Over or Under: $157,154
That’s the average mortgage balance across the U.S.: $157,154. Of course, whether you’re over or under that number doesn’t really say anything useful at all — it depends on so many factors, from where your home is, to whether it’s a first or second home, to how long you’ve owned the home, and so on…
Read MoreOver or Under: $157,154
That’s the average mortgage balance across the U.S.: $157,154. Of course, whether you’re over or under that number doesn’t really say anything useful at all — it depends on so many factors, from where your home is, to whether it’s a first or second home, to how long you’ve owned the home, and so on…
Read MoreTime to Buy North of The Border?
The Huffington Post, Canada, put out a piece last week about why Canadians should no longer be looking to buy property south of the border. And they’re dead-on with most of their reasoning, from the change in exchange rates between U.S. and Canadian dollars, to the recovery of housing prices in most, interesting U.S. markets. But…
Read MoreFive Predictions from TheStreet.com
OK. We hate making predictions about mortgages or the housing market, and we don’t think you should do so, either. But that doesn’t stop plenty of professionals. Here are five predictions for the 2016 U.S. Housing Market from TheStreet.com: prime mortgage rates will rise; both prices and sales will grow, but sales more slowly; cities will…
Read MoreA Collection of Housing Facts
PropertyWire put out an interesting article last week. They don’t really make any claims in it, and quite frankly, I can’t really draw any conclusions from it. To make matters worse, the title is confusing: “Value of US housing stock in 2015 down from overall growth the previous year”. What they really mean is that…
Read MoreA Collection of Housing Facts
PropertyWire put out an interesting article last week. They don’t really make any claims in it, and quite frankly, I can’t really draw any conclusions from it. To make matters worse, the title is confusing: “Value of US housing stock in 2015 down from overall growth the previous year”. What they really mean is that…
Read MoreHow to Think about Buying A Home
I really like the way this guy thinks. I’ve written many times before about the futility of making predictions in general, and the weird state of the housing market in particular. Business Insider wrote a very good article for The Real Deal, that asks the simple question “are we in a bubble”. The truth of the matter…
Read MoreMarkets Are Complicated: The Impact of Oil on Housing
For most people who aren’t economists, we tend to think of markets as singular, localized things (e.g., we think of “the” housing market). But the truth is, markets tend to vary quite a bit regionally, and as this blog has pointed out before, seemingly unrelated markets (e.g., China’s stock market) can have large impacts. CNN…
Read MoreA Metaphor for Fannie, Freddie, and A Housing Bubble
Whether you think we’re actually in a housing bubble, and whether we are or not in actuality, doesn’t really matter, in the long term. The truth of the matter is, almost certainly we will find ourselves in one again. They happen regularly, and in lots of different countries, and for lots of well-meaning policy reasons.…
Read MoreA Metaphor for Fannie, Freddie, and A Housing Bubble
Whether you think we’re actually in a housing bubble, and whether we are or not in actuality, doesn’t really matter, in the long term. The truth of the matter is, almost certainly we will find ourselves in one again. They happen regularly, and in lots of different countries, and for lots of well-meaning policy reasons.…
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