Do We Just Hand California Back To The Bank?

08-01-2009 • HousingDoom.com

 About 1 in 10 Californians with a home loan is now in default, and there’s growing evidence that the mortgage meltdown is spreading to commercial real estate.

U.S. House Prices Haven’t Bottomed Yet

07-31-2009 • Ritholtz.com/blog & CalculatedRisk.com

 Turnover in the American real-estate market may be bottoming, but prices are unlikely to do so for some time. History suggests they’ll keep drifting for another year or two before they find a floor.

Sharecropper Nation: House Passes Foreclosure Rental Bill

07-31-2009 • HousingWire.com

 The House of Representatives this week passed a bill that would authorize federally-insured depository institutions and banks to lease real estate-owned homes for a limited period of time — up to five years.

Housing Bottom? No, The Mother Of All Head Fakes

07-31-2009 • BusinessInsider.com/

 Whitney Tilson of T2 Partners calls the May numbers "the mother of all head fakes." He--and the two analysts below--think house prices will resume their decline in the fall

U.S. housing misery poised to enter new phase

06-28-2009 • Reuters.com

 The bulk of recent foreclosures was on prime, fixed-rate loans, extended to the most credit-worthy borrowers and the bedrock of home ownership in America.

When Is It Cheaper to Ditch a Home Than Pay

06-28-2009 • blogs.WSJ.com

 One out of four defaults on mortgage loans is “strategic,” a new study says, due to a mortgage’s value exceeding the value of a house even if the homeowner can afford to pay.

Dilbert: The Revenge of the Renters

06-28-2009 • CalculatedRiskblog.com

 Enjoy

New Research on Homeowners Walking Away

06-27-2009 • CalculatedRiskblog.com

 Homeowners start to default once their negative equity passes 10% of the home’s value. After that, they “walk away massively” after decreases of 15%. About 17% of households would default — even if they could pay the mortgage...

How Bad Is the Recession? Check New Home Sales

06-26-2009 • NYtimes.com/

 There have been bad housing markets before, but never in post-World War II history has the market for new homes suffered as badly as it has in this decline.