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Hottest Listings in Orange County 2-18-2012
Redfin is the most popular real estate search site in Southern California. They track the most popular listings based on the number of views each receives. Below are some of the most viewed property...
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With prices at 10-year lows and falling, renting is back in style
When the housing market nears the bottom, despair dominates. Prices have fallen for five straight years and hover at 10-year lows, and real estate is out of favor as an investment class. Evidence of...
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Sales down, prices down, shadow inventory abundant, and Shiller says prices...
The frenzy over the possibility of a bottom in the housing market needs to be tempered by the reality of the current market situation. Despite relative affordability, sales volumes are low and...
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Principal reduction transfers the pain from lenders and loan owners to...
I have two strongly held views on foreclosure and principal reduction that are completely at odds with the drivel in the mainstream media. First, foreclosures are not a problem. In fact, foreclosures...
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Are rising house prices and low-cost Ponzi debt necessary for an economic...
Everyone is focused on making house prices go up. Banks need higher house prices to recover the capital they put into trillions of dollars of toxic mortgages. Loan owners need house prices to go up to...
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What happened to the MLS inventory?
Since the housing bust began, the banks have largely controlled the inventory of homes on the MLS. At first, they flooded the MLS with subprime foreclosures, but with mark-to-fantasy accounting, they...
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The California Social Contract (redux)
Satire is often more revealing than detailed explanations. The pathology of a collection of beliefs becomes apparent when the natural end result of a group of people acting on those beliefs is an...
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New home starts surpass lowest pre-bubble low of last 45 years
Bullishness is everywhere in real estate these days. People who follow the new construction market are touting the year-over-year increases with great exuberance. Homebuilding is certainly coming back,...
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Banks squeeze market supply further to juice prices
Banks are enjoying the market’s recent strength as collateral value returns to back their bad loans. Homeowners who aren’t distressed don’t mind either, but it’s the banks that benefit the most from...
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Will increasing use of adjustable-rate mortgages lead to future delinquencies?
When mortgage interest rates spike suddenly, many buyers move away from fixed-rate mortgages to adjustables because the interest rate is more favorable, and ARMs allow them to complete the purchase...
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