By The Tim on November 28, 2011
Good comment from Jonness on this week’s poll: Personally, I would not feel comfortable leveraging into a $360K loan on a $100K income at a time where a significant risk of price declines exists. But, apparently many people have no problem with this. From what I’ve read, many people actually consider 28% of gross annual [...]
Posted in Opinion | Tagged affordability
By The Tim on October 27, 2011
Okay, as long as we’re talking politics this week, let’s just dive in head first. I’d like to discuss the latest federal “relief” plan that made news this week. Here’s an AP story from Monday: Obama Offers Mortgage Relief on Western Trip LAS VEGAS — President Barack Obama offered mortgage relief on Monday to hundreds [...]
Posted in News, Opinion | Tagged bailout, government_meddling, HARP, Obama, politics
By The Tim on October 12, 2011
[Read Part 1: Proposal: Replace the Mortgage Interest Deduction with a Flat Homeowner Deduction] In the comments on the proposal I made yesterday, Doug asked a reasonable question: Have you figured out what the deduction would be if you did this, and made it deficit neutral? That would be an interesting exercise. Good question. Let’s [...]
Posted in Features, Opinion | Tagged government_meddling, homebuying, mortgages, tax deduction
By The Tim on October 11, 2011
In our discussion on Sunday’s poll about whether government policy should be steering people into homebuying, I had an interesting idea that I thought was worth sharing with the whole class. The Problem There are numerous problems with the methods the government has used and is using to promote homebuying. One-time homebuyer tax credits just [...]
Posted in Features, Opinion | Tagged government_meddling, homebuying, mortgages, tax deduction
By The Tim on September 12, 2011
There are two good ideas that have been circulating recently that would help keep the housing market from experiencing another dangerous bubble: End (or greatly scale back) the mortgage interest tax deduction. Require at least a 20% down payment for purchases. Here’s a recent article that covers the arguments in favor of ending the deduction: [...]
Posted in Opinion | Tagged down payment, government_meddling, tax deduction
By The Tim on September 2, 2011
With the slimy moves, big fees, and generally anti-customer attitude of big banks, I find myself wondering who bothers with them anymore, and why? Over in the Weekend Open Thread, Pegasus points out a story in yesterday’s New York Times: U.S. Is Set to Sue a Dozen Big Banks Over Mortgages The federal agency that [...]
Posted in Opinion | Tagged banks
