Housing Bubble and Real Estate Market Tracker

Here's our summary of articles and data points on the housing market. It's part of Seeking Alpha's coverage of the real estate market and homebuilder stocks. Like all other topics and stock coverage from Seeking Alpha, you can have this sent to your Blackberry or desktop email by signing up for our no-spam free email subscription service.

Quote of the Day- "From the House's Mouth"

"When you're spending $100 a pound for lobster salad, what's $15 million for a home?" - Steven Gaines, a local author and Hamptons expert, on the state of the Hamptons real estate market. (Hartford Courant, May 28th)

Real Estate Sales and House Prices

• Home Prices Up in County; Sales Plunge (SGVTribune, May 29th): "California Association of Realtors: Los Angeles County's median home price for April was $596,310, up 2% from March and up 5.1% from April 2006, but 14 communities saw their median price drop.. Home sales in L.A. County fell 18.8% compared with April 2006. California's median price for April was $597,630 - 2.1% higher than February and up 6.2% from a year ago. Statewide sales plummeted by 27.8% compared with a year ago… Statewide unsold inventory index for existing, single-family detached homes in April was 10 months, compared with 5.7 months (revised) for April 2006."

• Housing Study: Many Can't Get Foot in the Door (Indianapolis Star: May 29th) Indiana: "Metropolitan Indianapolis Board of Realtors, or MIBOR, and the Builders Association of Greater Indianapolis, or BAGI study: Zionsville, the Boone County area, Brown County, Hamilton, Hendricks and Marion Counties, are among the Central Indiana areas with the least available affordable housing for low- and moderate-income consumers -- people such as police officers, firefighters and elementary school teachers…The cost of renting a one- or two-bedroom apartment was unaffordable in many areas for people in such jobs as retail sales, janitorial work and construction."

• Wall St. Boom Stirs Hamptons Home Sales (Hartford Courant, May 28th): "Hamptons, L.I.: Houses are routinely selling for $10m-$15 million, and people don't think twice about shelling out $200,000 for a summer rental… Last week… financier Ron Baron paid more than $100m for a 40-acre East Hampton property -- no home, just land -- located next to his sprawling estate… Local realtor Stuart Epstein: [Most] houses this summer are renting for between $50,000-$200,000. For that, you're likely to get a 4,500-sf home, with plenty of amenities, including a swimming pool. Some fancier houses have rented for as much as $750,000 or $800,000... (For the record, an $800,000 [summer] rental… comes out to about $8,000 per day.)"

• Assessing Ventura's Land-Use Initiative (Monterey Herald, May 27th): "The Civic Alliance report: Ventura county's housing stock has increased… about 6% overall — since 2000, as it did during the 1990s, before the Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources, or SOAR initiative. The major increase in the housing market has been in price, with the median home price rising from about $295,000 in 2000 to about $695,000 in 2006. By comparison, the median home price rose by just 25% in the 1990s. The county's affordability index [percentage of households that can afford median-priced homes] plummeted despite that salaries increased from about $62,000 in 1998 to about $82,000 in 2007."

• As Condos Rise in South Florida, Nervous Investors Try to Flee (NY Times, May 25th): "As dozens of condominium towers conceived during Florida’s real estate boom near completion, investors who snatched up units in the preconstruction phase… are increasingly trying to break contracts, even walking away from fat deposits… Boca Raton Lawyer James Ryan: One client abandoned a $340,000 deposit rather than close on a $1.6 million unit… In Miami-Dade County alone, 8,000 new condo units will be completed this year and nearly 12,000 more in 2008… Florida Association of Realtors: Condominiums in West Palm Beach and Boca Raton sold for a median price of $211,800 in March, down from $224,600 in March 2006."

• April Housing Data Surprises; Stocks Reverse Early Gains on Fear of Fed Hike (Seeking Alpha, May 25th): "Commerce Dept.: New home sales showed a seasonally adjusted monthly increase of 16.2% to 981,000 units, the highest in 14 years, far exceeding expectations of a slight up-tick. However, the median price for new homes fell a record 11.1% to $229,100. The drop suggests builders may be cutting prices to move inventory. Unit sales gains were led by the Northeast, which jumped 43.1%, but sales fell elsewhere: Midwest -28.1%, West -25.4% and South -3.4%. The SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF rallied as much as 3.4%, but ended unchanged at $35.75. Homebuilders: Toll Brothers gained 1% to $30.07 and both Hovnanian and KB Home rose 0.7% to $25.81 and $46.54, respectively."

