by Calculated Risk on 5/29/2005 02:20:00 AM

This weekend has seen a plethora of articles on housing. I posted some links earlier, and you can always check Patrick's site for housing related links.

UPDATE2: A Bane Amid The Housing Boom: Rising Foreclosures

"Philadelphia, its suburbs and indeed much of Pennsylvania have experienced a foreclosure epidemic as low-income homeowners take on mortgage debt they cannot afford. In 2000, the Philadelphia sheriff auctioned 300 to 400 foreclosed properties a month; now he handles more than 1,000 a month. Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh, had record auctions of foreclosed homes, and officials speak of a "Depression-era" problem."

UPDATE: See General Glut's comments on another NY Times housing article.

Here are four more:

University of Michigan: Back to the future

Home sales have again reached new peaks as consumers have seamlessly shifted from the irresistible enticement of record low mortgage rates to the equally irresistible temptation of purchasing in advance of rising mortgage rates and home prices. More consumers favored buying homes in advance of anticipated increases in mortgage rates and prices in the May survey than at any other time in the last decade. "Attitudes toward home buying conditions have recently displayed nearly all of the characteristics of earlier bouts of advance buying, a reaction that has typically generated an economic bust following an extended boom," Curtin said. The last time the survey recorded a comparable number of references to advance buying was in 1988-89, more than two years before home prices began to decline in some areas of the country.

LA Times: It's Not a Bubble Until It Bursts

The chief economist for the Mortgage Bankers Assn. is worried enough about the torrid housing market to get out of it.

"I'm going to rent for a while," said Douglas Duncan, who expects "significant reversals" in regions that have enjoyed strong home price appreciation, including Washington, D.C., Florida and California. He plans to sell his suburban Washington home, which has tripled in value since he bought it a dozen years ago, and move into an apartment.

And more:

A widely followed University of Michigan consumer survey, released Friday, showed that 24% of respondents nationwide said it was a good time to buy a home because prices would rise. That was the highest percentage since 1988 — right before prices peaked in the previous real estate cycle.

"These are powerful engines creating a boom in home sales, and all booms end the same way," Richard Curtin, director of the survey, said in a statement.

WaPo: The Interest-Only Trap

There's another group of home buyers opting for interest-only loans -- people looking for the lowest mortgage payment possible who probably wouldn't qualify for the house they want with a loan payment that included the interest and principal.

It's that last group of people that worries me the most -- home buyers who are just barely squeezing into a house with an interest-only loan.

"I am not sure that any loan which enables someone to dig their financial grave is good, and I wish that underwriters would realize that," Armstrong said.

Boston Herald: Bank on a bust, not longer boom

The problem: The dynamic of "advance buying" - that rush to buy homes before spiking prices and interest rates make it too late.

It's a tell-tale sign of a coming collapse, Curtin (director of the University of Michigan's Survey of Consumers) says.

"Attitudes toward home-buying conditions have recently displayed nearly all the characteristics of earlier bouts of advance buying,'' Curtin said in a press release Friday, calling it a reaction that has ``typically generated an economic bust."