender plunked down money from retirees, investors and even a medical research firm's pension fund to finance construction of a West Palm Beach high-rise condo, everyone gambled that red-hot Florida real estate was a sure thing.
Low-income residents of the apartment complex moved, heavy construction equipment rolled in, millions of dollars were borrowed and dozens of investors saw double-digit returns on investments.
Now, all bets are off.
Lender USA Commercial Mortgage Co. and its related companies — better known as USA Capital — filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Nevada on April 14. The filing follows a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation of how the company and its affiliates financed construction projects.
"Up until last week, we had no inkling that anything was wrong," said Virgil Birgen of Nevada, who, with his wife, invested $150,000 to build Sail Club at Clear Lake.
About 200 people from across the country gave Nevada-based USA Capital or a sister company money to fund the four-tower, 590-unit luxury high-rise on Executive Center Drive.
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot. ... s-nar.html
Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: FAR vs NAR
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060426/bs_ ... 42606_dc_1
Finance: Your house as a nest egg - Yahoo! News
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Do you think your house is your retirement nest egg? Think again, say some financial advisers.
Many, if not most, homeowners do expect to retire "on the house" according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.
But at the same time they are reducing their own equity by borrowing against their homes for other expenses. They may be counting on inflated home values that could fall by the time they are ready to sell and move. They may be counting on a resource they never really want to sell.
In other words, they may not be being very realistic.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/ ... 7618.story
Number of unsold homes South Florida balloons over 2005 levels: South Florida Sun-Sentinel
A deluge of homes for sale is hampering South Florida's housing market, causing sales to slow considerably and prices to retreat from last fall's record high.
Sales of existing homes in March fell 32 percent in Broward County compared with March 2005, the Florida Association of Realtors said Tuesday. The median price was $368,100, down slightly from the beginning of the year, and up just 11 percent from last March.
With November's $391,100 peak a distant memory, some analysts expect year-over-year median-price declines -- unheard of in the recent boom years -- during the next few months.