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"

"Perhaps Cleveland and Ohio aren't at the top of the list, but that's like standing on the deck of the Titanic and saying we're not taking as much water as we did the last hour."- Mark Wiseman, director of Cuyahoga County, Ohio's Foreclosure Prevention Program. Wiseman said Nevada, California and Florida may lead the nation in foreclosures, but Ohio is still getting over a thousand foreclosure filings a month. (Chicago Tribune, Nov. 4th)

Real Estate Sales and House Prices

• Numbers Dismal But Better Balanced (Palm Beach Post, Nov. 4th): "West Palm Beach-based housing consultant MetroStudy: In Palm Beach County... there were 755 single-family move-ins during Q3'07... 52% fewer than Q3'06 [with] 1,585 move-ins. There were 1,135 move-ins in Q2'07. There were 486 single-family home starts in Palm Beach County in Q3'07, a 52% drop from Q3'06 [with] 1,017 starts. There were 408 in Q2'07... The move-in pace (755) was greater than the starts pace (486) in Q3'07... Total new-home inventory... dropped to 2,989 units in Q3 from 3,258 units in Q2. The number of units under construction fell to 1,464 units in Q3 from 1,776 in Q2."

• Home Sales Fall In Third Quarter, But Rise In October (WCF Courier, Nov. 4th) Iowa: "Waterloo-Cedar Falls Board of Realtors: Total Q3 residential sales for Realtor-listed homes in the Cedar Valley totaled 649, down from 713 in 2006. October 2007 sales were up to 15.5% from 2006, from 180 to 208 homes sold. Through the first ten months of 2007, home sales totaled 2,042 in the Cedar Valley... The median sale price in Q3'07 was down... from $116,000 in 2006 to $115,000. But October's median price rose from $106,000 in 2006 to $111,000 in 2007... October prices [could mean that] 2007 median prices... will beat the previous year for the 17th consecutive year."

• City Hopes To Boost Home Sales With Permit Program For Signs (Sign on San Diego, Nov. 4th) San Diego: "Chula Vista [is trying] to make it easier for people to advertise homes they are trying to sell. About 3,200 homes are for sale in the city of 230,000 residents... Officials are creating a permit program to allow “open house” signs in certain public rights-of-way, such as the space between a curb and a sidewalk. State law makes it illegal to place signs on public property unless a city specifically allows it... Chula Vista is dealing with many foreclosures. Lenders own about 750 homes. From 2001-2005, the city issued 8,919 permits for new single-family homes."

• Triangle New Home Sales Continue To Drag (News Observer, Nov. 3rd) North Carolina: "Residential researcher Market Opportunity Research Enterprises: Sales of new homes declined 10.9% in Q3'07, the biggest drop in a year. New home sales for the first nine months of this year are now down 9.8%... Triangle Multiple Listing Service: Sales of existing homes fell 24% in September. MORE statistics, based on closings recorded in register of deeds offices: Sales of homes priced between $130,000-$139,000 dropped 49.5%, those between $180,000-$189,000 fell almost 26%, and homes between $290,000-$299,000 fell 25.9%... Sales of homes priced in the $350,000 and higher bracket rose 13.5%, but even those homes are expected to start dropping."

Affordability Problems

• The Bubble's Necessary Correction (LA Times, Nov. 4th): "From 2001-2005, home prices in Southern California grew at roughly eight times that of people's median income... By contrast, Seattle housing prices rose four times the rate of personal income, while in Denver, the ratio was 2 to 1... Paradoxically... lower housing prices could keep businesses from leaving the region because their workers could afford to buy houses. Cheaper condos could make downtown or other high-density areas more affordable to... young professionals... Immigrant entrepreneurs pressured by high housing costs might stay put... Residential developers might sell their land... opening it up for industrial, warehouse and other productive uses."

• U.S. Housing Futures Look Bleak (Richard Shaw in Seeking Alpha, Nov. 1st): "Housing futures at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange [indicate] we are in for... 3 years of continuing declines in aggregate housing prices... Futures predict an approximate 12% drop over the next three years before flattening out... [This] would probably mean fewer houses being put up for sale voluntarily... reducing turnover [and thus] demand for mortgages, which would tend to lower mortgage rates... Housing affordability would increase due to the combination of lower prices and lower mortgage rates. Greater housing affordability may reduce the profitability of rental housing on the margin, perhaps impacting apartment REITS such as Equity Residential (EQR)."

