Bubble Bloggers, Naysayer and Animal Rights Nuts

A comment on this post, from the perfectly named Naysayer: 
I love how you real estate people and the homedebtors try to blackmail the rest of us with your ominous threats about how the return to sane housing prices will be bad for all of us. Bullpucky.
Let it crash. Let it crash HARD. The dotcom bubble burst […]

Bubblers and Ripples

 
photo credit: chris9486
USA Today has a story today re a connection between the decline in housing and the decline in electronics sales.  As most things that show correlation without showing causation, it’s interesting but not much more.  It does, however, dovetail nicely with a post I’ve considered writing to those numbered and universally nameless […]

HUD, FHA, GSE, ETC.

Housing and Urban Development just released its national list, by county, of new limits for conforming loans and qualified FHA loans.
Interesting: the median price for the Portland Metro area was figured @ $335k, so limits for both FHA loans and conforming loans went to $418,750.  That’s insignificant for conforming loans - they’ve been $417k - […]

Feb 08: First look at the numbers

One of the nice things about transparency - as opposed to spin - is that when the numbers actually doreveal themselves there’s no backpedaling, readjusting or respinning necessary. 
And early February numbers - note they’ll continue to adjust for the next week or so - are exactly as expected.  These are for all catagories in the […]

On the Theory People Don’t Want Spin; Portland Market Dynamics

Charles Turner asks an excellent question:  How Do We Measure Real Estate Markets?  Statistics exist to prove almost anything one wants to prove; what, though, will give the best indication of a market’s health?
When I was with Nordstrom in the seventies, volume was king.  While most department stores calculated success on their gross margin, we […]

Conforming Loan Limits: In Portland, They Are What They Are

Prior to the final passage of the recently signed and inaptly named Stimulus Bill*, it was speculated that the conforming loan limit - the $417,000 cap on loans bought by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae - would be extended to as much as $729,000, thus allowing such jumbo loans to be financed at a much […]

Sellers: How to do it Right

In this market it’s now axiomatic that, next to the right price, the most important step in whether or not a home will sell is its condition when listed.  I wrote this nearly a year ago, and repeat it in various forms in every listing appointment:
Condition. Unless you’re selling a fixer – and have priced it […]

2008, State of Portland Real Estate: Not Great

But, in my sunny optimistic way, not awful, either.
[Note for the record I’m an optimist, not an ostrich optimist.  The former sees problems and calculates the odds of getting beyond them; the ostrich simply pretends the problems don’t exist (see: NAR).]
The good news is that activity has picked up dramatically in the last three or four […]

December numbers; and a Special Plea to the Oregon Association of Realtors

Richard Gaylord, president of the National Association of Realtors, was interviewed on local station KXL a few weeks ago:
http://arkansasrealtors.net/files/richard_gaylord.mp3
The gist:
“I’m optimistic about the market in your area and around the country … We see sales remaining strong [in Portland], increasing 1% in 2008, and we also see prices increasing 2% in 2008.”
Well.
Here are the preliminary […]

S&P/Case Shiller Home Price Index

I haven’t written much about this index, but it provides a little different - and more accurate - view into what’s happening with existing home sales.  At its very briefest, it follows (now) twenty metropolitan areas by doubling the sale and resale of the same homes, then calculates the appreciation.  The median and average sales […]

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