Continue Reading Add comment October 28th, 2008
Home prices fell in August for the 25th consecutive month and prices in 10 major markets plunged a record 17.7% year over year, according to a key index of real estate values released Tuesday.
Continue Reading Add comment October 28th, 2008
A New York condo developer is offering to let buyers back out of contracts signed between now and Election Day if Barack Obama fails to win the presidency.
The New York Times asks if this is a gimmick. I think I can answer that question. Yes, it is a gimmick. It’s going over big with journalists, but I wonder how it will influence people who have real money on the line.
Continue Reading Add comment October 28th, 2008
It seems that the most-damaged housing markets – such as Phoenix, Miami, San Diego, and Las Vegas – only got worse in August, according to the S&P/Case Shiller home value 20-city index for August released today. That’s no surprise. What’s interesting to me is that cities such as Boston and Cleveland were climbing into positive territory (The Boston real estate market was one of the first to fall in 2005 and it seems to be recovering sooner than other metros).
Cleveland values increased 1.1% in August compared to July and Boston metro area values, which rose 0.1% from the previous month, have been positive for five straight months. Dallas, which had been positive for four straight months, fell slightly in August.
Sadly, the mid-September financial market meltdown is likely to have weakened these markets. We’ll have to study the next couple months of housing reports to see how much damage the rising unemployment and falling stock market have done. Buyers are more anxious and so are lenders, a combination that isn’t likely to lead to more transactions.
“What we’ve learned was a housing upturn was happening in the non-speculative markets,” John Silvia, chief economist for Wachovia told me today. “Then we got the credit shock that could have easily terminated or flattened that improvement.”
Continue Reading Add comment October 28th, 2008
As if it weren’t bad enough that home prices are going down (way down), the cost of homeowners insurance is also moving in the wrong direction: up (in some areas, way up).
Continue Reading Add comment October 28th, 2008
CB Richard Ellis promoted Silvio Petriello to executive vice president. As a tenant representative specializing in boutique financial services firms, Petriello arranges the acquisition and disposition of commercial office space in the New York metropolitan area and across the country. Starting at CBRE as an associate in 2000, Petriello’s rise to executive vice president is one of the fastest in the firm’s history. Read more »
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