Real Estate Investment and Sentiment

• Posh Patios A Sign Of 'Conspicuous Consumption' (Bradenton Herald, Nov. 4th): "The high prices are jarring - $13,000-$14,000 for an outdoor sofa - but furniture makers say rising prices reflect growing sophistication of all-weather furniture design and construction... Woolrich, the familiar name in outdoor clothing, partnered with furniture maker Whitecraft to introduce its first outdoor furniture collection at the High Point Market... Whitecraft's Bill Herren: The Woolrich Chatham Run plank-top dining table and six chairs are priced at $9,000, the chairs cost more than $900 apiece. [At] a casual-furniture show recently in Chicago, Whitecraft sold out."

• Kathleen Pender: Tales Of Overseas Real Estate Ownership (San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 4th): "Margaret Hussey, supervising producer with "House Hunters International," a show on HGTV that trails people buying homes outside the U.S. While many still prefer the established cities and towns of Europe, "there's a whole movement of Americans downloading their home equity to buy a $300,000 place in Nicaragua, Panama, the Bahamas. They're hoping to get in on the ground floor of an emerging market," adds Peter Field, the show's co-producer. Amarjit Sahota, chief executive of HiFX, a San Francisco currency dealer: "We are seeing a pickup in the number of people retiring or moving overseas."

Mortgages and Real Estate Lending

• Prisoners of Debt (Business Week, Nov. 12th): "Discharged debts have attracted the attention of experts at buying and selling a range of delinquent consumer obligations. Back-due bills with a face value of billions of dollars change hands at a steep discount every year. Five of [debt-recovery] companies are publicly traded... Seattle's B-Line was acquired last year by hedge fund Lone Star Funds... Bear Stearns (BSC) owns two bankruptcy-debt buyers: Max Recovery and eCast Settlement... [Now] the market also includes billions in discharged debts, which ought to have no dollar value. Owners of canceled liabilities can revive their value [by] directly pressuring consumers to cough up cash."

• Lending Laws Are Destroying Our Communities - This Must Change (San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 4th): "During the Great Depression, California passed laws to protect homeowners from losses greater than their equity in their homes in an effort to allow families to at least salvage their assets outside of their homes to live to fight another day. Today, California needs new laws [to] require loan sellers to retain the right to restructure their loans and require that they retain a larger percentage stake in the loans they originate in each community than is now required. We also need to immediately implement a new law to prevent foreclosure on subprime loans for owner-occupied homes."

Global Housing Slump?

• House Prices Down 3.6% Since January, Index Shows (Irish Times, Nov. 2nd) Ireland: "Permanent TSB/ESRI house price index: Irish house prices fell for the seventh month in a row in September and have now dropped by 3.6% since the start of the year... The property market's downward journey has steadily decelerated since the 0.8% monthly price falls recorded in April and May. On an annual basis - from September 2006 to September 2007 - house prices fell 2.8%. For the second month in a row and for only the second time in the index's history, Dublin house prices fell, declining by 1.2% in September."

Subprime Fallout

• How WaMu's Lawsuit Affects Countrywide Financial (Greg Harris in Seeking Alpha, Nov. 5th): "Washington Mutual (WM) is possibly not the only one who pressured appraisers... There are loan guarantees and contingencies on securitized mortgages, which are basically protections to make sure the lending process... involved no fraud. If those are broken, do you think that a bunch of securities holders are literally frothing at the mouth to find someone to be forced to take them back? Countrywide Financial (CFC) has tons and tons of exposure to this possibility. WAMU at least has a real deposit base to be able to withstand that kind of pressure."

