FHA Repudiates Housing Rescue Bill [naked capitalism] We've taken a dim view of plans to use government sponsored enterprises like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and the Federal Housing Administration as vehicles to prop up a housing market that, even with its decline to date, is still overpriced in many areas of the country relative to incomes.
For This, We Need Harvard? [Motley Fool]
For the first year or so of the current housing apocalypse, investors kept waiting for the market to hit bottom. But lately, there's an emerging recognition that the debacle may be here to stay for a good, long while.
That feeling was enhanced Monday by a study that emerged from the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard. While it emanated from the nation's oldest -- and some would say, finest -- institution of higher learning, the study really didn't plow new ground. Indeed, it probably didn't plow all the ground it should have.
Study: Bargain-hunters may soon end California's real estate 'free fall' [SJ Mercury News]
The "free fall" phase of the California housing market bust could end soon, as bargain-hunters begin buying homes in parts of the state hardest hit by foreclosures, according to a new economic report issued by the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
Silver lining in foreclosure cloud [SFGate: Top News Stories] People who thought they could never afford a home here are buying foreclosed houses at huge discounts, sometimes more than half off the stratospheric heights they reached just a couple of years ago.
The median price of a home in California plunged 30 percent to $339,000 in May, opening doors for some first-time buyers to afford homes in the state's most depressed areas, a real estate research firm said Wednesday.
Southern California housing market still under siege [Los Angeles Times - Top News] Outlying areas like the Antelope Valley and the Inland Empire have long appealed to people who were willing to accept a burdensome commute for the chance to own a better house. But buyers are increasingly factoring gasoline costs into their purchase decisions, said Dan Griffith, a Rancho Cucamonga-based real estate agent.
Just days after being burned by LandSource Communities Development LLC's Chapter 11 filing, the California Public Employees Retirement System is reportedly mulling selling part of its $2 billion in residential land holdings.
A cold market for jumbo loans shows signs of a thaw [L.A. Times - Business] Despite the government's effort to address one of the repercussions of the sub-prime meltdown, jumbo mortgages -- those exceeding $417,000 -- have remained difficult to obtain and relatively expensive. But there are signs of normalcy returning to the jumbo market.
Land Prices Plunge The value of undeveloped parcels of residential land dropped 40.1% in Riverside County and 40% in San Bernardino County since December, according to data released by The Hoffman Co., a land brokerage firm in Irvine.
[Washington Post]
A Three-Part Series on the U.S. Housing Bust
Boom Forces converge to fuel the biggest American housing boom since the 1950s: plunging interest rates, exotic new Wall Street securities that flood the mortgage industry with cash, and easier loan packages for immigrants and others with less-than-stellar credit.
Bust Banks and other mortgage lenders notice weakness in the housing market. New houses sit unsold and foreclosures rise as people who bought homes with adjustable-rate mortgages see sharp spikes in their monthly payments. Central bankers and other watchdogs are caught by surprise.
Aftermath When subprime lenders implode, the contagion spreads quickly to Wall Street, which had packaged risky mortgage loans and sold the securities around the world. Investors panic that the housing collapse will reverberate through the rest of the economy.
In a wide-ranging report on U.S. housing released Tuesday evening, Fitch Ratings said that its “forecast for the housing sector in 2008 has become more bearish,” pointing to a soft economy, very depressed consumer sentiment, and an unaccommodating mortgage market as key factors behind the latest bearish turn at the credit rating agency.
Real estate investors watch ... and wait [Pensions & Investments - Real Estate] Residential property deals are extremely volatile and can turn bad quickly, Mr. Koster said. One example is a $1 billion land deal struck by the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, Sacramento, with San Francisco-based MacFarlane Partners in February 2007. That investment is teetering between bankruptcy filing and a cash bailout by the $248.2 billion system. “CalPERS might have to take massive write-offs,” he said. “It just shows how volatile residential is.”