• Home Prices Fall For 9th Straight Month (Yahoo! Finance, May 25th): "National Association of Realtors: Sales of existing homes fell by 2.6% last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.99 million units. That was the slowest sales pace since June 2003. The median price of a home fell to $220,900, an 0.8% fall from the midpoint selling price a year ago. It marked the ninth straight decline in the median price… The drop in sales was accompanied by a big jump in the number of unsold homes left on the market. They climbed to a record total of 4.2 million. It would take 8.4 months to exhaust that supply of homes at the April sales pace."

Real Estate Investing and Sentiment

• Hot Real Estate: Beach Contels (Seacoast Online, May 27th): "They're not exactly hotel rooms and they're not exactly condominiums. They're contels… the newest real estate trend to arrive at Hampton and Seabrook beaches… Contels do not have full-sized kitchens [and] the property may not be used as the owner's primary residence… The Shore Club contels range from $129,900 to $139,900, and offer a room with a balcony or small patio overlooking the marsh and Blackwater River, less than half a mile from Seabrook Beach… The Ocean Club Studio Suites at North Beach sold 24 of its 28 units overlooking the ocean in its first few weeks listed last year."

• GE Announces New EcomaginationSM Homebuilder Program (Behind the Curtains, May 24th): "Today in Los Angeles, General Electric (GE) and Masco Contractor Services' (MAS) announced the ecomagination Homebuilder Program. This new program helps residential developers and builders design homes that are… more efficient in their energy consumption and indoor water consumption than industry–accepted average new homes. In the last two years, natural gas costs have risen 42 percent and electricity costs have risen 17%, according to a report in Energy Source, March 2007. The same report noted that 86% of recent homebuyers said they would choose an energy–efficient home over one that was not energy–efficient."

Mortgates and Real Estate Lending

• Local Lenders See Comeback in Private Mortgage Insurance (Worcester Business Journal, May 28th): "In the wake of the sub-prime collapse, many borrowers see the option of PMI as a more cost-effective means of borrowing with less than a 20% down payment, said Bill Mullin, president of NE Moves, the in-house mortgage lender Coldwell Banker… Low interest rates on second mortgages and piggyback loans made them attractive… But as rates rose, "the math began to change…" Standard PMI coverage offers little to no protection to borrowers [who] traditionally have shied away from the expensive coverage... But state-subsidized policies such as MassHousing’s MI Plus program are gaining in popularity."

• From Subprime to Ridiculous in Bank Loans (Barron's, May 28th): "Never has credit been made available on such advantageous terms to private borrowers, who are using it to pay for mammoth private-equity transactions, leveraged buyouts, mergers and acquisitions… [except] subprime mortgages. We're just now seeing… the boom-and-bust cycle from subprime excesses… The highly leveraged loan market has surpassed the junk-bond market, owing in part to bankers' innovation in the form of "covenant lite" loans, which lack the strictures that senior obligations traditionally carried. Covenant-lite loans accounted for only 5% of the market in 2006, $24 billion out of $480 billion of total loans, according to credit analyst Kingman Penniman. So far this year, "cov-lites" total $70 billion out of $237 billion."

• USDA Announces New Mortgage Underwriting System (Southwest Nebraska.net, May 26th): "USDA Rural Development [reiterates the] Guaranteed Underwriting System [GUS], for approved lenders in Nebraska to process mortgage loans under its Guaranteed Rural Housing [GRH] Loan program. The GRH program is a federal loan program that assists low and moderate-income families in obtaining financing for the purchase of an existing home or construction of a new home in rural areas. No down payment is required and loans are made by local approved lenders, with USDA Rural Development issuing the guarantee on the loan… [The pilot program began in] August 2006… [with] First National Bank of Columbus [as a] pilot lenders."

Subprime Fallout and Foreclosure Impact

• Bracing for a June Swoon (Barron's, May 28th): "Credit Suisse's (CS) quantitative trading analysts: The subprime-mortgage problem will reassert itself sometime from June 11 through June 15, when the Mortgage Bankers Association issues its next delinquencies report… When the March 13 report came out, investors panicked… the S&P 500 slid about 2%... If the delinquencies report once more has that effect on the market, options volatility would jump... CS recommends [buying] July 1475 S&P puts. (The benchmark index closed at 1515 Friday.) [Also] Bear Stearns (BSC)… is perceived as having more subprime-loan exposure than other investment banks. So consider buying Bear Stearns July 140 and 145 puts."

