By The Tim on October 24, 2012
There is one major political topic that has been mysteriously absent from both major presidential campaigns during this year’s presidential election season… housing. Nick Timiraos noted this in the Wall Street Journal in early September. Here we are in late October, four debates later, and nothing has really changed. Barely a peep about housing from [...]
Posted in National, News, Opinion | Tagged economics, Economy, Inman, interest, mortgages, NPR, Obama, politics, Romney, tax deduction
By The Tim on October 23, 2011
This poll was active 10.23.2011 through 10.29.2011.
Posted in Polls | Tagged government_meddling, interest, Polls, tax deduction
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 May 10, 2010
This weekend Seattle Bubble favorite Steve Tytler fielded a question from a very confused homeowner in his real estate Q&A column in the Everett Herald. Couple’s dilemma: To rent out house or sell Here is a portion of the owner’s question. We were given a house valued at $250,000, which is paid for. We have [...]
Posted in Features | Tagged advice, Everett_Herald, interest, mortgages, tax deduction, Tytler
