Housing Bubble Articles and Real Estate Bubble Articles

Housing Bubble Articles and Real Estate Bubble Articles

Phoenix Housing Bubble

In Phoenix, only the lucky get to buy a house

The Globe and Mail: In Phoenix, only the lucky get to buy a house

Buyers chosen by lottery in a market that some fear is a bubble,

SHAWN McCARTHY writesBy SHAWN MCCARTHY

Monday, May 30, 2005 Page B1

NEW YORK — In the red-hot housing market of Phoenix, Ariz., home builders post warning signs in their new subdivisions: “No Investor Sales.”

But even without the froth generated by investors and speculators, new homes are selling at a frenzied pace as buyers are chosen by lottery because supply is so tight. Lured by low interest rates, young families and snow birds are scrambling to get into the market before rising prices drive it out of reach.

Despite all the talk of an unsustainable housing bubble in the United States, some industry analysts argue that powerful economic and demographic forces should prevent the kind of price collapse that ended the dot-com stock market mania of the late 1990s.

Economist David Lereah at the National Association of Realtors doesn’t believe there is a national real estate bubble, but acknowledges some markets in California, Florida and the Southwest could be seen as bubbles.

San Francisco Bay Area Housing Bubble

Inside Bay Area – Home

Bay Area housing costs top U.S. list
San Mateo County is No. 1 in survey, Alameda County ranks sixth
By Michele R. Marcucci, STAFF WRITER

SAN MATEO COUNTY: 3 bed, 2 bath house, great views of open space, excellent schools. Convenient to parks, San Francisco, Silicon Valley. Best weather. Price …” ah, you probably can’t afford it.
After all, San Mateo County has the highest home values in the nation, according to a new analysis of 2003 census data released last week.

The analysis of American Community Survey data, which included counties and cities with populations of 250,000 people or more, ranked San Mateo County tops for median home values, at $644,331 — more than four times the national average of $139,759.

San Francisco, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties were next on the list, each with median home values passing the half-million-dollar mark. Alameda County ranked sixth, Sonoma County eighth and Contra Costa County 11th.

Florida Real Estate Bubble

It’s Not a Bubble Until It Bursts: South Florida Sun-Sentinel

It’s Not a Bubble Until It Bursts

Although ignoring real estate bears has been profitable lately, doom is again on some lips.

By David Streitfeld
Times Staff Writer
Posted May 29 2005

The chief economist for the Mortgage Bankers Assn. is worried enough about the torrid housing market to get out of it.

“I’m going to rent for a while,” said Douglas Duncan, who expects “significant reversals” in regions that have enjoyed strong home price appreciation, including Washington, D.C., Florida and California. He plans to sell his suburban Washington home, which has tripled in value since he bought it a dozen years ago, and move into an apartment.

Duncan is among a multitude of experts and consumers across the country debating the possibility of a housing bubble — a condition where prices have risen so far out of hand that they eventually crash.

California Housing Bubble

Inside Bay Area – Argus – Local News

California’s housing bubble won’t burst yet
Bay Area median prices continue to rise above national average
By Michele R. Marcucci, STAFF WRITER

SAN MATEO COUNTY: Three bed, 2 bath house, great views of open space, excellent schools. Convenient to parks, San Francisco, Silicon Valley. Best weather. Price … ah, you probably can’t afford it.
After all, San Mateo County has the highest home values in the nation, according to a new analysis of census data released last week.

The analysis of American Community Survey data, which included counties and cities with populations of 250,000 people or more, ranked San Mateo County tops for median home values, at $644,331 — more than four times the national average of $139,759.

Maryland Housing Bubble

baltimoresun.com – Sizzling real estate market attracts fledgling investors

Sizzling real estate market attracts fledgling investors
Increasing numbers draw on equity of family home
By Jamie Smith Hopkins
Sun Staff
Originally published May 29, 2005
Twenty-five residential properties for sale, nearly 250 hopeful buyers. It’s an auction. It’s a frenzy.

“It’s … the market today,” says Jon Levinson, vice president of Alex Cooper Auctioneers Inc. in Towson, maneuvering his way last week through the standing-room-only crowd of investors hoping for a bargain. “This never would have happened five years ago.”

A real estate revolution is afoot: For a growing number of Americans, homes are becoming more than just a place to live. With fast-rising prices, no-money-down mortgages and stubbornly low interest rates, investing in a second or even a third house seems to more and more people like a can’t-lose proposition that beats jittery stocks. Investment purchases jumped 14 percent last year in the United States, some by people tapping the equity in their first homes.

But experts are warning that some parts of the nation are trapped in housing bubbles where prices have been wildly inflated by speculators caught up in the same mania that infected the stock market in the late 1990s. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who famously called that unsustainable run-up in stocks “irrational exuberance,” is now saying there are pockets of “froth” in the U.S. housing market.

“We don’t perceive that there is a national bubble,” he told the Economic Club of New York about a week ago, “but it’s hard not to see that … there are a lot of local bubbles.”