Here’s more evidence that Wall Street investors are playing a huge role in the housing recovery by snapping up tens of thousands of homes that might otherwise be sitting vacant due to their beat-up conditions. There are a couple of seemingly contradictory thoughts here: One, the same Wall Street that created the historic subprime-mortgage fiasco [...]

Maybe the foreclosure rate in Massachusetts has fallen. But here’s a list of the top 14 cities across the US that are still overwhelmed by foreclosures. They’re not quite where you’d expect them to be, like California and Arizona, etc. Yeah, sure, there are seven cities listed as being in Florida. No surprise there. But [...]

Remember how many people kept predicting that we had “hit the bottom” during the recent housing market collapse — only to see the market hit a new low a month later? The bogus predictions literally went on for years, even becoming a running joke. Of course, some of the forecasters were eventually proved right, like [...]

As home-sale prices rise, so does the net equity holdings of homeowners — and, boy, has it grown in recent months. Since 2011, the net home equity holdings of Americans rose by $1.7 trillion. But $500 billion of that growth occurred in just the past three months alone. To give you an idea how important [...]

Bank of America and other large institutions are now predicting a steady rise in US home prices, as the housing market and economy finally seem to be getting over last decade’s mortgage and financial fiascos. But Scott is a little nervous about all the rhetoric, sensing a classic déjà vu moment all over again, as [...]

Though it’s nice to celebrate “turning the corner” in the housing market (as we cheerfully did yesterday), we’re not about to go as far as the mayor and declare a “full recovery” for the entire economy here. Unemployment is still high, the housing market is still shaky, and there are a host of other lingering [...]

Here’s a primer on how a recovering housing market helps the overall economy, as opposed to how a crashing housing market hurts the overall economy. File under: More please

The number of individuals filing for personal bankruptcies in Massachusetts fell by more than 18 percent last year, to about 11,964, the Warren Group reports. In other words: It’s more good news about the economy. Perhaps it might be described as better news, considering where we were coming from in terms of the economy.

This post may not have much to do with housing, but this is a pretty impressive chart tracking inflation since the American Revolution. Well, maybe housing is involved, considering how much home prices have risen over the decades and helped drive up overall costs for most Americans. Btw: The chart, via and as presented by [...]

Bill McBride comes up with his top economic questions and concerns heading into 2013 — and three of the ten have to deal with the housing market: Housing prices, housing inventories, and residential investments (i.e. new construction starts). It’s a good list worth thinking about as we prepare for 2013.