The "House" Doesn't Always Win
Or "Why Did I Become a Real Estate Agent?"

Is a house the "surefire" investment we've been led to believe in recent decades? Do prices always rebound quickly? Is the worst over for the housing market? If you need to move soon, should you rent or buy?...

Commercial Real Estate Crisis: NOW They Tell Us

Real Estate’s Latest Chapter
The problems of the commercial real estate market are too large to ignore.

Large commercial buildings are illiquid. This is especially true during an economic contraction and credit crunch. Although roughly half the size of the residential housing market, the commercial real estate market is still twice the size of the total U.S. stock market, so its problems are too large to ignore. They include...

Is The Housing Crisis Finally Over? The REAL State of Real Estate

UK House Prices: Why the Sudden Jump?
Is the rally in UK real estate REALLY that "unexpected"?

In Related News: Banks Are "Walking" Away From Foreclosures?
Banks follow the lead of homeowners

The mortgage catastrophe will be two years old this summer. Today's news sorely disappointed anyone who thinks the trend in housing deflation is slowing down...

Goodbye to the Psychology of Sunshine
The trend has turned in ways too conspicuous to miss

Florida still has mild winters, air conditioning, and plenty of inexpensive homes...

Housing Market: NUDE Awakening
For mature audiences only

The U.S. housing slump continues to go from worse to worser: In December, new home sales plunged to an all-time record low. And now, many homeowners are taking desperate measures to meet their monthly mortgage payments...

What Is The #1 WRONG Question About the Real Estate Market?

Median Home Prices: $30,300 LOWER
Sales Went Up Because Prices Went Down

Not to make light of real "distress," it seems to me that apart from super-wealthy homeowners, any homeowner who needs to sell would find this a distressing environment. In 2006 the median sale price of existing U.S. homes was $221,900, or $30,300 higher than today -- so if your home price was anywhere close to that 2006 median (as mine was), that's how much poorer we are.

Real Estate (Video): What's Next for Australia, Japan, China, India and Others?
If you are interested in global real estate, watch this free video

Real estate is the one financial market everyone cares about. Now that home prices are down as much as 25% in some parts of the U.S., overseas homeowners – in Europe, Asia and Australia – are starting to worry about what will happen to values of their homes. Watch this free video for some answers.

When Will the Media Get It? Someone Did Foresee the Credit Crisis
Elliott investors were prepared for the housing crisis and ensuing mayhem, despite the "all is well" media.

Conquer the Crash Delivered Today's News in 2002
The forecasts in Bob Prechter’s best-selling book, Conquer the Crash, are coming true like falling dominoes.

The truly remarkable part of the story is how early he saw them. Bob described the ways that many dominoes would fall before some of them were even set up. His earlier book, At the Crest of the Tidal Wave was published in 1995, while Conquer the Crash was in 2002. This was years before the gathering storm became obvious to “Dr. Doom,” (the New York Times’ name for economist Nouriel Roubini) who described parts of the bursting bubble in 2006.

Real Estate and "Phone Book Guys"
Banks are exercising options to call in the good loans -- now that most the bad ones have been written off.

In the U.S, they have become as ubiquitous as hotdog street vendors, or a McDonald's at every highway exit – lawyer ads on the back of the phone book. In the age of Blackberries, phone books aren’t what they used to be, and those back-cover ads are unbelievably expensive. Yet, with the lawsuit now pending by the state of New York against Swiss bank UBS AG, those phone book lawyer guys are likely to get a whole lot busier...

Ba-dum -- Jaws Sinks Teeth into Housing on Both Sides of Atlantic

Remember the movie Jaws? Now we've got a housing shark as big as Jaws, and when it attacks, it takes out economies, too. Where will it strike next?

Fannie, Freddie Signal Bigger Problems for U.S. Economy
The chaos in housing is just the leading edge of a 'great transformation.'

The chaos in housing is just the leading edge of a “great transformation,” one that extends beyond real estate to the larger economy and many aspects of our everyday lives. See this story about Fannie Mae's recent troubles.

U.S. House Prices Down 14%, But 12 Nations Face Worse
IMF reports on global housing

Although we've become accustomed to negative news about U.S. home prices and foreclosures, perhaps it's worth looking outside of the U.S. of A. to see how other countries are doing. Surprise – home prices in 12 nations have gapped up much more than in the United States.

Credit Crunch: Millions of Dumb Decisions, In Their Own Voice

Over the weekend I listened to a podcast from "This American Life" about the housing crisis. It was an exceptionally well-done story, which combined simple explanations of the crisis with personal interviews of people who helped create it. And I do mean "create" -- everyone from the manager of a massive hedge fund specializing inCDOs (collateralized debt obligations), to a guy with no full-time job and bad credit who managed to get a $540,000 home equity loan...

Housing Market: Fallen Horse

In many ways, the May 3 Kentucky Derby tragedy is not unlike the fateful events unfolding in the U.S. real estate market, otherwise known as the mournal Housing Race... The downfall of the housing bull, however, was not a "freak accident," unforeseeable until the damage was already done...

How Mania Psychology Trumped Swiss Banking
Or, How a European Stereotype Went "Boom"

Subprime debt was on the mind of some 4,200 shareholders who assembled this week in Bern, Switzerland for UBS's annual shareholder meeting. Sentiment at the gathering was described as "raucous" (which to my mind suggests that if the crowd was anything but mostly Swiss, their emotional state may well have incited an all-out, chair-throwing spasm of violence). Shareholders received assurances that UBS's top executives and board would be repopulated by bankers with more conservative instincts; they were also told that the firm was very sorry and wouldn't do it anymore. Assurances aside, the plight at UBS begs the question: How could a revered institution -- which represents a centuries-old tradition of "confidence, security, and discretion" in banking -- become a case study in irresponsible asset management?