Rich People Missing Out On Housing Rebound

Sad news! While sales of peasant dwellings have begun to creep upward due to the first-time home buyer tax credit, low mortgage rates, expanded FHA loans, and of course FIRE SALE PRICING on foreclosed homes, homes costing more than $750,000 have been difficult to move in this market. Wealthy home owners (or "the middle class," as they're known in pricey markets like New York, DC, and the Bay Area) are finding it difficult to sell their million-dollar shacks. However, at least some of them are able to rent out their sad dwellings for, oh, $7500 a month, so don't feel too bad about this problem yet.

Here is a relevant quote from theWSJarticle that now sadly lurks behind a paywall, for rich people's exclusive reading pleasure:

Susan Forney rented her six-bedroom Georgian colonial in Northfield, Ill., for $7,500 a month after it didn't sell.

Over the past two years, she reduced the price by $1 million to $2.25 million, but her only offer came in at $1.6 million, about $100,000 less than she paid for the house in 1999.

Ms. Kobor says it is ironic that two of the most powerful men in the country know of these problems first hand.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner decided to rent out his Larchmont, N.Y., home after it failed to sell and President Obama purchased a $1.65 million Chicago home with a $1.3 million jumbo mortgage in 2005, at the height of the real-estate bubble. The property is now worth $1.2 million, according to an estimate by Zillow.

How can President Obama run the economy when he cannot even behave like a competent real estate speculator?

[ Wall Street Journal ]