Free Republic

California's battered homes market may be hitting bottom, suggesting a national housing recovery may follow, veteran banking analyst Charles Peabody said on Friday, citing a rebound in home sales as renters become owners. As goes California, the most populous state, so goes the rest of the United States, according to Peabody... Reasons to believe California home prices will firm may be found in data from the California Association of Realtors, Peabody said. Notably, buyers are responding to sharply lower home prices. The realtors' group reports the state's June home sales rose 17.5 percent from a year earlier while its median...

WASHINGTON -- Pessimism is a contagious affliction, born by fears of some cataclysmic result that is based on little or no compelling evidence -- usually in the face of a pile of facts to the contrary. That's the illness that spread through Wall Street last week, triggered by the continuing turbulence in the housing and credit markets amid fears that the situation is only going to get worse and drag the rest of the economy down with it. Some of the gloomiest traders on Wall Street have begun, once again, to talk about a recession, the dreaded r-word that rears...

Analysts Say Housing Slowdown That Hit U.S. Economy Will Persist Into 2007 WASHINGTON (AP) -- The slowdown that hit the U.S. economy will persist into 2007 as the once red-hot housing market continues to suffer through a serious correction, analysts say. As the new year begins, many private analysts are forecasting the economy will perform at the slowest pace in five years, a full percentage-point lower than growth in 2006. One such analyst is Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at Global Insight, a forecasting firm. "The recession in the housing market does not seem to have had much of an impact...

Toll Brothers (TOL) director Bruce Toll sold 500,000 shares of his TOL holdings on December 19 for $31.62 per share netting him $15,810,000. And, that is apparently a drop in the bucket to what he has been selling. On November 15, 2006, he sold 350,900 at $28.64 per share and then again on November 16, 2006 he sold another 149,100 at 29.20 per share. Even further back in September he sold 355,000 at $28.99 per share. Pretty massive selling by an insider. Other officers of the company have been selling quite a bit too over the last year.