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WASHINGTON - Sales of new homes plunged by the largest amount in nearly nine years in February while the median price of a new home dropped for the fourth straight month, providing fresh evidence that the nation's once-booming housing market is cooling off. The Commerce Department reported that sales of new single-family homes dropped by 10.5 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual sales pace of 1.08 million homes. It was the second straight monthly decline and was much bigger than the small 2 percent dip that Wall Street was expecting. The drop in new home sales followed news...

Sales of existing homes unexpectedly rose last month as a warmer than usual winter boosted demand in many parts of the country, but a slack demand in some areas produced what one analyst called a "tale of two cities." The National Association of Realtors reported Thursday that that sales of existing single-family homes and condomiums rose by 5.2 percent in February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.91 million units. Analysts said the weather-related boost was likely to be short-lived with sales expected to slow again in coming months as rising mortgage rates further cool the housing market which...

Americans may feel richer because of soaring home prices, but they're not. U.S. families' wealth stagnated during the economy's recession and recovery from 2001 through 2004, as lackluster wage growth, sagging stock prices and rising debt levels offset the gains from higher home values, the Federal Reserve reported Thursday in its latest Survey of Consumer Finances.Home prices jumped nearly 27 percent during the survey period, and the share of households owning homes rose to 69.1 percent in 2004, the report said. That made Americans feel good. And it did help boost the total value of families' assets — such as...

Despite fears in the marketplace about a U.S. housing bubble, about 60 percent of homeowners expect the value of their homes to increase by at least 5 percent annually during the next several years, according to an online survey of 1,001 American consumers. According to the survey findings, released by RBC Capital Markets, the corporate and investment banking arm of RBC Financial Group, 24 percent of respondents said they expect annualized gains of 10 percent or more over the next few years. About 3 percent of respondents said they expect their home values to decline over the next few years....

LANCASTER [California]- Prices paid for existing homes in the Antelope Valley rose more than 20% in the last year, while some areas of Santa Monica and Pasadena saw median home values fall 20%. Reports from the Data Quick News service support projections from the California Association of Realtors, or CAR, that the rate of home-price appreciation will moderate next year. Sales in 2006 will decline slightly from this year's record pace, according to the Association's "2006 Housing Market Forecast" released Sept. 20 to 22. That prediction appears to be coming true in Santa Clarita, where, of less than 100 existing...

Conversations at trendy dinner parties in New York, Los Angeles, Scottsdale or Aspen can be very enlightening. Due to today's obsession with being thin, you won't eat a lot at these gatherings, but you will learn a lot. Around 1998-1999, dinner party talk in L.A. and most cities was centered around the lucky ones who had just made a killing by selling their company for a huge price, all-cash, to something like dogwithfleas.com, or terrible-idea.com, or totallyhotair.com, or other similar concepts that are now on the junk pile of American financial history. By the summer of 2000, the talk was...

IT HAS been a year of mixed results, mostly bad ones for ordinary Americans. * * * The government's key rate, on 10-year Treasury bonds, is a tad below 4 percent, less than three-quarters of a point above the overnight bank loan rate the Federal Reserve had just increased. * * * This unusual phenomenon has been occurring straight through the nine increases in the so-called federal funds rate * * * where it hasn't been since the summer of 2001 when the Fed began cutting it like crazy to help stave off a recession after the bursting of the...

SAN FRANCISCO - California has a housing bubble, but it may not pop with a bang, UCLA researchers said in a quarterly economic forecast. “There is no reason that a house should be worth 40 percent more today than it was two years ago,” UCLA Anderson Forecast economist Christopher Thornberg wrote in a report. “This is a bubble.”

The end of an inflated housing market will likely lead to a recession after April 2006 that hits hard in Southern California, where so many jobs and so much economic activity are dependent on the real estate market, according to the quarterly UCLA Anderson Forecast. Economists at UCLA's Anderson School of Management said in the report released Tuesday that the housing market is artificially propping up the economy, particularly in Southern California. They predicted that falling consumer spending on housing would precipitate a recession as it has in nine of the last 10 recessions. Ed Leamer, director of the Anderson...

U.S. housing bubble may pop Economists warn of slowdown in the economy by year's end By Dean Calbreath UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER June 21, 2005 By the end of the year, America's bubbling housing prices will likely flatten or pop, causing an economic slowdown, economists warned in a flurry of reports yesterday and today. Red flags issued by such diverse sources as the Merrill Lynch investment firm, the University of Maryland and the UCLA Anderson Forecast warn that a stumble in housing prices could take a major bite out of economic growth, damaging the already weak job market. Other signs of...