• The Storm at Credit Suisse (Barron's, Nov. 5th): "Credit Suisse's medium-to-long-term horizon now looks challenging. Outstanding non-investment-grade leveraged-loan book rose to 60 billion Swiss Francs in Q3 from SF48 billion in Q2, a bigger increase than its peers'. If credit markets don't improve markedly soon, it may have to take a haircut in Q4... Level 3 assets-- illiquid assets that are marked to in-house models in the absence of observable market prices – have increased to 6% of its total assets from 5% in Q2... CS bailed out some of its U.S. money-market funds by buying some asset-backed commercial paper from them... [and still lost] SF 146 million on fair-value reductions."

• Weill's Earnings Machine Stalls as Citigroup Writedowns Deepen (Bloomberg, Nov. 5th): "Citigroup, The biggest U.S. bank by assets said Sunday that subprime mortgages and related securities lost as much as $11 billion of their value in October, a decline that may wipe out half of the company's profit so far this year. CEO Charles Prince... stepped down. Former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin will become chairman, and Citigroup's most senior executive in Europe, Win Bischoff, will be interim CEO...Writedown costs... a fifth of its $55B book of subprime mortgages and related bonds... will be recorded in Q4 if markets don't recover... This [follows] the almost $7B of loan/bond losses recorded in Q3."

• Bill Miller: Countrywide Financial Is Worth $40/Share (Bill Miller in Seeking Alpha, Nov. 4th): "Bill Miller's Q3'07 Legg Mason Value Trust [LMVTX] letter: "After falling 20% in only a few days on no news... after being down 50% for the year, Countrywide Financial (CFC) rallied over 30% in one day once they... indicated they would be profitable for Q4 and expect to earn a reasonable return on equity of 10-15% for all of 2008. The price action on both sides was driven by emotion... and was hardly the result of a careful analysis of Countrywide's long term business value... We think [it's] in the $40's compared to its current price of about $14-15."

• Blacks Dominate Subprime Loans (AJC.com, Nov. 4th): "Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis of federal mortgage data: Nearly half of blacks who bought a house in 2005-2006 ended up with a high-interest mortgage, compared with 13% of white home buyers... Among black home buyers making more than $100,000 a year, 41% got a subprime mortgage, compared with 7% of whites in the same income category... At 49%, blacks were the most likely minority group in metro Atlanta to end up with a subprime loan. For Hispanics, about a third of home buyers got a subprime loan in 2005-2006. Only 10% of Asians used a subprime loan to buy a house."

• Investment Banks Facing New Writedowns (Associated Press, Nov. 4th): "Deutsche Bank analyst Mike Mayo predicted Thursday that investment banks will need to take another $10 billion in writedowns in Q4, with hits of $4B each at Citigroup and Merrill Lynch and a total of $2B at places like Wachovia and Bank of America. After Friday's WSJ suggested Merrill could be under investigation over its handling of mortgage debt, Mayo [said] Merrill could face $10B in writedowns on its own. S&P equity analyst Matthew Albrecht also downgraded Merrill... Wachovia Corp. and Goldman Sachs Group (GS) GS: Despite "strongest risk management controls [Goldman] will still struggle [with] tightening credit markets."

• Subprime Loan Woes Tax Horry (Myrtle Beach Online, Nov. 4th) South Carolina: "Federal data: There were 13,106 subprime mortgages totaling $1.6 billion originated in Horry County between 2004-2006... One out of every four made in 2006. Half of the subprime loans made last year were for homes that are not the owner's primary residence [and] 32.2% of subprime loans in Horry County last year went to borrowers with annual incomes at or above the median for this area... The value of those mortgages [went] from $207 million 2004 to $870M in 2006... S.C. Association of Realtors: Horry County home sales through September have fallen 28.9% compared with the same period a year ago.

• Ambac, MBIA Default Swaps Trading As Deep Junk (Reuters, Nov. 2nd): "Moody's: Credit derivative traders are valuing bond insurers Ambac Financial Group (ABK) and MBIA Inc (MBI) as deep junk credits, belying the companies' strong "Aa1" ratings. CMA DataVision: At Thursday's close, Ambac's credit default swaps implied a rating of "Caa1," seven levels below investment grade and 14 notches below its actual rating. Ambac's bonds are... trading at levels that imply a "Ba2," rating, two levels below investment grade. MBIA's default swap spreads, meanwhile, are trading at "B2," five levels below investment grade, and 12 notches below the company's "Aa2" rating."

