local real estate news, statistics, and commentary without the sales spin.
Continuing our “Another Bubble?” series, it’s time to take a look at the affordability index. As King County’s median home price has surged from $405,400 in February to $468,000 in July, the affordability index has dropped from slightly above the long-term average to just below 100. An index level above 100 indicates that the monthly…
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…
Last summer we ran a poll that asked the question “When will interest rates first rise back above 6%?” Here are the results of that poll: With the rate for a 30-year fixed currently averaging 3.69%, it’s rather startling that 36% of you believed that interest rates would rise above six percent before the end…
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…
This poll was active 10.23.2011 through 10.29.2011.