Home Prices Up .7%, 1st Rise in 8 Months

Bombastic guru lists 10 signs of a real-estate turnaround

(NEWSER) - Jim Cramer has spent over a year “shouting in my usual unhinged way” about the bleak real estate market, he writes in New York. But now he’s so confident housing’s headed for a bottom that he’ll name the exact date: June 30, 2009. Why?

1. New home construction has fallen spectacularly, and "by next June we won’t be building enough homes to accommodate demand."
2. Congress has authorized $300 billion in FHA loans. Foreclosures and supply will both nosedive as a result.

Consumer confidence numbers offer ray of hope

(NEWSER) - Home prices continued to nosedive in May, a signal that the housing crisis may be worsening and a red flag for the credit markets and Wall Street, reports the New York Times. Every region covered by the S&P/Case-Schiller home-price index showed a drop compared to May 2007, with the rate of decline setting a record for the 21-year-old metric. More»

Average apartment price soars to record; big picture grim

(NEWSER) - Manhattan real estate prices hit record highs in the first quarter of 2008, but sales declined, showing that the housing crunch is starting to affect the island, Bloomberg reports. The average price of a Manhattan apartment was $1.7 million, up 33.5% from last year, the New York Times reports, but sales for the same period fell 34%, the most in 18 years. More»

Owners grappling with negative equity can afford to pay but choose not to

(NEWSER) - Freefalling home values may be creating yet another crisis in the mortgage industry. The new phenomenon: homeowners capable of paying their mortgages who walk away, unwilling to pour money into a property that’s worth less than they originally paid. "It may not be a big thing yet, and hopefully it won't be," an economist tells the Wall Street Journal. More»

NAR campaign claims slumping market is a can't-lose investment

(NEWSER) - Apparently, real estate is a can’t-fail investment right now. Or at least, that’s the questionable gospel the National Association of Realtors is preaching, in a blitz of new commercials claiming that home values, on average, double every 10 years, and that a home is “the key to building long-term wealth,” Advertising Age reports. Housing crash? What housing crash? More»