• GMAC, Radian Post Losses as U.S. Home Slump Deepens (Bloomberg, Nov. 1st): "GMAC LLC and Radian Group Inc. (RDN) disclosed more than $2 billion in third-quarter losses tied to mortgage lending... GMAC, the home and auto lender said Thursday it had a $1.6B loss on lower demand for mortgages and higher provisions for failed loans and impaired assets. Radian, the third-largest U.S. mortgage insurer, reported a $703.9 million loss after writing off $468M on C-Bass, a unit that invested in subprime mortgages... Assurant Inc. (AIZ) sells property insurance to banks to protect homes after they've gone to foreclosure... Profit climbed 24% to $187.2M in Q3 as the company benefited from the housing slump."

Foreclosure Data

• Finding A Measure Of Foreclosure (Chicago Tribune, Nov. 4th): "In August the auction firm Hudson & Marshall offered about 200 Chicago-area homes in a single sale. Crystal Wright of Hudson & Marshall said... the Chicago auction [followed] an auction of 200 homes in one sale in Southern California and 400 in Northern California... Chicago auctioneer Rick Levin: "More and more homes [are] ending up being owned by lenders." Rick Levin & Associates will conduct an auction of about 100 foreclosed homes on Nov. 28 in Chicago. Levin: Despite the popular perception that foreclosure auctions offer a chance to buy a home for pennies on the dollar, lenders aren't giving these places away."

• Foreclosures, Pricey Mortgages Stress Richland County Neighborhoods (Central Ohio.com, Nov. 4th) Ohio: "Homes sold under foreclosure in Richland County jumped from 341 in 2002 to 513 last year, not counting some homes under Veterans Administration or Federal Housing Administration loans. Don Mitchell, Mansfield Fair Housing director: "We know we're going to exceed that in 2007." Cindy Flaherty of the Ohio Housing Financing Agency said 5.22% of all Ohio mortgages are seriously delinquent or under foreclosure, and 22.2% of those cases involve adjustable-rate mortgages... Mitchell: "Over the last five years, foreclosure properties in Mansfield had appraised values totaling $154 million but sold for only $101M."

• Housing Crisis Hits Midwest Hard (Chicago Tribune, Nov. 4th): "University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee report: Homeowners with mortgages in Milwaukee increased to 74% in 2006, up from 68% in 2000. At the same time... the percentage of people paying at least 50% of their income on housing has nearly doubled, to 19%... Last month Minneapolis hosted one of the biggest housing auctions in decades, with more than 300 foreclosed homes, some for as low as $9,000... Pointing to an estimated $1 billion in subprime loans issued in Detroit in 2006, Wayne State University law professor John Mogk predicted that nearly everyone in Detroit will live within 1,000-ft. of an abandoned home."

• All Over, Investors Swoop In For The Kill (Minneapolis Star Tribune, Nov. 2nd): "Jack McCabe, CEO of McCabe Research and Consulting says investment groups with capital "in the multiple billions" are already active in south Florida, searching for fire-sale prices on properties with good long-term prospects. In the greater Miami area, McCabe estimates there are 25,000 unsold condos and townhouses on multiple listing services... a 35-month supply at current absorption rates. Another 22,600 units are under construction and 4,000 more are slated to begin construction in the next year or two... HomeVestors'... 260-plus franchisee partners [will] buy more than 7,100 houses in 35 states this year at value discounts averaging 35%-45% says John Hayes, president/CEO."

Global Real Estate Opportunities

• Economic Boom In Egypt Proves Bust For The Poor (Baltimore Sun, Nov. 4th): "Egypt has begun to emerge as one of the new stars of the world economy. Last month, it was awarded the title "World's Top Reformer" in a World Bank ranking of developing economies' efforts to introduce market reforms. [Investors] have been pouring money into Egyptian real estate. Luxury housing communities with names like Dreamland, Lake View and Moon Valley are proliferating on the edge of the desert, complete with swimming pools and manicured golf courses... the economic reforms that have made life easier for foreign investors have also increased taxation and lifted subsidies on basic goods, disproportionately affecting the poor."

