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Did you read the story home prices are up due to falling inventory? Case-Shiller just reported home prices were up in their 20 city index 5.5% in November all the way back to 2003 levels. Regarding these price increases one must put them into perspective. As reported at the BusinessInsider, Quinn Eddins at RadarLogic argue the recent rise in home prices reflects the weakness in 2011 home prices more than the strength of 2012 home prices. I concur. The reason for prices rising? According to the WSJ: “Economists see the report as a sign of the housing market gaining strength....

Andre Barbosa may soon have to pack up and leave the palatial home he has been occupying in Boca Raton, Florida. The 23-year-old Brazilian national has been squatting at the $2.5million waterfront estate on Golden Harbour Drive since the summer, infuriating all the neighbors in the process. Barbosa, originally from the neighboring Pompano Beach, has been threatening to use an obscure real estate law that allows people to claim a property as their own if they stay there for seven years. No one witnessed Barbosa breaking into the 7,522-squae foot, five-bedroom, six-bathroom waterfront home, so he cannot be arrested. But...

Andre Barbosa can safely say that he has one of the nicest homes on the block in Boca Raton, Florida. But the 23-year-old Brazilian national does not own or even rent the palatial $2.5million estate legally - he is a squatter. Barbosa, originally from the neighboring Pompano Beach, moved into 580 Golden Harbour Drive in July Now he is threatening to use an obscure real estate law that allows people to claim a property as their own if they stay there for seven years. No one witnessed Barbosa breaking into the 7,522-squae foot, five-bedroom, six-bathroom waterfront home, so he cannot...

GARY SHILLING: We're In For Another 5 Years Of Painful Deleveraging (Job Losses To Rise, 11.0% - 2015) Mamta BadkarJanuary 12, 2013 The current domestic and global investing environment is dominated by deleveraging, according to Gary Shilling. In other words, households and institutions are slashing the debt on their balance sheets. And according to Shilling, we still have some way to go: "The deleveraging process for both these sectors has commenced, but it has a long way to go to return to the long run flat trends and we are strong believers in reversions to well-established trend. If we simply...

I'm looking for some help from anyone on FR who has some knowledge about commercial real estate, priorities of liens, and other similar matters. I'm dealing with a strange situation where I've come across a lien that appears to have been filed in error, and before I proceed with any legal action I just need some general insight on how the process works and how other lienholders may be involved (or not).

Shiller: Housing Hasn’t Necessarily Bottomed Yet 12/20/2012 1:39 AM Cullen Roche In an interview on CNBC earlier today Robert Shiller provided his outlook for housing. Shiller says house prices haven’t necessarily bottomed yet. “A lot of people seem to think that if the market turns around, that means more of the same, meaning another big boom.” … “I don’t think [a boom] is in the cards. We might see home prices go up a little bit, you know, a little bit above inflation, maybe. Not likely that we’ll see a real boom.” “I’d like to people getting optimistic again. Not...

For the last two years, Spain has been in the thick of a massive housing crisis. There are somewhere between 700,000 and a million new, unsold homes in the country. (The U.S., by contrast, with five times the population of Spain, has only 145,000 new unsold homes.) Spanish banks hold nearly 200 billion euros worth of bad mortgage loans. So Spain is offering a deal. Buy a house worth more than the mean home price and receive something that had been, until now, priceless: Spanish residency papers. Spain isn't the first European country that's tried to stimulate the housing market...

It may be somewhat of a macabre house to move your family into. But a buyer has signed a contract to purchase Robert F. Kennedy Jnr's eco-friendly home for close to its full $4 million asking price, it was reported today. Bobby Kennedy put the Westchester mansion on the market a week ago - just five months after the death of his estranged wife Mary, who hanged herself at a barn on the estate. [Snip] (Kennedy) is also believed to have debts to pay off after Mary is said to have spent a fortune gutting the house and making...

Blackstone Group LP BX +2.42% has become the biggest U.S. investor in single-family rental homes by spending more than $1 billion since the start of 2012 to acquire more than 6,500 foreclosed houses in eight metropolitan areas, according to people briefed by Blackstone. The firm also is finalizing a loan for at least $300 million from Deutsche Bank to support this business, these people said. (SNIP) But Blackstone, one of the biggest buyout firms in the world, has been able to muscle its way to the front of the pack by taking advantage of the $13.3 billion property fund it...

A Wall Street behemoth plans to spend $1 billion on Tampa Bay's hobbled housing market, dispatching teams of brokers to scour neighborhoods and buy hundreds of homes a month. But rather than resell the homes, the Blackstone Group is opting to become a landlord, renting the homes to tenants including foreclosed ex-homeowners burned by the housing crash. Blackstone, one of the nation's largest private-equity firms, plans to buy as many as 15,000 homes in Tampa Bay over the next three years, many of them foreclosures, capitalizing on decimated home prices and growing rents. The shopping spree, and those of half...

