Want to experience the housing market crash in less than a minute? You’re in luck! The New York Fed has released an interactive map that displays foreclosures by county in the tri-state area between Jan. 2007 and Dec. 2011. (Warning: we do not recommend the map to anyone with an underwater mortgage or Read More
After improving in the first half of last year, the Case-Shiller Home Price Index began to plummet in the middle of 2011, and it has reached a new low with the release of the November numbers yesterday. As one of the stronger measures of the U.S. housing market, the index is closely watched, and any negative movement is seen as a problem for both housing and the economy. Now, analysts are predicting national housing prices will not recover at least until the spring.
Does this have any bearing on New York, considering the Case-Shiller only tracks single-family homes? In short, yes. “Obviously, housing weighs on the larger economy, so that has an impact on us,” said Harold Shultz, an analyst at the Citizens Housing and Planning Council, which closely follows the Case-Shiller from a city perspective. Read More
Shadow inventory. It was supposed to be the boogeyman of the real estate bust, thousands upon thousands of unsold properties scattered across the city. Bought or built for more than they were worth, people would hang onto these homes until the market improved, giving a better appearance to the housing supply than actually existed. It’s like the difference between the standard and broad rates of unemployment.
No matter. To real estate doyenne and new Brooklynite Elizabeth Stribling, there is no shadow inventory, or so she tells The Times in one of its patented 30-Minute Interviews. Read More
A small group of Occupy Wall Street protestors crossed the river today, arriving in the borough of Kings for the first time since the mass arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge. They were there to protest foreclosures, which they did by occupying a foreclosure auction at the country courthouse. Things turned out kinda how they have been since the protests launched almost a month ago: a mix of excitement and annoyance from the onlookers, some middling chants, and eventually, handcuffs. Read More
A group of vocal protestors was bunched in tightly together within the confines of a narrow sliver of sidewalk that JP Morgan security had provided for them yesterday morning. By design, the space kept the group safely off the spacious outdoor plaza in front of the company’s headquarters at 270 Park Avenue, placing their backs against the wide, waist high concrete bollards that delineate private property from the city sidewalk.
The protestors’ uncomfortable position simultaneously allowed a constant flow of pedestrian traffic to move past them on the sidewalk and to obstruct the view of onlookers, which consisted almost entirely of curiously observant JP Morgan employees leaving the building for lunch. The rest were the various City Council employees that were on hand to staff the three members who took turns at the makeshift lecturn shoved snuggly into the center of the chanting crowd.
Unfortunately for the protestors, their chaotic, ad hoc physical placement and the clear lack of an interested public seemed to echo the rather jumbled message that they brought to the headquarters of the corporation that they insulted, accused and then, bizarrely, invited out for a walk around Brooklyn, where they believe Chase is wreaking havoc on low-income homeonwers. Read More
Poor Alexander Hamilton. The only house he ever owned, Hamilton Grange, has been uprooted and moved not once but twice since its original construction in Upper Manhattan. Hopefully this time, however, the first Treasury secretary’s home has found a permanent home of its own.
The building, a national landmark, was closed in 2006, and ever so carefully moved to St. Nicholas Park. And, in news that will surely excite the history buffs among you, Read More
For almost five years now, the housing crisis has been a drag on the U.S. economy, the U.S. psyche, the U.S. spirit. It turns out it is also dragging down Americans’ health. Read More
Good news! Foreclosures are at their lowest levels in four years!
Wait, no, that’s horrible news. There are so many delinquent homes out there, the banks don’t want to repossess them, and even when they want to, the bottleneck caused by the robo-signing scandal is still holding up the whole party. The Obama administration has a simple solution: Just rent it. Read More
If it is going to take at least six decades to unwind the foreclosure fiasco in New York, that can only mean two things: bad news for homeowners and good news for attorneys, especially those who know the right people. Read More
At least not in the Empire State, as a cover story from the Sunday Times explains:
In New York State, it would take lenders 62 years at their current pace, the longest time frame in the nation, to repossess the 213,000 houses now in severe default or foreclosure, according to calculations by LPS Read More
