Housing Doom Housing Bubble Blog

It’s Op-Ed Friday, and one of the trends I’ve been watching this week is all the news coming out of Canada on how "hot" the real estate market is.  According to this Anne Howland article Canadians’ appetite for real estate confounds experts:

The most profound story in Canadian real estate today is the extraordinary interest that people across our country continue to have in buying and selling homes.  The sheer number of homes trading hands this year has far exceeded consensus expectation.

So where is John, Doom’s "man-on-the street" in Canada?
Read the rest of this entry »

Every now and then, common sense prevails in Arizona government:

Zillow.com, the popular real estate Web site, is in the clear for offering its home-value estimates in Arizona.

Earlier this week, Gov. Janet Napolitano signed into law Senate Bill 1291, with an amendment that allows Zillow to operate in the state.

The Arizona Board of Appraisal a year ago ordered Seattle-based Zillow to stop offering its property estimates because it does not have an Arizona appraiser’s license.

I did a post on the "cease and desist" letters by the Arizona Board of Appraisal last April.  Apparently the Board has had a change of heart since then:
Read the rest of this entry »