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

• Morgan Stanley Exec: US Recession Likely (Business Week, Nov. 2nd): "The U.S. will likely slip into a recession in 2008 and such a development may affect Asian economies, Morgan Stanley Asia Chairman Stephen Roach said Friday in Asia. "The global economy will be a very challenging one in the next couple of years. The subprime crisis is an early sign of a recession in the U.S. in 2008."

• U.S. Construction Spending Rises An Unexpected 0.3% In September (Judith Levy in Seeking Alpha, Nov. 1st): "Commerce Dept.: Construction spending posted a surprise 0.3% gain in September following a downward revision for August. Spending rose to a seasonally adjusted $1.16 trillion after August spending was revised from a 0.2% rise to a 0.2% decline. Analysts were expecting a 0.5% drop in September. Private nonresidential construction rose 1.5% and public construction spending 1.9%, both record highs. They offset a 1.4% drop in private residential spending in September to a $511 billion annual rate, the 19th consecutive monthly decline... Housing spending is down 16.4% over the past year; total construction spending is down 0.8%."

Homebuilders, Housing Stocks and Housing-Related Stocks

• National Builders Laying A Local Footing (Lancaster Online, Nov. 4th) Pennsylvania: "D.R. Horton (DHI), Lennar Corp. (LEN) and K. Hovnanian Homes (HOV)... have developments in Lancaster County. Two of the three projects, known as active-adult communities, are for people 55 and older... Hovnanian executive also noted that active-adult buyers are less affected when the housing market slumps... In Lancaster County, D.R. Horton is developing and building Village Grande at Millers Run, a 55-and-older community in East Hempfield Township; Lennar is building Hawthorne Ridge in Lancaster Township; and Hovnanian is developing and building Four Seasons at Elm Tree, a 55-and-older subdivision in Rapho Township."

• A Tall ‘Toll’ On The Gowanus (The Brooklyn Paper, Nov. 3rd) New York: "Toll Brothers development company (TOL), which owns property on the western bank of the Gowanus canal, unveiled preliminary plans for affordable housing, co-op and rental units, and public access to a 40-foot swath of greenery along the canal... Toll unveiled plans for a mixed-use project featuring several 12-story buildings that would rise on a two-block canal-front piece of land bounded by Bond, Carroll and Second streets, and the Gowanus Canal... Building affordable housing in a heavily polluted urban area would be new territory for Toll, one of the largest luxury homebuilders in the U.S."

• Martha Stewart Hits Trouble Bringing Home the Bacon (The Street, Nov. 2nd): "Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO)... Friday reduced its revenue guidance for 2007 due to the crisis in the U.S. housing market. Howard Hochhauser, MSLO's CFO: Trouble in the housing market [affected] MSLOs merchandising deal with homebuilder KB Home (KBH)... Analysts had expected the KBH deal to contribute roughly $3M-$4 million to the company's annual revenue... Merchandising... has long been MSLO's chief source of operating income... Guaranteed royalty payments from a multi-year deal with Sears/Kmart for MSLO's branded line of home-furnishings products are set to drop from $65M to $20M next year. Those payments [are] the company's chief source of profitability."

• Home Builder Pulls Out Of Large Ocoee Housing Project, Some Upset (WFTV, Nov. 2nd) Florida: "The city of Ocoee is losing $4 million because a developer is backing out of a big housing project. The plans for the project included an upscale community featuring 250 homes, shops and even an elementary school along Lake Apopka. But the soft real estate market forced Centex Homes (CTX) to scrap the entire project... The mayor of Ocoee said the city will try to recoup its losses by selling the land for a college or business park. Orange County schools said without the housing development, they have no need for a new school in that location."

• Credit Ratings Cut to Junk for Top 3 Home Builders (NY Times, Nov. 3rd): "Standard & Poor’s cut the credit ratings of the three largest American home builders — Lennar (LEN), Pulte Homes (PHM) and D. R. Horton (DHI)— to junk yesterday as demand for new homes deteriorated. Lennar, the biggest American home builder, was cut to BB+ from BBB, affecting $2.2 billion in debt, S&P said. DHI, the second-largest builder, and Pulte, the third-largest, were lowered to BB+ from BBB-. The change affects $3.8B in debt for D. R. Horton. The downgrade of Pulte, affects $3.5B of debt."

