House Buying Mania

The Economist has been doing a great job of tracking the housing bubble both in the US and overseas. Many believe that the bubble is international in scope and that a plunge in worldwide housing prices threatens to send many local economies into a recession. Some of the areas that are showing signs of weakness in the past few months include the UK and Australia. In this country, a lot of people are looking at the San Diego, San Francisco, Miami and Las Vegas markets for signs of an eventual housing price collapse.

If I had to guess which towns in the Shore Area are likely to fall first, I would put my money on all those condos and townhouses going up in Long Branch. Also, some of the McMansion type developments in Wall, Howell and Freehold might also be worth watching for negative price changes. The houses in some those developments look pretty large and I can just imagine someone paying up for size at the expense of a longer commute.


“Perhaps the best evidence that the U.S. house prices have reached dangerous levels is the fact that house-buying mania has been plastered on the front of virtually every U.S. newspaper and magazine over the past month.”