[ex-Texan]

From March through May of this year, the average sale price of a home in Palm Beach County sold at foreclosure was just $195,705, reports RealeSTAT. That's more than $200,000 less than Palm Beach County's median home price in June 2006, which was $405,500, according to the Florida Association of Realtors.

A couple of weeks ago, I traveled over to the coast to talk to realtors. They frankly admitted that coastal properties were caught in the bubble. For sale signs have been going up like crazy. People are trying to dump their properties rapidly. If you want to educate yourself further, just visit my FR Page For the the naysayers out there, I repeat your favorite mantras: "Nothing to see here. Not in my neck of the woods. Not here, not now. Lock your doors and windows. Time to move on."

[pissant]

"Mortgage trouble is creating some of the biggest bargains this side of eBay, allowing buyers to snap up homes for tens of thousands of dollars less than what they might have paid just a few months ago."

One person's loss is another one's gain.

[the invisib1e hand]

idunno about all that. but I see the market doing its job.

[ex-Texan]

*Ping*!

[gondramB]

>>Notices of pending foreclosures are piling up, in what many believe to be the first wave of a trillion-dollar tsunami: The dollar volume of home loans with interest rates that will be ratcheted upward over the next several months.

New Palm Beach County foreclosure filings rose by 34 percent in June compared w<<

We bought our house 13 months ago - and I remember a friend teasing me for having fixed rate mortage when she and her husband were only paying 2%.

[Proud_USA_Republican]

But all the realtors were screaming buy now or be priced out forever!

[Fan of Fiat]

[fso301]

Up from 1% to 1.34%

[Paradox]

Real estate values in South Florida have gone whacky the past few years. Way overvalued IMHO. There is going to be a correction, and I believe it has already started. Its the market doing its job, as another poster has indicated. some will get hurt, alot of speculators may get burned, but thats how it goes.

[pfony1]

On the other hand, Realty Times has just reported:

---

"Bubble? Regions Housing Market Will Boom in 2006!!

It's unanimous. Experts in the Central Oregon real estate market are predicting another record-breaking year as home and land prices continue to soar with no end in sight. "People ask me if there's going to be a housing bubble in Central Oregon in 2006 and I say yes," said Dana Bratton of Bratton Appraisal Group. "We're going to see home values increase an average of $50,000 to $60,000 in value this year."

Experts, predict a national increase average of 8.9 percent with the local market eclipsing the average. The lack of inventory is driving the marker with the median home price in Bend expected to reach $360,000 before the year ends. Tim Knopp, executive director of the Central Oregon Builders Association, at the annual Real Estate Forecast Breakfast at the Riverhouse said, "The future never looked better for investors, developers, contractors, and real estate agents."

"My No. 1 investment pick is to buy another home in this market," Bratton said. "My top pick is to buy an apartment complex. Apartment construction has been flat for the past three years and the inventory has been reduced. As interest rates continue to go up and more first-time buyers are squeezed out, apartments are going to be more and more attractive. I think you'll see a $50-$75 increase in rents n 2006."

Bratton is also bullish on industrial land investment in Redmond or Prineville where lucrative enterprise zones are attracting new businesses. "Prineville is the No. 1 place where Bend residents are relocating with 242 households moving east," he said. "We've seen the biggest percentage of increase in home sales and lots in Crook County where real estate prices went up 70 percent in 2005." Bratton pointed to the booming downtown Bend retail market and predicted visitors will see four more sky cranes in operation in 2006 at an average rental cost of $1,000 a day. Height Limits have been reduced to 60 feet, and Bratton says the smart money is to sell in downtown Bend.

Light industrial land will continue to sell at a premium with very little inventory remaining in Bend. The migration of light industrial business will continue to push toward Prineville and Redmond with strong job growth in both Cities. "My last tip for everyone is to pool you resources with family and friends, for a partnership, buy a piece of Central Oregon Real Estate, watch the gains and then have a party," he said. Knopp echoed the sentiments of supply and demand for property, particularly in Bend, during his portion of the program. He said there is currently a one or two year inventory of land available in Bend under the Urban Growth Boundary and challenged city officials to expand the boundary by 2007.

"This situation (escalating land prices) was avoidable," he said. "If we have had a true 20-year supply of land, this could have been avoided. The UGB should have been expanded 10 years ago. We need to build a 50-year reserve, annex large tracts of land into the city and hope that prices will eventually level off." Despite the shortage of land, Knopp predicted that 2,000 new homes would enter the Bend market in 2006. " The homebuilder that constructs 5 to 25 units a year is starting to go to Crook and Jefferson counties," he said..."

---

In other words, current home-owners in Oregon have a lot to be happy about. And renters have a lot to be worried about.

Hmmmm...

Let me guess...

You're a "renter", aren't you?

[nicolezmomma]

Forclosures are about to explode all over Florida because of the cost of housing insurance. Many low-middle income families can't afford their new insurance rates and can't sell because everyone else is doing the same thing.

My co-worker's home insurance got canceled so had to go searching for insurance. She got a quote yesterday that was $500 more than a quote from the same company that is two weeks old. Her rate on $220,000 has gone from $1500 to $3500. We are expecting our insurance to go from $3,000 (double from a year ago) to $5,000 in December.

[Moonman62]

New Palm Beach County foreclosure filings rose by 34 percent in June compared with June of last year,

How are the nummbers compared to May, in other words month to month?

[JohnnyZ]

ex-Texan!!!! There you are ya little scammer! Maybe I haven't been looking closely but I haven't seen a chicken little thread from you in a week!

[JasonC]

Um, that isn't a sign of falling prices, it is a sign that it is the poor families in the valley that can't make their mortgage.

The 34% rise is from about 0.5% to about 0.67%.

House prices are still up year over year, substantially so. They went flat about November of last year and bottomed (very slight pullback) in February. They are flat to marginally up since then. Go to Zillow.com - we don't have to make these things up anymore.

The average American has 55% equity in their house.

US household net worth is $53 trillion.

The doomsters will tell you the world is about to end every day and twice on Sundays, but it is not only still here, but everybody and their brothers are richer every year. Like clockwork. Through every sort of technological change, every sort of political gale, through war and depression and inflation etc etc ad infinitum.

You can't sink the US economy. You can't even make a dent in it. It is a force of nature and it sweeps all before it, in majestic contempt for all the pundits on earth. Always has. Always will.

[nmh]

What you have been saying is not deniable ... even the die hard must acknowledge this.