Housing

Nationwide Building Society released its monthly house price index for the UK showing an annual rate of decline of 8.1%, the highest since UK house prices began falling last year. This suggests that UK house prices are accelerating through…

Robert Samuelson has written an excellent piece describing how the U.S. has become obsessed with residential property to its detriment. The result has been over- and malinvestment in homes that will take years, if not decades to…

After the credit and housing bubble created by Greenspan's Fed caused people to turn away from fixed rate mortgages, a return to sanity has heralded its return to prominence. A full 70% of mortgages taken out in the first half of 2008 were…

The Case Shiller Index is out again and a number of areas are looking a bit better including Denver, Atlanta, Boston, Minneapolis, Portland, and Dallas. Overall, it seems the acceleration in house price falls has come to an end.…

Hank Paulson, the U.S. Treasury Secretary has decided that the German Covered Bond is a solution to many of the woes of the U.S. housing market meltdown. He is backed by four large U.S. banks: Bank of America, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase…

Canada is one of the last bubble markets to hit the wall. Buoyed by the commodities boom in the west, Canada looked set to keep on an upward path even while its largest trading partner, the U.S. had already started to see a bust. But,…

Ron Paul sounds off on the housing bill that was just passed. This bill has more problems associated with it than any bill we have seen enacted to counteract the economic downturn. The moral hazard, the lack of congressional oversight, and…

Consumer credit quality is weakening across the US, especially in the former housing boom states. While over $450 billion in credit writedowns have already been taken by the global financial sector, most of these losses ave been…

"Prime looks terrible." Those are the words of Jaime Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase regarding the future of prime mortgage loans. Wall Street analysts were ecstatic at the largely positive news in JP Morgan's earnings report even though…

Stories of commercial real estate distress in the U.S. are mounting. As the residential real estate fallout takes form, commercial real estate has come under pressure as well. The Wall Street Journal has a front-page story out today that…