I've seen many new home developments with vaulted ceilings, mini-vineyards, huge houses on little tiny lots...Why can't some developer built some homes for us regular people? A normal sized home with plenty of closet space and a decent (not...
At any given time, I will usually have at least one set of clients who really need to consider a condo or townhome who nonetheless have their hearts set on a single family residence. I agree to include single...
Expertise and attitude, not control of an informational chokepoint, is the way that things are going. Let's analyze this from both sides of the problem. The current owner looking to sell really needs a marketer. For better or worse, most...
Many people are unaware how profoundly lending policies influence the market for residential property and the various kinds of housing and methods of construction. So I am going to go over the various gradations in available loans for various types...
Market segmentation is what happens when certain things are much more in demand than others. For instance in the hot market brought on by the tax credit of 2009, the central area of San Diego was in high demand,...
Here are the facts of the situation, whether you're talking about San Diego or Manhattan, the Bay Area, Los Angeles, or any of the other densely packed, high cost areas where all the employment and career opportunities are. Fact 1:...
I have to admit I'm uncomfortable with it and don't like it. As a buyer's agent, here I am getting paid by someone who not only is not my client, but whose interests are aligned, in most issues, opposite to...
(This article was originally written in August 2006. The market and loan rate figures have changed, but the basic information is the same, as is the conclusion) Okay, you might expect a Real Estate Agent to have a post with...
The most common mistake in real estate (and every other aspect of financial planning, for that matter) is to assume the situation now is going to continue indefinitely. In the stock market, people chase last year's returns. They "wait for...
The genesis of this article is Something's Gotta Give, a report (.pdf format) from the Center For Housing Policy. Furthermore, there is an article in the Washington Times from UPI that connects the dots on the tactical level. The...
On a fairly regular basis I get email asking what I think of this or that loan calculator on the web, this or that predictive model for real estate prices or loan rates, etcetera. Loan calculators are pretty simple when...
A while ago now, I saw a rather clever video someone did called, "That Last Dip's a Doozy!" Someone took housing prices 1890 to present and graphed them to a roller coaster ride. Just before the end, he turned the...
The original appeared in April 2006, but has been updated for changes I am hoping to buy in the (city) area and am reviewing the possibilities. While I fear that the local market may be peaking, I intend to live...
Don Henley has a fun song off his second solo album called "Driving With Your Eyes Closed". I can't find a video performance, but here are the lyrics. It's got a chorus that ends with the line, "You're gonna hit...
There is no such thing as the perfect time to buy. The perfect time to buy would mean that you have all kinds of leverage, and can make sellers give you pretty much the deal you want, but prices are...
One of the things I keep telling folks about the real estate market, whatever area you live in, is that it is controlled by the loan market. If you want to understand where real estate in general is headed, look...
Most people, particularly first time buyers, want 100% financing or as close as they can get. Actually, most first time buyers don't have a down payment and couldn't put a significant down payment (5% or more) if they had...
Supply and Demand. Now that I've given the short answer, it's time to explain the macro factors behind interest rate variations. But I'm going to keep referring to those first three words. It is a tradeoff between the supply of...
Yesterday, I published the first half of this article, describing the issues currently preventing a return to a more normal real estate market, and the facts that any proposed solution needs to be built upon. At a quick recap, the...
Lots of folks have offered lots of different proposals for fixing the real estate markets and the mess we were in (and continue to be in to a less obvious degree). All of the ones I have seen have...
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