There’s a recent 2-part series by Vanessa Quirk at ArchDaily that succinctly covers some important practical and theoretical ground: Saving Suburbia Part I: Bursting the Bubble and Saving Suburbia Part II: Getting the Soccer Moms On Your Side.
The economy grew at a 2.2% annual rate in the first quarter, according to the advance estimate that is subject to major revision. Cuts to military spending restrained growth while new residential investment added to it.
In my City Talk column today, I summarize some of the latest home sales data for the Savannah area. Single-family home sales were essentially flat compared to a year ago, but inventories are shrinking because of a decreased pace of…
New construction is typically a driver of economic recoveries, but the combination of tighter credit because of the financial crisis and the massive overhang of existing homes — we built too many plus saw many others become distressed — could not be countered by any conventional, or politically acceptable, policy moves.
S&P/Case-Shiller is the most followed home price index these days, but CoreLogic’s Home Price Index is a really important one that provides slightly more up-to-date information. From today’s release: Excluding distressed sales, month-over-month prices increased 0.7 percent in February from…
Highly recommended for those with a stake in housing: the NYT’s Where Housing Once Boomed, Recovery Lags From the piece: The official statistics say that the national economy has been growing for almost three years, and that Maryland is growing…
If you’re interested in the cultural and financial ramifications of the housing bust, this Q&A with Robert Shiller (of Case-Shiller) is absolutely worth a watch. He notes that we could be in a long Japan-like slump and that we could…
From Standard & Poors’ release of the Case-Shiller Home Price Indices 10- and 20-City composites: Both composites saw price declines of 0.8% in the month of January. Sixteen of 19 MSAs also saw home prices decrease over the month; only…
The U.S. Census started tracking sales of new homes in 1963. From Calculated Risk: Even with the upward revisions to new home sales in October, November and December, 2011 was the worst year for new home sales since the Census…
We’ve seen a small uptick in residential construction of late, and it’s virtually assured that residential investment will contribute positively to GDP this year. But we’re talking about a very low level — 2012 will still be one of the…
The $25 billion foreclosure settlement between the states and five major banks, which will actually come closer to $32 billion in total aid, will have significant impacts. It’s by no means a gamechanger for the housing market, but it’s hardly…
In a recent post, I mentioned that Calculated Risk has plausibly argued that we’ve seen the bottom for new home sales, new home starts, and residential investment. CR predicted that home prices would bottom later this spring, although the data…
Regular readers know that I closely follow the blog Calculated Risk. Bill McBride does an amazing job of presenting the latest economic data and releases with no spin. When he takes the time to analyze the data he is presenting,…
In today’s blog post about the latest Case-Shiller data, I bolded the particular bad data for Atlanta, which has seen precipitous home price declines in recent months. From the NYT’s In Atlanta, Housing Woes Reflect Nation’s Pain: A sprawling Southern…
