Full disclosure: The Tim is employed by Redfin. Earlier this month, Redfin released the results of an in-depth study of real estate listing accuracy across various websites, including Redfin, Windermere, Zillow, and Trulia. The results will not surprise anyone who has attempted to do any serious home searching on these sites, but I still wanted…
Category: National
National News
Are Obama & Romney Avoiding Housing to Avoid Talking About Killing the Mortgage Interest Deduction?
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…
Will Higher Interest Rates Kill the Housing Market?
Here’s a sampling of quotes from news articles about mortgage interest rates. “…a new reality: The economy has made the transition from tentative to robust recovery, and the period of historically low interest rates is ending.” “In the residential market, the belief that the period of historically low interest rates may end has begun to…
Here Comes the Gas Prices Discussion Again
I’ve been seeing more and more stories popping up all over various news outlets about high gas prices lately. Most have been about how the issue will effect the November presidential election, but it’s only a matter of time before the conversation moves to real estate again. Rather than re-writing all of my thoughts on…
Still Waiting for the Promised Surge in Interest Rates
I thought it might be worthwhile to take another updated look at mortgage rates. Here’s a chart of mortgage rates via the Federal Reserve over the last seven years. Latest rates came in at 3.88%, the lowest they have been as far back as the Federal Reserve’s data goes (early 1971). Here’s a chart of…