Seattle Bubble

“The interest rate on their mortgage had risen to 9.5 percent, from 3.5 percent three years ago. They didn’t have the equity or good credit to qualify for refinancing at a lower rate.”
This quote was from Ben’s ‘the housing bubble’ blog this morning and it perfectly illustrates the misconception that I hear all the [...]

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I’ve commented on this before at Inman News and other blogs, but it deserves it’s own post. Here is an exerpt from my letter to the editor:
To help borrowers qualify for a home loan and to get payments in line with a lenders loan program, it is necessary for the taxes and insurance to [...]

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Last week when Bill Virgin snuck an uncomfortable Seattle real estate truth into a sports opinion column, I was surprised. Today, when I read a P-I editorial titled ‘Easy credit driving housing prices?‘ I just about fell out of my seat.
Deep in the Commerce Department’s report are even more troubling concerns: The personal savings [...]

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A perceptive reader pointed out a post at Calculated Risk that pointed to a 29-page report by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (pdf). The interesting piece of information is contained on page 25, in Chart 4, reproduced below.
Click to enlarge
And here’s the money quote from the write-up:
Nontraditional loan products can be appropriate for financially [...]

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And Paul Moulo has this from National Mortgage News:
“According to a new report by the Mortgage Asset Research Institute, “stated-income loans” deserve their nickname of the “liar’s loan.” MARI says that almost 60% of the stated-income amounts are exaggerated by more than 50%.”
Is this for real? Does this suggest that nearly 60% of those [...]

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A few notes about some style changes I’m making to Seattle Bubble. The most noticable change is that there is now a more obvious differentiation between posts written by myself and those written by Seattle Bubble team member S Crow. As you can see, posts submitted by S Crow will have a dark [...]

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