It takes a lot of courage to be a bull on homebuilder stocks these days. They exist, for sure. And they aren't on mind-bending drugs. In fact, they see the world much as the housing stock bears do. You won't find any uplifting messages in their reports on the economy and housing.
Modern America has long paired the "America Dream" with home ownership. The idea of staying put, paying property taxes and periodically mowing the lawn belonged to citizens who were somehow more American than the poor saps who could only afford to rent the place they called home.
With plans to start a family, Michael and Becky McCullough, 33 and 31, wanted more space. So last year they snapped up a four-bedroom foreclosure in Brookhaven, Ga., for $480,000.
The number of Americans who own homes fell in the second quarter of the year to the lowest level since 1999, said a government survey released Tuesday.
Home prices rose slightly in May compared with a month earlier, appearing to have stablized at the lower levels that followed the end of the residential real estate bubble, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index of 20 major housing markets released Tuesday.
Slick TV commercials and online ads tell delinquent borrowers that they can save their homes by filing for personal bankruptcy. But is it true -- or just too good to be true?
New home construction fell to the lowest level of the year in June, but there were indications of increased activity in coming months, the government said Tuesday.
Some 51,205 troubled homeowners received long-term mortgage modifications under President Obama's foreclosure prevention program in June, bringing the total to 389,198 since the program began in the spring of 2009.
In the past decade, Nantucket Island has served as a barometer for the fortunes of Wall Street. The glass cracked after years of unsustainable pressures. But almost by magic, the barometer is rising once more even as something new and unexpected has come to the summer paradise: foreclosures, short sales, failed auctions, and a skinnier municipal budget. And while financiers can cut and run, it's the locals who are being hardest hit.
