Playing the housing market like Monopoly
The AP published a telling headline today: "U.S. home prices fall 18.2% in November; Seattle prices off 11.2%." Who's happy?!
Paolo.
Interest rates are back above 5 percent this week, still historically attractive, and are expected to hover between 5 and 6 percent throughout the year. Who's happy?!
Paolo.
Of course, on the flip side of the coin, you have some not-so-happy home owners, notably those trying to sell right now. It's a buyer's market for sure, and it'll take time for the market to recover considering the state of the economy.
But it will recover. Obama is on a mission this week to make sure of that.
Dad and I today discussed that a simple way to recover the housing market is by announcing when interest rates will rise. For example, let's say today's interest rate is at 5 percent. If I heard that interest rates will be up to 6 percent on May 1 then you'd be damn sure that I'd buy a home before then.
I'm no economist (Wesley, chime in), but if Democrats... *cough* ...the government is to intervene with the housing market, they ought to approach it the same way they approach Iraq and put a timeline on it.
When they come to a decision, just let us buyers know and we'll be snatching up properties like we're playing Monopoly. Picture me on Boardwalk.
In the house hunt
Once upon a time...
Paolo and Amanda went looking for homes in Tacoma.
They found some gems.
To be continued.
Yellow Bear
Katrine is dogsitting this weekend. The following video documents my first meeting with the dog.
Passwords and privacy
There's a small fire over at Bend There, Done That that sprung out of an IM conversation I had with Anna about sharing your passwords (to email, Facebook, etc.) with significant others.
My take is that it's not a big deal and certainly not a problem. If it happens, it happens.
According to the girls (Anna, Heidi and Jeanna), that's ass backwards. Like, sharing passwords caused the divide between Israel and Hamas.
What's your take?