GARY SHILLING: Here's Why There's No Housing Recovery And Prices Will Collapse Another 20% Matthew BoeslerSep. 19, 2012, 5:18 PMEveryone thinks the housing market in the U.S. looks like it's starting to bottom. Famed economist Gary Shilling is not one of them—you could call him notably bearish on housing. In fact, he expects prices to drop another 20 percent from here and doesn't think we will see a bottom in the market for another several years. The main reasons Shilling is so pessimistic: There is a huge supply of excess inventory not being accounted for, and prices still have not...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — To hear the National Association of Realtors tell it, if only banks had looser mortgage standards, another 700,000 homes would be sold and 350,000 jobs would be created. That’s according to a release Monday from the trade association. NAR says between 500,000 to 700,000 more homes and between 250,000 to 350,000 new jobs would be created if standards weren’t too tight. There probably will be about 4.6 million homes sold this year, whereas the NAR says in “normal” circumstances some 5 million to 5.5 million would be sold. The NAR points out that in the good ole...

A London mansion believed to be adorned with millions of dollars worth of gold leaf decoration is on the market for a record asking price of $483 million. The 60,000-square-foot home, once was owned by late Lebanon Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, contains 45 bedrooms, underground parking, a swimming pool and possibly bulletproof windows, according to the Telegraph.

U.S. Housing Market Is The Most Awesome Opportunity In American History Housing-Market / US HousingSep 09, 2012 - 11:14 AM By: DailyWealth Dr. Steve Sjuggerud writes: The situation we're facing today can be boiled down to a few very simple points... And the result is an awesome investment opportunity. It is possibly the greatest investing opportunity in American history... I'm talking about the housing market. Real estate investor Jason Hartman interviewed me this week on his radio show (available soon at www.JasonHartman.com). And I made my case. My points were simple: 1. Housing prices have fallen more than they ever...

The California Association of Realtors (CAR) has criticized the Federal Housing Finance Administration (FHFA) for moving ahead with its real estate owned (REO) bulk sales pilot initiative in a manner that the trade group refers to as a "highly secretive manner, despite vehement opposition from California congressional members, the negative economic impact to the state’s housing market, and cost to taxpayers." CAR adds that it is filing a request for details through the Freedom of Information Act. The REO bulk sales pilot program calls for the sale of nearly 500 Fannie Mae-owned foreclosed homes in the Los Angeles and Inland...

$500,000-and-up segment 'very weak' Don and Karen Walton sit in their classic Georgian center-hall colonial, in the slowest-moving segment of a slow real estate market. Their million-dollar Goshen home, set amid expansive lawns and English-style gardens, drew three prospective buyers in 2011. "In six months, three people," Karen Walton said one morning in her kitchen. "This year, so far, we've had seven." Don Walton, 70, a retired engineer, said: "There was a flurry of interest in July, when we had four people. There's been nothing in August." Any offers? "No offers, no second looks," Don Walton said. "They said it...

JONATHAN MILLER: Don't Buy The Hype About A Housing Recovery Jill Krasny Aug. 30, 2012, 12:53 PM Much of the housing recovery you've been hearing about is still just hype, says Jonathan Miller of Manhattan-based real estate appraisal company Miller-Samuel. "We keep throwing the 'recovery' word around, but the big numbers are coming from sources being created from the tight market," he told Business Insider. "Tight credit is causing rents to rise; falling mortgage rates are pushing people to buy. "There's this sense that no one really has a sense of where we are in the housing market. Recovery is...

No Place Like Home Chart of the Week August 29, 2012 By Eric Schaefer of American Independence Financial Services Home. There are few other more evocative and comforting words in the English language, or, in any language for that matter. The mention of home unleashes a flood of emotions and thoughts. Home may be an ideal, but it is also a place. Among our possessions, our house is our home. Few other worldly goods, no matter what socio-economic we count our self amongst, enjoys the same pride of place. As Americans we hold house and home in a special regard....

Pending Home Sales Surge Past Expectations, Rising 2.4% Mamta Badkar Aug. 29, 2012, 10:00 AM Pending home sales beat expectations rising 2.4 percent in July. This is the highest level in over two years. On a yearly basis they were up 12.4 percent. Pending home sales in the south saw the biggest rebound rising 5.2 percent in July, and up 15.6 percent from a year ago. "While the month-to-month movement has been uneven, more importantly we now have 15 consecutive months of year-over-year gains in contract activity," said Lawrence Yun, NAR's chief economist in a press release. Pending home sales...

It is almost four years after the global financial meltdown of 2008 and many parts of world are still trying to recover. Given the impact of the crisis, which rocked financial markets across the globe, it is shocking to many that Canada seems to be following many of the same lending trends as we saw in the United States in 2006. These trends were at the core of the subprime mortgage crisis, which led to the global recession of 2008. In the year and a half leading up to the crash housing prices rapidly increased in the United States, with...