Real Estate and Housing Information

HOUSING: Region sees 1,600 fewer foreclosures so far this year (Tonawanda News)
In the face of a collapse in the national housing market, the Buffalo-Niagara Falls region has actually seen a decrease in the number of home foreclosures, an industry group reported Monday.

Budget woes have Oakland mulling bankruptcy (San Francisco Chronicle)
Even though city officials would prefer to avoid a public conversation, behind closed doors the Oakland City Council has discussed filing for bankruptcy protection in the midst of a $100 million budget deficit. "We have asked the (bankruptcy) question because...

Durbin presses Geithner on foreclosures (The Hill)
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) criticized the Obama administration Tuesday for not doing enough to stem foreclosures.

Stock market woes hit Stowe, Vt., second-home market (USA Today)
A population of haves and have-nots has created a two-sided housing market in Stowe, Vt., in Lamoille County. Stowe is a New England resort town that attracts affluent vacation home buyers. But the county also has small, rural towns where residents own moderately priced homes. Stowe has a second-home market that relies on executives from the financial services industry in New York and Boston. ...

AP analysis: recession' grip eases in April (AP via Yahoo! News)
The economy's tailspin gave way to a more controlled descent in the spring, according to The Associated Press' monthly analysis of economic stress in more than 3,100 U.S. counties. Still, troubles persist in California related to the housing bust and in the Midwest, pounded by manufacturing layoffs.

Economist: Housing bubble caused Great Depression, too (The Bellingham Herald)
BELLINGHAM - Nobel Prize-winning economist Vernon Smith draws some disturbing parallels between the

Builders absorb foreclosures left by Corinthian bankruptcy (BizJournals)
Builders in the 497-home Riverwalk on the Harpeth subdivision in Bellevue pitched in to fix a slew of foreclosures left behind by bankrupt builder Corinthian Custom Homes.

Foreclosures up in May, down from last year (The Oakland Press)
Residential home foreclosures spiked back up in May after tracking at a lower rate than last year for the first four months, but foreclosures are still running 2,000 behind last year after five months.

Modifications May Reduce Foreclosures to 6.4 Million (Update1) (Bloomberg)
June 8 (Bloomberg) -- Additional U.S. home foreclosures will probably total 6.4 million by mid-2011, about 2.5 million less than if mortgages weren’t being reworked to aid borrowers, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. analysts.

Debriefing Liz Ann Sonders (Forbes)
Charles Schwab's CIO on how she discovered the housing bubble early on.

Obama wants to speed outflow of stimulus funds (Dallas Morning News)
President Barack Obama said Monday that he would accelerate spending billions of dollars in stimulus funds and create 600,000 jobs this summer - three days after learning that unemployment rose to its highest level in almost 26 years.

Sonders Saw Housing Bubble Early (Forbes)
Charles Schwab's chief investment strategist says the recession may have already ended.

PAUL KRUGMAN: STATE OF PARALYSIS (The Indiana Gazette)
California, it has long been claimed, is where the future happens first. But is that still true? If it is, God help America. The recession has hit the Golden State hard. The housing bubble was bigger there than almost anywhere else, and the bust has been bigger, too.

Architecture firms share office space, staff to make ends meet (BizJournals)
The bursting of the housing bubble and ensuing recession slashed annual billings in half at Gordon Rogers Architecture. The construction slowdown handed TPC Architects Inc., which specializes in churches, a similar fate.

May foreclosures increase 14% over last year (St. Cloud Times)
St. Cloud-area foreclosures continue at a steady pace as the recession unfolds, according to the most recent data available.