• Getting a Fix on Foreclosure Data (LA Times, May 28th): "RealtyTrac's [foreclosure] numbers tend to top all other figures because the company counts every step in the foreclosure process — the notice of default, the auction, the house reverting to the lender — separately. One house might be tallied several times as a foreclosure... A Colorado housing official recently called RealtyTrac's numbers "ridiculous and irresponsible." The Mortgage Bankers Assn. chastised Congress for depending on the company's data… Moody's says DataQuick Information Systems numbers… are too low. DataQuick and RealtyTrac draw their numbers directly from filings in county recorders' offices. RealtyTrac's February numbers show… 142,429 foreclosure filings — one for every 86 households in the state... DataQuick reported 12,672 foreclosures."

• Bulls Ask 'What Subprime Problem?' (ContraHour in Seeking Alpha, May 24th): "Fremont General (FMT)… sold its commercial real-estate lending business to iStar Financial (SFI), a fairly sophisticated financial company… Fifth Third Bank (FITB) recently bought the troubled Florida banking arm from R&G Financial... There are willing buyers of troubled assets… In the early 1990s, investors [bought S&L] assets and loans on the cheap. It seems this real estate problem will also be fixed by the private market… The two deals confirm… The subprime and real estate problems will be contained... The liquidity tide continues to roll right over the bear's best arguments for a major market decline."

Global Impact and Alternatives To The Housing Slump

• UK Mortgage Approvals Rise in April but Lending Growth Remains Subdued – BBA (Forbes, May 29th): "In its in-depth analysis of the mortgage market in April, the British Bankers Association said the number of mortgage approvals for house purchases grew 1 pct to 64,815 from 64,183 a year earlier. The value of loans approved was up 10 pct on an annual basis to 9.9 bln stg from 9.0 bln. However the figures were down sharply from 75,098 and 11.3 bln stg in March, and indicate the UK housing market may be starting to slow."

• House Prices Crashing in Florida Catches out Many Brits (Firstrung UK, May 29th): "Hundreds of British investors who pumped their money into Florida's soaring housing market have been caught out in its spectacular collapse... Many bought apartments off-plan, hoping to sell them on at a huge profit as soon as they were built. However, they have been left with property they can't sell - even for less than the original price - because of rising interest rates and a glut of condominiums for sale. Florida house prices have been plunging for 18 months, but research shows investors in high-rise condos have been hurt the most."

• KeyBanc Upgrades Digital Realty (Forbes, May 24th): "Shares of Digital Realty Trust, which owns and manages properties designed for use by technology industry companies, rose Thursday after a KeyBanc analyst… raised his rating on the shares to "Aggressive Buy" from "Buy, [saying] the REIT's leasing prospects remain strong, demand from financial services tenants is picking up and that new developments outside London and Dublin may offer attractive income potential… Digital Realty is an investment banking client of KeyBanc. The firm has managed or co-managed a public offering for Digital Realty within the past 12 months and it expects to receive or intends to seek compensation from Digital Realty."

Macro Impact, And Will The Housing Slump Cause A Recession?

• Florida Hones Plan to Overhaul Property Taxes (Wall St. Journal, May 29th): "The Florida legislature plans… $30 billion in property-tax relief over the next five years... Reducing property-tax revenues would be painful for the city and county [governments]... But could stimulate the economy of a state that has become the epicenter of the housing bust… The [nationwide] rise in home values in recent years has boosted property-tax bills sharply. Commerce Department: The average annual property-tax burden in the U.S. stood at $1,132 per person in 2005, up 13% from 2000 in inflation-adjusted terms... Wyoming and Washington, D.C., saw… their tax bills [rise] by 49% and 42%, respectively. New Jersey's… property-tax bills, at $2,206 per capita, is up 13% from 2000."

• Collection of Taxes Runs Behind (Worcester Telegram, May 29th) Massachusetts: "Worcester City Auditor James A. DelSignore: Property tax collections are running behind levels for prior years… bankruptcies and subprime loan woes have had some effect on property tax collections… Property tax revenue [could] come in at least $2 million under estimates… Through April 7, the city had collected only $7,200 from foreclosed tax titles… [By April] last year, about $1.45 million had been collected. Foreclosure auctions have been held, so more revenue can be expected from this source in the near future, but it is likely… about $1.2 million less than last year."

