When the question is “how will the current home lending meltdown affect the housing market in Seattle,” the answer depends on who you ask. For instance, if you ask #1 Seattle real estate cheerleader Elizabeth Rhodes, the answer is something to the effect of: “Seattle is special. Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”…
Tag: Financing
Mortgage Mess Difficult to Ignore
Take a look at the front page of the Seattle Times website this morning: Click to enlarge That’s Coalition warns of “mortgage tsunami”, followed by Accounting, executives at lender New Century investigated, Fraud charges at Metropolitan Mortgage & Securities settled, and of course Mess unlikely to break economy. First off, I don’t think the term…
Seattle Buyers Not Immune to Credit Crunch
As you know, I haven’t said much on this blog about the ongoing collapse of lending as we’ve known it the last few years. This is primarily because the issue is being covered quite thoroughly at many of the other bubble blogs linked on the sidebar. However, a reader sent me a pdf report by…
Let’s talk Financing: Gross Income outdated?
Bonus Picture Day (billboard next to Everett Events Center): Looks like the banking industry is aware of the debt picture. Gross Income outdated? For years the lending industry has utilized gross income as the yardstick by which consumers are qualified to obtain mortgages. Let’s say the median priced home in King County is $465,000. What…
The Monthly Payment Buyer
The excellent personal finance blog Get Rich Slowly (highly recommended—one of my daily reads) posted a link yesterday that reminded me of a topic that I’ve been meaning to post on. As I read the story, titled “Cars affordability: Cheapest since 1980” I couldn’t help but think about the stark contrast between the price trends…