Billmon: Dream House

If anyone has any lingering doubts that a rather enormous bubble has been inflated in the U.S. housing market -- at least in those regions benefiting most from our debt-fueled economy -- this news release should put them to rest:

Average U.S. home prices increased 12.5 percent from the first quarter of 2004 through the first quarter of 2005. Appreciation for the most recent quarter was 2.21 percent, or an annualized rate of 8.82 percent. The new data represent the largest four-quarter increase since the third quarter of 2004, when appreciation surpassed any increase in over 25 years.

This exciting news (for real estate speculators anyway) comes to us today courtesy of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, the obscure federal agency charged with overseeing (snort) and regulating (giggle) the giant federally chartered mortgage twins not-so-affectionately known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- which between them now hold some $1.7 trillion in mortgages or mortgage-backed securities.