• Lumber Market in Flux: Downturn in New Housing Partly Responsible for Industry Slump (Missoulian, May 28th) Montana: "Stimson Lumber Co. announced… its Bonner plywood plant closing… and scaled back operations… outside Montana as well… Lumber companies across the nation are closing mills. [They're] heavily tied to the building industry... Charles Keegan, director of forest industry research at the University of Montana: [Low new housing starts] has caused 15-25% declines in lumber and plywood prices…" The composite price for structural panels is currently $281 per thousand board feet… down from last year's price of $329. [Prices are low from imports]: Brazil and Peru [service] southern US… Canada has flooded the market with cheap lumber as it works through millions of acres of beetle-killed forests in the interior."

• James Hardie Posts Lower Q4 Adj. Earnings As Sales Decline; Declares US$0.15 Dividend (Trading Markets, May 27th): "International building materials company James Hardie Industries (JHX) announced Q4… gross profit for Q4'07 declined to US$133.8 million from US$139.5m in Q4'06. Net sales declined 7% to US$360.9m from US$389.8m in Q4'06… USA Fibre cement net sales were down 11% for the quarter as the new housing market continued to deteriorate… Building permits… an indicator of future activity, deteriorated in April and were running "significantly below" the pace of a year ago… Tightening of lending standards related to [subprime mortgage] problems is causing increased uncertainty over the short to medium-term outlook for credit availability and demand for new housing. Sales for fiscal Q1'08 were expect to be affected by the weaker housing market."

Homebuilders And Housing Stocks

• Richard Pzena Buys Amgen Inc., Black & Decker Corp., Regis Corp., Sells Abbott Laboratories, Seagate Technology, Sherwin-Williams Co. (Guru Focus, May 27th): "Richard Pzena has achieved more than 16% a year since 1996, beating S&P's 9.3% by wide margains… Portfolio additions: 1) Freddie Mac (FRE)… purchase prices: $59.28-$66.37. 2) Fannie Mae (FNM) ($53.42-$59.27). 3) Home Depot (HD) ($36.77-$41.2). 4) Countrywide Financial Corp. (CFC) ($33.6-$44.72). 5) Sealy Corporation (ZZ) $14.39-$17.61. 6) Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. (BBBY) ($38.87-$42.6). 7) Black & Decker (BDK) ($78.99-$89.37). 8) Lowe's Companies (LOW) ($30.88-$34.88)… Reduced holdings in: Dr Horton (DHI), Sherwin-Williams (SHW)."

• Affordable Residential Communities: Lose Farallon, Enjoy Subprime Ride (Barron's in Seeking Alpha, May 27th): "Farrallon Capital's purchase price for Affordable Residential Communities (ARC) manufactured home business f$540m-$545 million is too low because 1) The subprime crisis fallout's stricter lending is putting homeowners back into trailers. Manufactured housing expert George Allen says 2) Trailers and trailer parks are nicer and larger with more amenities. 3) Few new trailer parks are being built, and its harder to get in to existing ones. 4) Parks are moneymakers: Cheap to maintain and operate, especially larger ones. 5) 22 million+ Americans live in trailers. ARC revenues spiked 38% in Q1 to $83m as rents and occupancy rose alongside cash flow. Shares could reach $15."

• For Some Investors, Money Grows on Trees (NY Times, May 27th): "Financial institutions now own nearly 5% of [US] forests… A significant portion of the timberland is held through privately run timber investment management organizations [TIMOs]… At the Hancock Timber Resource Group TIMO… returns after fees averaged 13.8%, annualized… Timber REITs: Plum Creek Timber Company… holds more than eight million acres of US timberland… Rayonier Inc., owns or manages 2.5 million timberland acres in the US and New Zealand. The Potlatch Corporation… has 1.5 million acres.. The Longview Fibre Company agreed in February to be acquired by Brookfield Asset Management in a deal valued at $2.15 billion... The Wells Timberland REIT is being offered by the Wells Real Estate Funds… Congress is considering… lowering the tax rates on timber properties to help the industry become more globally competitive."

• Buying Homebuilders On The Good News (Andrew Horowitz in Seeking Alpha, May 25th): "Economy.com: "New home sales [in the South] rose 16.2%, to 981,000 annualized units in April from a downwardly revised 844,000 in March…" The beneficiaries could be… builders who have exposure to the southern part of the US where building is the strongest… Toll Brothers (TOL) and KB Homes (KBH) are being added to portfolios…Much of the bad news seems to be priced in already. Despite the fact that now seems to be a time to take money out of the market, these may be a nice hedge as they have a relationship to real estate, not only the stock market."