Wall Street's blue chips end the day on a down note, as Standard & Poor's cuts its debt rating on both General Motors and Ford Motor to junk status saying their outlook is negative. GM and Ford both released statements saying they were disappointed in the S&P action and that they were committed to improving performance quickly. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged on the news around midday, but fought its way back to a closing loss of 44 points at 10,340. The Nasdaq closed off a fraction at 1,961. Red Hot Real Estate Market is a "Bubble." Novices may...

As the debate over the existence of a real estate bubble rages, the most persuasive case in favor continues to be made by those firmly committed to the opposite point of view. Such was the case with several recent articles that should give even the most ardent real estate bulls cause for concern. A New York Times article of April 17, 2005 entitled "Seeking Nest Eggs Investors Buy Nests," chronicles the recent deals of several New York actual, and wannabe, real estate moguls. Although the figures profiled varied largely in terms of wealth and experience, two threads that united them...

The Fed sees bubbles -- and keeps them secret In public, the Federal Reserve says there's no housing bubble. But the Fed also said there was no stock market bubble in 1999. Behind closed doors, the governors knew there was. By Bill Fleckenstein Our Fed chairman has argued (most recently last October, in a speech to America’s Community Bankers Annual Convention) that for a variety of reasons, real estate cannot experience a bubble. Yet anyone with a pulse can see wild speculation taking place all around them. At the height of the stock-market bubble in the first quarter of 2000,...

<p>Real estate bubble has to burst, doesn’t it?</p> <p>Pop!</p> <p>That is the sound of the real estate bubble bursting. And it’s a good thing. It is obvious to me that today’s real estate prices are a speculative bubble that is about to burst. Of course, this has been obvious to me for about three decades, and I’ve been wrong almost all of that time. Nevertheless.</p>

A powerful Washington lawmaker wants Franklin Raines and other former and current Fannie Mae executives to fork over the more than $18 million in bonuses they got over three years if fraudulently inflated profits led to the payout. Raines and Timothy Howard were given the boot four days before Christmas after the Securities and Exchange Commission ruled the company wrongly applied some accounting rules that inflated profits from 2001-2004........may lead to a $9 billion restatement of profits over that period. The bonuses — including $10.6 million to Raines — were tied to Fannie Mae hitting certain profit targets. The Department...

MILWAUKEE - In a pilot program described as the first of its kind, an agency created by the state government is making it easier for illegal immigrants in Wisconsin to obtain mortgage loans. Immigrants who do not have Social Security numbers - a common requirement for loans - can use an alternative government-issued tax number to get financing for new homes, under the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority (WHEDA) program. Many holders of the Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) are living and working illegally in this country, even though they pay taxes. Some say the Wisconsin program is an...

Like most people with even a passing interest in matters relating to business, I have been reading articles in financial periodicals and have heard the prognostications of many economists concerning a looming “Real Estate Bubble” for at least the past three years. Regardless of the logical and empirical approach to much of the research that has been shared on this subject, my own analysis has been quite contrary to these bearish assertions. However, some recent events have begun to weaken my resolve, and lead me to believe that the residential real estate market is indeed beginning to behave in an...

<p>Higher mortgage rates don't just take the fun out of refinancing. They could also reduce home prices in some parts of the country.</p> <p>As interest rates rise from the summer's lows, that is one of the bigger risks in the economy for Americans whose best-performing asset over the past few years has been their home. But it would be a mixed blessing for buyers already priced out of many market. They might pay less for the house but would face higher borrowing costs. A 25-city analysis by Fidelity National Financial Inc., a real-estate services provider, shows that rising rates will have a sharply different impact on various regions of the country. The study, conducted at the request of The Wall Street Journal, found that many of the markets that have seen the sharpest appreciation now stand to be the hardest hit.</p>

Still another concept American home buyers might see in the months ahead: a major move toward customizing loans aimed at new immigrants and minority renters. Spurred by President Bush's pledge to turn 5.5 million African American, Hispanic and immigrant households into homeowners during this decade, mortgage companies and banks are rolling out "cross-cultural" lending campaigns designed to accept nontraditional credit standards for mortgage approvals. Freddie Mac offers a special two-part home loan tailored to meet the religious dictates of Islam for Muslim borrowers who are prohibited from paying interest