• Black & Decker CEO Exercises Options (Chron.com, Nov. 2nd): "SEC filing: The chairman, president and CEO of power-tool maker Black & Decker Corp. (BDK) exercised options for 360,900 shares of common stock, then sold them for a profit of about $16 million. In Form 4s filed with the SEC Thursday, Nolan D. Archibald reported he exercised the options Tuesday and Wednesday for $42.78 and $48.75 apiece and then sold 360,900 shares on the same days for $90 to $90.42 apiece. Based on the average selling price, Archibald received about $16 million from the sale. Insiders file Form 4s with the SEC to report transactions in their companies' shares."

• CEO Pay At Big US Home Builders (Reuters, Nov. 2nd): "Following are CEO pay figures for some of the largest companies in the sector for 2006 (for companies that report on a calendar-year basis) or their most recently reported fiscal year, as well as data for the year-earlier period. The pay figures include salary, bonus and nonequity incentives, but exclude restricted stock, stock options and perquisites."

• Home Builder Ryan Exits Mich. (Detroit News, Nov. 3rd): "Ryan Homes, one of the nation's largest homebuilders, is pulling out of Michigan, the latest casualty of the state's bleak economy and dismal housing market. Ryan, which made its southeast Michigan debut in 2006, will finish building 10 houses for which it already holds permits, according to... company employees and government officials... Al Hogan, a building department official in Oakland County's Lyon Township, said Ryan Homes applied for 61 building permits for new single-family homes in 2007, most of them at the beginning of the year... NVR (NVR), Ryan Homes' corporate parent, has lost nearly 50% of its share value this year."

• Foolish Forecast: Headwaters' Net Margin May Take a Dunking (Motley Fool, Nov. 2nd): "Construction materials manufacturer-cum-alternative energy play Headwaters (HW) Oct. 19 SEC filing: Management's annual goodwill impairment check revealed [a] value write-down of the firm's Tapco construction materials business by $98 million. This charge to earnings will hit Q4 earnings hard. It is not taken into account in the analysts' estimates, as it is an unusual noncash charge... Headwaters mentioned that the firm generated "over $100M of cash" over the past four quarters. Headwaters used a portion of these cash profits to prepay "an additional $52.5M of our senior debt." Headwaters plans to spend $15M buying back stock."

• Denver Builders Skirting Bottom (Rocky Mountain News, Nov. 2nd): "MDC Holdings (MDC), one of the nation's largest home builders and parent of Richmond American Homes, has cut its work force by about 40% since 2006 and recently reported a $155.4 million Q3 loss... after years of reporting record quarterly profits. Other national builders with a big presence in Denver, such as Engle Homes and Beazer Homes, are in worse shape. Beazer is under [federal] investigation... Engle's parent, Tousa Inc (TOA) has seen its stock drop to about $0.70 from more than $22 two years ago... MDC closed 219 homes in Colorado in Q3, down 34% from the 334 in Q3'06.

• Tupperware Brands Corporation Declares Quarterly Dividend (CNN Money, Nov. 2nd): "Tupperware Brands Corporation announced Friday a regular quarterly dividend of $0.22/share, payable on January 7, 2008, to shareholders of record as of December 7, 2007. Tupperware Brands Corporation is a portfolio of global direct selling companies, selling premium products across multiple brands and categories through an independent sales force of 2.0 million. Product brands and categories include design-centric preparation, storage and serving solutions for the kitchen and home through the Tupperware brand and beauty and personal care products for consumers through the Avroy Shlain, BeautiControl, Fuller, NaturCare, Nutrimetics, Nuvo and Swissgarde brands."

• Champion Closes $180 Million Bond Sale (CNN Money, Nov. 2nd): "Champion Enterprises Inc. (CHB) completed a sale of $180 million in bonds bearing a 2.75% annual interest rate, the home manufacturer said Friday. Last month, the company said it found buyers for the bonds, which are convertible into stock at an exchange rate of roughly $20.97/share. The company plans to use proceeds from the sale to pay off other kinds of debt and for general corporate purposes. Credit Suisse Securities underwrote the sale."

