I’m not a big fan of oversized homes. How much space does one person need? Big homes are wasteful — they consume too much energy and too many raw materials. On top of that, they encourage family members to hide from each other. (And, yes, I know there are days when you do want to hide from the rest of your family, but that’s what yard work is for.) A story in the New York Times, which you can find here,  gives me hope that McMansion mania is finally petering out. According to the Times, the demand for ultra-large homes in New Jersey — where such homes have long ruled the market — seems to be waning. The Times isn’t sure if this is a longterm or a shortterm thing. But it does give me hope. The Times cites... [Read more]

A sign of good fiscal health is if you’re paying less than 30 percent of your monthly income on your housing costs. BusinessWeek recently ran an interesting story about homeowners who are paying a whopping 50 percent — or more — of their monthly incomes on mortgage and other housing payments. You can read the story here. The BusinessWeek writers interview a homeowner who only eats out on certain days of the week, days of the week when McDonald’s offers 49-cent hamburgers. You might argue that such a homeowner — who is facing near certain foreclosure of his residence — shouldn’t be eating out at all. But when life’s such a struggle, why begrudge someone a 49-cent hamburger? To see so much of your... [Read more]

Seems that everyone is looking for help from the U.S. government these days. Add homebuilders to the list of those seeking a little financial pick-me-up. According to a Sept. 29 story by Bloomberg News, which you can read here,  officials with the National Association of Home Builders are asking members of Congress to pass a $15,000 tax credit for all homebuyers. This, officials with the trade association hope, will entice consumers to purchase homes. The builders association says that homebuilders have seen at least $19 billion in losses since 2006. Now, that is a lot of losses. But I don’t remember the homebuilders association proposing that their members give any of their profits back during the housing boom that ran from about 2001... [Read more]

The housing slump has hurt a lot of people, everyone from real estate agents and mortgage loan officers to homesellers, investors and, of course, the boards of directors of several large financial institutions that have gone under since the slump’s start. But no one has been hurt more than have been homebuilders. And things aren’t getting any better for them. The National Association of  Home Builders recently reported — citing statistics from the Commerce Department — that the sales of newly built single-family homes fell 11.5 percent in August. Officials with the department are now predicting that the country will see the sale of about 460,000 new homes this year. That sales rate is a whopping 34.5 percent... [Read more]

The residential real estate slump has brought much misery, to be certain. But it’s also exposed some real creativity on the part of homesellers desperate to unload residences nearing foreclosure. The latest bit of creative genius that I’ve discovered comes by way of The New York Times, which details the story of a couple who, unable to sell a home that was nearing foreclosure, held a raffle to get the home off their hands. Yes, a raffle. You can read the story here. The couple solf raffle tickets for $100 apiece, with the lucky lottery winner guaranteed their old farmhouse — which the couple had been unable to sell. The hope was that the couple, with the marketing help of a local real estate agent, would be able to sell enough... [Read more]