The Continued Slow Deflation of the Housing Bubble

The stock market perked up last week. Does that signal the beginning of a return to the good old days? After all, the Obama economic team is feverishly pulling out all of the stops in its attempt to restart the residential real estate markets in a positive direction.

Although the tide may turn slightly, I’m skeptical about whether we are going to see a return to meaningful long term growth in residential real estate values. Read more

You Can Benefit from Impending Inflation

I have a suggestion for how you can benefit in residential real estate from the approaching inflation.

When writing about inflation, most personal finance writers (including Mr. ToughMoneyLove) spend most of their energy on damage control. We talk about investing in gold, commodities in general, or inflation protected securities such as I-Bonds and TIPS. There is a lot more of that going on now because of current government fiscal and monetary policies. Most experts just can’t see a way for our economy to avoid the ravages of escalating inflation in the very near future.

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Disturbia in Suburbia – A Permanent Decline in Residential Property Values?

Residential Real Estate is in Decline (But is it Temporary?)

It is no secret that residential property values in numerous urban and suburban centers have substantially declined in recent months.  The accepted cause of such declines has been the collapse of the credit markets, overextended and under-employed homeowners, and the resulting loan defaults and foreclosures.   The optimistic real estate pundits confidently predict that once all of the bad loans are flushed through the system and written off the books of the large lenders, things will return to normal.  That makes sense. Read more