More talk of ending mortgage interest tax deductions. I'm hopeful but seriously doubtful. http://t.co/c3NUawp # Good thing everyone has been freaking out about the impending rise of interest rates for the last THREE YEARS. http://t.co/eE0qFOe # Holy crap, now THIS is an awesome house: http://t.co/tyJLRxa Belgian water tower converted into home. # Claim: "Home buyers…
Friday Flashback: “The era of record-low rates is over.”
Heh, remember this piece from April of last year? Homebuyers scramble as mortgage rates jump The era of record-low mortgage rates is over. The average rate on a 30-year loan has jumped from about 5 percent to more than 5.3 percent in just the past week. As mortgages get more expensive, more would-be homeowners are…
New King County Econ Blog: Housing is Risky, not Lousy
I received an email yesterday from Tom Goodwin, King County’s Chief Economist, pointing me toward a new blog that he has started to discuss economic issues in King County. The first topic: real estate. In his post, Is a Home a "Lousy" Investment? Tom takes on the recent Wall Street Journal piece A Home Is…
The Church of Real Estate
The time has come to introduce a little side project I’ve been working on: The Church of Real Estate. The idea came from a series of amusing comments by a reader who used to frequent Seattle Bubble, posting under the name “AMS.” Real estate is treated almost like a religion by many people, so why…
Real Actual Listing Photos: “Provoke Yr Imagination”
It’s time for another installment of Real Actual Listing Photos. Once a month (or so) I round up some of the most bizarre listing photos from around the Seattle area and post them here, with brief excerpts from the real actual listing description, and probably a bit of snarky commentary. The idea for this series…