By The Tim on January 9, 2012
In a recent comment thread a few readers expressed interest in occasional posts on some more homeowner-focused topics, including finishing the “knife catcher” series of posts I began back in June about my personal homebuying experience (yes, that’s my home pictured at right behind Crystal, the Seattle Bubble Mascot). Here are some of the potential [...]
Posted in Features | Tagged administrative, falling-knife, first-hand-homebuying, homebuying, pink ponies
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 February 3, 2011
As some of you may recall, I spent the first decade or so of my career doing electrical engineering (i.e. – circuit design, PCB layout, etc.). In that world of custom electronics, every customer seems to want their widget to cost $5, be packed with features that are 100% reliable, and have the design completed [...]
Posted in Features, Opinion | Tagged buyer's market, homebuying, location, price, price-quality-location, quality
By The Tim on June 12, 2009
Here’s a brief quote from a post that appeared here in 2006 titled The Monthly Payment Buyer: In my opinion, it’s no wonder that home prices have gotten so out of whack with true fundamentals, when the first question someone asks in the home buying process is not “Is this house worth $XXX,000?” but rather [...]
Posted in Features | Tagged Financing, homebuying, Interest Rates, monthly-payment
By The Tim on September 18, 2008
Here in Seattle it seems like we’re ground zero for real estate search websites, with Redfin, Estately, John L. Scott, Windermere, and many others constantly competing to add newer fancier features that make it amazingly easy to find a shiny new home in Seattle from the comfort of your old and busted hovel anywhere in [...]
Posted in News | Tagged homebuying, rats, suzanne researched this
