The headling of the Financial Times article sums it all up: “How U.S. housing boom may be coming to tricky end.”

The piece says the “sudden slowdown” in the housing market in this country is sending analysts all over the world to look for clues about what might happen next. The article raises the following questions: “Will America’s spectacular residential property boom end in a ’soft landing’—for house prices and its economy as a whole, or are shocks of a more brutal severity in store which could resonate far beyond its shores?”

Interesting questions to be sure. I’m afraid you have to be a subscriber to FT.com to read the full article….but, whether you read it or not, the questions posed are important to reflect upon.

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Tags: boom, Economy, globe, housing, landing, prices, soft, world

• BusinessWeek Europe is reporting about the rapid shift in real estate broker advertising from newspapers to the net. “Three new studies say the $11.6 billion real estate ad market is set to shift hard from print to the Internet.” Find out more about how this move to internet advertising will affect the newspaper business.
• Canada’s CBC News is reporting that housing Sydney, Australia is Booming. “Housing prices have jumped as much as 20 per cent over the past five years. The average home in Sydney now sells for about $77,000.” Although a pittance compared to US housing prices, the market is still very competitive, with homeowners getting multiple offers — some with as many as 27.



• Architects yesterday announced plans for 3 new buildings to surround the Freedom Tower on the World Trade Center site in New York. Have a look at the designs to the right.
• The Los Angeles Times is reporting that sales of existing homes in Ventura County, California fell 27% for the first six months in ‘06 from the same period in ‘05. Despite the slowdown, the economy looks strong in the county and housing prices have not seen a decline yet.
• The National Association of Realtors is starting to lose the never-ending optimism that they’ve showed throughout this housing boom. Yesterday, they announced that they expect sales to continue to fall — “it expected prices nationwide to drop during the next few months, instead of appreciating modestly. If that happens, it would be the first time since 1993 that median home prices have fallen in any given month.” . . . looks like a little dose of reality has finally settled in.

Tags: advertising, australia, classifieds, county, freedom, housing, NAR, realtor, sydney, tower, trade, ventura, world, wtc