• Central Valley Homebuilder Slashes Jobs (Central Valley Business Times, May 25th): "The slow housing market is taking its toll on builders with Ennis Homes of Porterville saying it is cutting its construction and operation workforce by 25%. The privately-held company says it’s the first time since it was founded 28 years ago that it has had to reduce its workforce… It did not reveal the number of employees being let go. The company reportedly employed between 100-125 prior to the announcement Thursday. Ennis builds homes in the southern Central Valley, between Bakersfield and Fresno. It built about 400 homes in 2006."

• Home Depot vs Lowe's: Go With Oprah's Choice (Todd Sullivan in Seeking Alpha, May 24th): "Q1 earnings fell 29% for Home Depot (HD) and 12% for Lowe's (LOW)… Both have lowered expectations for the remainder of 2007 and both stocks have been losers over the past year... [Which to choose when housing turns around?] Oprah shops at Lowe's. Oprah has featured various home improvement episodes… Recently [she] spruced up her neighbors Chicago balconies. Who did the work and got essentially an entire show-long infomercial… from Oprah? Lowe's… The effect: Lowe's reported that 17 of 19 company segments experienced market share gains during Q1… Eventually, housing will turn and the big winner will be Lowe's…thanks to Oprah."

• Homebuilder Ponies Up $500k for Dripping Springs School (Austin Business Journal, May 24th): "The Dripping Springs Independent School District is getting $500,000 from Pulte Homes (PHM) to help purchase a 49-acre tract for a new school in… southwest Austin... The balance of the $1.85 million price on the property will come from school district funds… Pulte is making the donation in an effort to help build up the education infrastructure in an area where its highly active. The company's Highpointe of Dripping Springs project is a 740-acre master-planned development that will eventually include 1,000 homes [with] 227 already sold since June 2005. Home prices in the development range from $250,000 to $500,000."

• Toll Brothers Earnings Drop 79% on Writedowns, Missing Estimates (Seeking Alpha, May 24th): "Toll Brothers (TOL) said FQ2 net earnings fell 79% to $36.7 million ($0.22/share) -- coming up short of Street estimates of $0.25. In early May the company revised its Q2 forecast down from $0.42-0.57/share. Writedowns of $72.9m lowered earnings by $0.44/share, vs. just $0.04/share last year. Net signed contracts dropped 25%. Revenue fell to $1.17 billion from $1.44b a year earlier… $1.12b was forecasted. Toll would not update its full-year earnings guidance… But expects to deliver 6,100-6,900 homes in 2007, and gave Q3 revenue guidance of $990m to $1.28b and FY revenue guidance of $4.26-4.88b-- analysts had been looking for $1.04b and $4.38b."

• Toll Brothers F2Q07 (Qtr End 4/30/07) Earnings Call Transcript (Seeking Alpha, May 24th): "CEO Robert I. Toll: "FQ2'07 cancellations totaled 384 units versus 436 units in FQ1’07 and 585 units in FQ4’06. FQ2'07s cancellation rate of 18.9% was lower than its FQ1 cancellation rate of 29.8% and the 36.9% cancellation rate in its FQ4’06. However, it was still well above our historical average of about 7%... [We are] a little more confident, but I would emphasize little."

• IndustryWeek Magazine Names HNI Corporation as One of 50 Best U.S. Manufacturers (Business Wire, May 24th): "HNI Corporation (HNI) announced today that IndustryWeek magazine has again named the Corporation one of its 50 Best U.S. Manufacturers. HNI has been named all five years since inception of the award… IndustryWeek’s annual recognition of the 50 Best Manufacturing Companies… is a ranking of top performers culled from a list of the 500 largest manufacturing companies in the US. The ranking considered financial measures that pertain to operational efficiency and market success. Market metrics include revenue growth, return on equity [ROE], and profit margin."

• Amrep Hit by More Bad News (Colin Peterson in Seeking Alpha, May 24th): "AMREP Corp. (AXR) is the $400M company in Rio Rancho, NM that owns approximately 18,000 acres of the town: 1. In August 2007, Intel [will] lay off 1,000 workers at its chip fab plant in Rio Rancho. There are only about 40,000 people of working age in Rio Rancho. 2. Rio Rancho building permits were down 66% from March 2006-March 2007. 3. Rio Rancho is increasing by 29-40% the impact fees charged to homebuilders. (An “impact fee” is assessed by the city against new construction, and due at the time of the issuance of the building permit.)"

