For many newer homeowners, this is the first correction they have experienced. I’ve been asked a question about short sales in an e-mail. It is a good question for both agents and appraisers to answer. It is presented as follows: Appraisers, please chime in. Fake Scenario: A home is sold as a short sale. It…
Month: April 2008
CEPR: Maintaining Ownership Makes No Sense
The Center for Economic and Policy Research came out with another great paper this month titled The Cost of Maintaining Ownership in the Current Crisis Here’s an excerpt from the summary (emphasis mine): The collapse of the bubble in the U.S. housing market is creating chaos in financial markets while throwing the economy into a…
Radar Logic Shows Seattle MSA Price per Square Foot Dropping at 17% per Year
Many of you are aware of the “Residential Property Index” published for the top 25 MSAs by Radar Logic. Radar Logic has a similar business model to MacroMarkets with the Case-Shiller Index (e.g., creating housing-based contracts to be traded on a futures market) but there are some key differences in the way that they calculate…
Seattle Bubble Speaks out Against Bailouts on NPR
Stop the Mortgage Bailout, Patrick.net, and Seattle Bubble were featured this morning in a segment called Opposition to Proposed Homeowner Bailout Growing on NPR about the various government bailout plans. You can listen to the full three-minute segment on NPR’s website. Here’s a little clip of my appearance: https://seattlebubble.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/npr_2008-04-09-clip.mp3 The house Mr. Kaste and I…
WaMu: Goodbye, Home Loans
It’s a good news / bad news day for local lending juggernaut Washington Mutual. The good news: They got a big cash infusion from a private investment group, and may not go the way of New Century. The bad news: They’re completely pulling out of wholesale lending, closing their home loan centers, and eliminating 3,000…