Northern Virginia Bits Bucket 6/29/2011

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S&P/Case-Shiller® April Home-Price Index

The S&P/Case Shiller® composite index for the month of April was released today.

"'In a welcome shift from recent months, this month is better than last - April’s numbers beat March,' says David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Indices. 'However, the seasonally adjusted numbers show that much of the improvement reflects the beginning of the Spring-Summer home buying season. It is much too early to tell if this is a turning point or simply due to some warmer weather.

'...In the monthly details, we saw home prices increase in April over March. The 10-City was up 0.8% and the 20-City rose 0.7%. Only seven cities experienced lower prices compared to 18 in March. However, the seasonally adjusted figures saw less dramatic improvement. The annual rate of change for the 10-City remained the same at -3.1%; whereas the 20-City fell further from -3.8% reported for March to -4.0% for April. For a real recovery we would need to see several months of increasing home prices, large enough to shift the annual momentum to the positive side. In short, better news, but still a lot of questions and a long way to go.'"

Northern Virginia Bits Bucket 6/28/2011

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Northern Virginia Bits Bucket 6/27/2011

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Northern Virginia Bits Bucket 6/24/2011

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Northern Virginia Bits Bucket 6/22/2011

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Northern Virginia Bits Bucket 6/20/2011

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Northern Virginia Bits Bucket 6/16/2011

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Northern Virginia May Housing Sales

Northern Virginia's May 2011 housing sales were down 16% YoY, and median prices were up 7%. The average days on the market increased by 44% to 56 days.

(The above statistics include Alexandria City, Arlington County, Fairfax City, Fairfax County, Falls Church City, Fauquier County, Loudoun County, Manassas City, Manassas Park City, and Prince William County).

Northern Virginia Bits Bucket 6/9/2011

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The New Crash -- Education Defaults

There's been a lot of big-bank bashing over the housing bubble years, and rightly so. But this is something to think about. If you got a subprime mortgage and couldn't pay it back, what's the worst thing that would happen to you?

Now consider the results of borrowing money from the federal government for a student loan, and being unable to pay it back. Terrifying.

I've been reading up on the education bubble. How do you get blood from a turnip?

Update: The story has changed (link fixed). It's not surprising that there was a knee-jerk reaction all over the blogosphere and other media over this. I hope we get a follow-up, and I hope the guy gets a new door.

"A U.S. government official confirmed for News10 Wednesday morning federal agents with the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), not local S.W.A.T., served the search warrant. The official would not say specifically why the raid took place. He did say the search was not related to student loans in default.

He went on to say OIG is a semi-independent branch of the U.S. Department of Education that executes warrants for criminal offenses such as student aid fraud and embezzlement of federal aid."

Northern Virginia Bits Bucket 6/8/2011

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Northern Virginia Bits Bucket 6/6/2011

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Northern Virginia Bits Bucket 6/2/2011

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Finally, a genuine feel-good story.

Northern Virginia Bits Bucket 6/1/2011

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