You have probably heard quite a bit about the credits and incentives being offered to help new home buyers realize a dream of homeownership. These incentives are critical to our economic turnaround as well and as such, the Federal government has made them very compelling. From our perspective, this credit is literally like the tax [...]
I just ran in to an old friend (well, not old but....) the other night at a gathering over the weekend and she teased me "Rob, I think that we are ready to refi. I want 4.5% and no points!". Doesn't everyone?! I thought about this a bit. Now, I could start out by saying [...]
In my last post, I mentioned Bethany McLean. I enjoyed her VF article about Fannie Mae and then saw her on PBS' Now. While the interview questions lean left, her replies are amazingly fair and balanced. The interview really helped me gain a broader and deeper view of the Banking Bonus scandal. Enjoy!
Good news coming from DC! Or potentially good news.... Both the House and Senate versions of the newest stimulous bill propose improvements to the previously enacted $7500 tax credit (from last summers Housing Recovery Act) for new home buyers. If either version of the new bills pass they will make the $7500 a tax credit [...]
Bethany McLean contributes an interesting article to this months Vanity Fair magazine that you can read online. I found it to be incredibly informative. In 2003 she co-wrote a book about the scandal that led to the energy company’s collapse, The Smartest Guys in the Room (Portfolio). It was developed into a documentary in 2005.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009, 2:06pm PST Home sales increase 10% Sacramento Business Journal Sales of all homes in the four-county Sacramento area in December increased by 10.7 percent compared with November, to 3,422 new and existing homes, and were well higher than the same period of 2007, home analyst MDA DataQuick reported Wednesday. Median [...]
You may have noticed that we try to watch and update you on market forces that affect the real estate market. I've just gotten off the phone with Congressman Al Green's (Dem, TX) staff. Here is an important update on a bill that may heat up our market a bit.(first...a little background)HR 3221 - Housing [...]
The California Association of Realtors reported today in a press release that November sales of California homes increased 83.2% (month-over-month). They also reported that median home prices have fallen 41.8% in the same time frame. Ouch! Prices are now in the 2002 range...amazing! It's hard to imagine that there is much farther to fall considering [...]
An article on Money.com includes some interesting information about how several factors are aligning in favor of home rennovation. Some of the factors are; material prices are dropping workers are more interested in working the market is making it harder to sell homes making rennovations all the more likely Yet another silver lining on a [...]
It looks like the Fed will lower the the Federal Funds rate in their December 16th meeting. It may cause the incredible rates we're seeing now to creep up a bit. There are some analysts who argue that the rate cut is so certian that it is already factored into the bond market and [...]