Courtesy of NAR Research — one of the more valuable things on Facebook — comes this CNBC article on how investors are flooding the residential real estate market: The number of homes sold to investors more than doubled last year, as rising rents and low-priced distressed properties fueled demand. Investors, half of them using no … Read more
Real estate people are some of the most optimistic people I know. They have to be in order to work a business in which they don’t make a penny without a transaction getting done, and the driving motivation for the consumer is a dream: The American Dream, the Dream of Homeownership, Your Dream Home. Real … Read more
On my 7DS blog, and on AOL, I wrote about the phenomenon of super-rich people paying cash for expensive ($5m plus) homes in California. And I wondered what it is that they knew that the rest of us didn’t. Here’s the post on 7DS, and here’s the one on AOL. Well, turns out, the rich … Read more
The recent news out of California, that cash buyers have set a record in home purchases, is the kind of news that makes me go Hmmmm. I wrote about it on AOL briefly, but wanted to dive into a bit more detail here. First, the news from the LA Times (h/t: Calculated Risk): All-cash buyers grabbed … Read more
Coming off of an awesome, Hall-of-Fame type of year in which I batted .600 in predictions (or, alternatively, a year in which I only got 6 out of 10 predictions even remotely close to right, and hence am a big #FAIL), I thought I would don the Nostradamus hat once again and make foolish predictions … Read more
A month ago, I read this depressing story on the Interwebs and it’s stuck with me since. Gary Shilling, the author, runs a research service for which one would pay a presumably hefty premium — I don’t subscribe to it, so I’m going simply on what’s on that website. His conclusion is that housing prices will … Read more
It’s a chilly, rainy day here in New Jersey under iron grey skies. If where you are is sunny, and you’re feeling happy and optimistic, and you want to stay that way, let me strongly suggest that you not finish reading this post. This is where I engage in paranoid fearmongering speculation. You have been … Read more
It’s a chilly, rainy day here in New Jersey under iron grey skies. If where you are is sunny, and you’re feeling happy and optimistic, and you want to stay that way, let me strongly suggest that you not finish reading this post. This is where I engage in paranoid fearmongering speculation. You have been … Read more
James Pethokoukis writes on Reuters today (h/t: Instapundit) that the Obama Administration may be planning to eliminate many/most/all underwater mortgages in a single swoop: Rumors are running wild from Washington to Wall Street that the Obama administration is about to order government-controlled lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to forgive a portion of the mortgage … Read more