Commercial Real Estate and Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs)

• Commercial Real Estate Market Softening In Chandler (Business Week, Nov. 2nd) Arizona: "Marcus & Millichap: The vacancy rate in office properties for Q3 was 12%, compared to 11% in Q3'06. Retail vacancy rates showed a slight uptick, with 7.8% in Q3'07 vs. 7.2% in Q3'06... The change in the vacancy rate in the industrial sector was more dramatic: 8.2% in Q3'07, compared with 4.10% during Q3'06... Chandler has been on a commercial building spree... A little over 1 million-sf is under construction in the city, with more on the drawing board. Real estate developer Michael Pollack: "If we continue at the rate we're building today, we could easily find ourselves overbuilt."

• Florida REIT Buys 11 Arizona Golf Facilities (Phoenix Business Journal, Nov. 2nd): "CNL Income Properties Inc., a Florida REIT specializing in lifestyle properties, is acquiring 11 Arizona golf facilities as part of a 28-course deal. The Arizona locations are Continental and Ancala, Scottsdale; Desert Lakes, Bullhead City; Tatum Ranch, Cave Creek; Kokopelli, Gilbert; London Bridge, Lake Havasu; Arrowhead and Legend at Arrowhead, Glendale; Superstition Springs, Mesa; and Foothills and Stonecreek, Phoenix. The proposed deal is part of a combined transaction in which Evergreen Alliance Golf Ltd. of Dallas is buying an additional 14 properties from American Golf... Upon completion of the transaction, CNI will own 49 golf courses in 12 states."

Website of the Day

In case you're wondering where the billions or a trillion worth of resetting loans are coming from, take a look at this NY Times map charting subprime mortgage percentages across the US by county. It's not just a visual heat map, you can also scan your mouse across the map to see the actual numbers per county. Interestingly, though the media tends to focus on subprime problems in former boom states like Florida, California and Nevada, the map reveals that subprime loans are prevalent-- and in high numbers-- all over the U.S.

If you assume that subprime loan values are still heading south for investors, these numbers are scary: Zaval County, Texas, 72%, Perkins County, Nebraska, 61%, McDowell County, Virginia, 67%, Petroleum County, Montana, 67%, Coos County, New Hampshire, 40%, Cumberland County, New Jersey, 39%, Johnston County, Oklahoma, 56%. The NY Times used the 2000 Census and Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council data to compile the map.

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.

Comments

[mlimberg]

At the peak of the market in 1991, property in Japan was worth four times the value of all property in the US – on paper anyway.
Buoyed by low interest rates, financiers introduced the concept of intergenerational loans, and eased credit standards as a way of helping people attain the booming prices.
Every day investors were caught up in the mania. Many salarymen, fearing they'd be priced out of the market as it continued higher, bought properties they knew they couldn't afford, in the hope that price increases would wipe away their folly.
Between 1989 and 1990 the Bank of Japan became worried that the property boom was becoming a bubble and took preventative steps, tightening interest rates. The bubble popped.
The resulting bust saw housing prices fall for 14 years in a row, and prices retreated as far as 60 per cent in Japan's capital cities.
The stockmarket crashed 80 per cent, consumers slowed their spending and the economy plunged into a prolonged recession.
Daisuke Sato was one bloke I met who was caught in the crash. He bought an apartment in 1990 for (roughly) $500,000, and 17 years later the pad is worth only $280,000.
Sato has a constant reminder of the mania – a massive mortgage that needs to be paid back regardless of the price of his home.

[Golf ClubRental]

If you are down on golf course real estate stocks, check out golfrentalandsales.com. It caters to golf courses, though is more in tuned to the rental markets.

It is an up and coming play in this sector. Great cashflow, and strong management team.

- Elijah
golfclubrentals.blogsp...

[Golf ClubRental]

If you are down on golf course real estate stocks, check out golfrentalandsales.com. It caters to golf courses, though is more in tuned to the rental markets.

It is an up and coming play in this sector. Great cashflow, and strong management team.

- Elijah
golfclubrentals.blogsp...