After a historic boom, the housing market went into a historic slump in 2006. The troubles in housing precipitated the recession that began in late 2007, and losses in mortgage-backed securities led to the near-collapse of the global financial system in late 2008.
The market appeared to bottom out in early 2009, recovering through the rest of that year and into 2010, but a second slump set in and by the spring of 2011 prices were down 31.8 percent from their 2006 peak.
The problems in the housing market are well known. Builders built too much, lenders lent too much, and people bought too much. The binge was epic and so is the hangover.
Prices fell nationwide through 2007 and 2008, in some places like Florida and Nevada by as much as 50 percent, before bottoming out and beginning a slow recovery in the spring of 2009.
But the housing market still faced strong headwinds -- excess inventory. Along with overbuilding, houses flooded onto the market as millions of homeowners faced foreclosure. As unemployment stayed stubbornly close to 10 percent, buying power remained limited.
By May 2010, a marked slowing had set in. That, not coincidentally, was when the government’s special tax credit for buyers was ending. The credit had its greatest impact in boosting the sale of lower-priced homes.
By the end of the year, a new slide in housing prices had begun in earnest.
In January 2011 prices dropped for the sixth consecutive month, putting them barely above the lows reached in the depths of the recession. First-time buyers were fleeing, sellers were frustrated, builders were depressed and lenders were skittish about making new loans.
Eleven cities hit a new low for the downturn, including Charlotte, N.C., Miami, Tampa, Fla., and New York. Prices in New York had fallen 23 percent from their peak.
Buying a house is a mix of faith and necessity, but that first element was scarce. The Conference Board reported in March 2011 that its consumer confidence index had tumbled 8.6 percent that month, the first drop in six months and the largest in a year. Only 15 percent of respondents thought their incomes would increase over the next six months.
Among the troubles facing the market was a pervasive sense that houses are a bad bet. If prices still have further to fall, if loans are tough to get, if interest rates are no longer plunging, why not put off a deal if you possibly can?
The downward spiral of the housing market, which experts expect will continue, has not only lowered home ownership, but tarnished a piece of the American dream.
May 30, 2011For various reasons, recent price declines in housing may be overstated by state indexes.
May 27, 2011
Brokers say that sales of two-bedroom apartments are picking up, especially at the lower end of the market.
May 27, 2011
Plenty of lenders are comfortable with co-ops; all will review the building as well as the borrower, examining its finances over several years.
May 26, 2011
Some developers are betting that well-heeled buyers will pay extra for the privilege of parking where they live.
May 26, 2011
A waterfront Victorian house on the Hudson River is in a hamlet where homes rarely come on the market.
May 26, 2011On the market for a couple of years now, the property was bought for $6.8 million and had $1.6 million in renovations that took about a year and a half.
May 26, 2011Banks used lobbying and political influence to gain larger assistance for their mortgage-lending problems, an economist writes.
May 25, 2011New city. New family identity. New parenting culture.
May 25, 2011In closing its preschool and education programs, the antipoverty group said the gentrifying neighborhood no longer fit its mission.
May 25, 2011A niche market since the 1970s, office condominiums have recently become more popular as prices have fallen.
May 24, 2011A surplus of previously owned and foreclosed homes remained on the market as the real estate recovery stayed sluggish.
May 24, 2011The ailing market is not going to heal itself. The Obama administration should champion a government fix, and Congress and regulators should act on it.
May 24, 2011Neighbors have concerns about safety issues tied to a 12-story building at 127 West 25th Street that would have hundreds of beds for homeless people, some struggling with addiction or mental illness.
May 23, 2011Want to sell a trophy apartment with an asking price of $23.5 million in Dumbo, Brooklyn? Have a party there, and put the party on TV.
May 23, 2011
The nation’s biggest banks and mortgage lenders have amassed a glut of foreclosed homes that threatens to deepen the housing slump.
May 23, 2011
Nonprofit agencies say that home buyers who undergo prepurchase counseling are less likely to lose their homes because of a bad mortgage product.
May 22, 2011
Rubicon Property has raised $8,000 for a group called charity:water, which provides potable water to developing countries.
May 22, 2011
NovaStar Financial was a microcosm of what would set the stage for the 2008 credit crisis, a new book says.
May 22, 2011Herkimer Street from Bedford to Nostrand Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, is an architecturally complex block.
May 22, 2011SEARCH 35654 ARTICLES ABOUT HOUSING:
To help make sense of the housing rescue plan, Edmund L. Andrews, John Leland and Tara Siegel Bernard responded to reader questions.
Vicki Been, director of the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy at New York University, and Jonathan J. Miller, the president of Miller Samuel Inc., an appraisal company, will be answering readers’ questions on how history might be a guide to the current real estate market in New York City.
Investors in Florida are trying to find good deals among the glut of homes on the market.
Wilbur L. Ross, Jr., is best known for investing in distressed assets and turning them around. He has lately taken an interest in Irish banks, even as the country's banking system undergoes a bailout.
In Ordos, China, there is just one thing largely missing in the city’s new and extravagant central district: people.
A growing number of photographers are using their craft to document the hidden side of the foreclosure crisis.
The recession and predatory lending destroyed black income, and erased two decades of slow progress.
When a resident won’t leave a foreclosed house, a real estate agent comes knocking to persuade them to leave. It’s the next-to-last resort, before the sheriff.
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