Commercial Real Estate and REITs

• Some See Credit Storm Brewing (New Britain Herald, May 28th): "The securitization of commercial real estate loans has led to massive amounts of capital available for commercial mortgages. Lax lending standards tend to prevail when lenders have great liquidity. The reduced documentation requirements has provided a wide range of financing options for less-experienced investors to buy small commercial buildings… driving the prices of commercial properties up dramatically. Small vacancy rates could lead to increased default rates in this sector. If any event happens to increase defaults, the reactive increase in credit and documentary standards will only serve to make the road rockier for small commercial real estate loans."

• Zell's Firm Key in Rent Hike Fights (Chicago Tribune, May 27th): "Equity, the country's largest mobile home park operator… fought with Delaware mobile home owners in court, and won, over the right to increase rents. In Florida, some tenants of Equity's parks have vowed to withhold portions of rent increases. And in California, Equity has been involved in several court battles to overturn municipal rent-control ordinances… American Land Lease… has since 1999 posted a 5.53% annual average increase in rent revenue, compared with 4.63% for Equity during the same time… In 2005 Equity's Willow Lake… park occupancy rate fell from a healthy 97.4% in 2000 to 77.6% in 2005, and more since."

• Equity One Revises its Property Valuations (Globes Online, May 27th): "Gazit-Globe Ltd.: US REIT subsidiary Equity One Inc. (EQY) has updated the valuation of its properties in line with International Financial Reporting Standards [IFRS]… Schonbraun McCann Group LLP carried out the independent valuation of Equity One’s investment property, and set the value at $2.78 billion at the end of 2006. Investment property does not include assets classified as construction in progress, land held for development, or property held for sale on Equity One's balance sheet. On this basis, Equity One assessed the fair value of its investment property at $2.92 billion at the end of March."

• Health Care REIT "Outperform" (New Ratings, May 25th): "Analysts at Morgan Keegan reiterate their "outperform" rating on Health Care REIT (HCN)… The analysts mention that the company has completed its acquisition of Paramount Real Estate Services and 17 medical office buildings for $287.7 million. The acquisition of Paramount Real Estate Services would enable Health Care REIT to have MOB property management services on its platform going forward… The insourcing of a significant part of the property management services is expected to boost Health Care REIT’s returns on MOB investments going forward, Morgan Keegan adds."

• Commercial Real Estate Pumps Economy (Buffalo Business First, May 25th): "National Association of Industrial and Office Properties: Commercial real estate spending added nearly $500 billion to the nation's gross domestic product in 2005, roughly the same as the federal government's contribution…Actual construction accounted for only $266 billion of commercial real estate spending. Soft costs -- such as architects, engineers, site development and tenant improvements -- and building operations accounted for the remainder of the spending. The study found that commercial real estate supported 4.2 million jobs in 2005. Unlike residential real estate, commercial real estate has continued to grow since 2005."

• American REITs Lose Luster As Rivals Shine (Yahoo! Finance, May 24th): "Deutsche Bank REIT analyst Lou Taylor: The flow of money into domestic REIT funds has been flat for the last two months, while dollars have poured into money market and bond funds [and IPOs]… For the past five years, the MSCI US REIT Index has generated compound annual returns of 23.2%... Institutional investors are pouring money into global real estate funds, anticipating returns heftier than they might get from funds focused on U.S. real estate securities. In global funds, more than half of assets are typically foreign real estate securities."

Web Site of the Day

The Real Estalker is a bawdy, trashy celebrity gawker website that just happens to gawk from a real estate perspective. You can find out which celebrity house is for sale (for ex: former supermodel Rachel Hunter), for how much ($2,999,000 down from $3.6m) and how long its been on the market, if the seller is serious, etc. The pics are amazing (Tommy Mottola's house has to-die-for views.)

You can find out what Suzanne Somers' Malibu rental costs ($25,000/month) and other important tidbits. 'Your Mama' is the author and he? she? makes no claim to accuracy, but we think the general info is useful. It's a little raunchy, but definitely good for those interested in the high end California market.

Tracking the Housing Market and Homebuilder Stocks You can track developments in the housing market and homebuilder stocks by bookmarking our Housing coverage or subscribing to our free email service. If you have a blog or website of your own, you can track developments in the sector and provide great content for your readers with our Housing Market widget (left). It's simple to add -- just select "Housing Market" from the drop-down menu here.