Real Estate

Sure the job pays better, but with those housing prices there’s no propertunity.

I have always been of the mind that Massachusetts may be losing population, but that this is mostly due to a soft job market, not because of high housing prices.

San Diego writer who is questioning whether the experts prediction of a 5% pullback in housing prices is accurate.

After getting approved with a couple different mortgage brokers and comparing their programs, interest rates and upfront fees, I ended up going with the broker that my agent recommended. The numbers that the different mortgage companies came back with were all largely the same, so I ended up making my decision based on the experience of the actual person I would be working with. While I liked a Manhattan broker the best (pleasant, easy going, very professional), I ended up working with a fast-talking NJ mortgage guy because he understood exactly what my investment objectives were and was able to assemble a loan program that accommodated my desire for minimal upfront costs, no pre-payment penalties, etc. The other brokers I spoke with seemed completely unfamiliar with the concept of purchasing a house solely for the purpose of fixing it up and re-selling it in short order.

Even if prices don’t fall, even if there is no housing bubble about to pop, the cooling real estate market will be felt by many of those who may not be thinking about real estate prices. “It’s going to be very similar to the stock bubble, but even more so. Many who didn’t own stock lost their job when the market plummeted,” said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, and one of those who believes housing prices have resulted in an asset bubble ripe for a correction.

Getting prequalified for a mortage determines how much you can afford to pay for your home. It allows you to act as quickly as possible when you find the right home, especially when there are other interested buyers. Very importantly, it also shows the seller that you are serious about purchasing the property and that you are able to afford it.

To make the list, Kiplinger’s says a city had to score well in a variety of areas including housing prices, cost of living, economic vitality, education, health care, the local arts scene and recreational facilities.

Paulette Ensign, the Tips Booklet Queen, makes a great suggestion for Realtors, mortgage brokers and others who work in crowded markets, particularly where business is slowing right about now.

Charlottesville is going through a dramatic period of transformation, caused by the region’s quality of life and a general rise in housing prices. This has forced the evolution of the city’s historic neighborhoods, including the Woolen Mills area, just to the east of the downtown mall. In this second in our continuing series on Charlottesville area bloggers, photographer Bill Emory takes us on a tour of the neighborhood. He’s taking a visual inventory of what the area looks like today to make sure it’s still there tomorrow.

I know from my prespective that energy cost are taking a bigger bite. Home insurance, interest rates and real estate prices are making my search for a house much more difficult than the last time, 5 years ago. Many Americans are heavily leveraged and have dipped heavily into home equity to maintain the spending the president touts. Those bills will be harder to pay as interest rates climb, as well as mounting credit card debit.

That's not how you compare home loan rates. You can call around to get a general idea but, when it comes to actually doing a true comparison, you need to contact several lending institutions (bank, mortgage brokers, whatever) and ask for a "Go0d Faith Estimate" on a specific property at a specific price.

Zhou Dunren, deputy director of the Pudong Institute of US Economy, says there “must be something wrong with the housing situation today”. According to his calculation, many citizens have to pay much more than 50% of their monthly income for mortgage payments in order to finance their oversized apartments, a development he calls “consumerism”. He proposes to “slow down”, using a variety of careful measures to allow housing prices to “steadily return to their natural levels”. Shanghai Daily commentator Wang Yanling puts it in a nutshell: “Bigger is not always better”. He fears “unrestricted urban sprawl”. Urban planners, he calculates, often create infrastructure capable of supporting 1 million people in cities which will “attract 500,000 people at most”. Meanwhile, big parks, big squares and big streets are “exactly what a country like China cannot afford”.

In Bill Virgin’s column How to rein in housing prices? It’s simple [SeattlePI], he draws a comparison between keeping gas prices down and housing prices.

Think about this: Mortgage companies made a lot of money in the past decade on sub-prime mortgages, balloon mortgages and other creative devices for parting people from the maximum amount of profit up front and then leaving them dangling over the financial cliff.

Case 1: Housing prices. Studies have indicated that high housing prices are mostly due to regulation restricting supply. And it should be no suprise why. If most voters in a region are homeowners, then they will tend to vote for regulations and officials who will make it hard to build new homes, as this will increase the value of their homes. This is especially true if demand in the area is inelastic, perhaps due to unique features - say: LA, Silicon Valley, Manhattan and Hawaii, which means prospective buyers can’t just substitute homes in other areas.

With housing prices rising faster than inflation, and college prices rising faster than inflation, and starting salaries rising slower than either, what’s a new graduate to do? Rent until they are 30 to save up for a down payment on a house? That didn’t work for me - student loan payments made sure of that.

Remember those all-time low mortgage rates from the last few years? Following the stock market correction the Federal Reserve dropped interest rates making credit dirt cheap. Between that and heavy deficit spending (to the tune of about $2 billion a day since September 2005), US dollars are not in short supply.