Well, its christmas time pretty baby
And the snow is falling on the ground
Well, its christmas time pretty baby
And the snow is falling down
Well you be a real good little girl
Santa claus is back in town
Got no sleigh with reindeer
No sack on my back
Youre gonna see me comin in a big black caddilac
Oh, its christmas time pretty baby
And the snow is falling on the ground
Well you be a real good little baby
Santa claus is back in town
Hang up your pretty stockings
And turn off the light
Santa claus is comin down your chimney tonight
Oh, its christmas time pretty baby
And the snow is falling on the ground
Well you be a real good little baby
Santa claus is back in town
Santa Claus is Back in Town — Elvis Presley
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It did not occur to me until writing this post that people can sell their houses to the bank for a profit by simply convincing the bank to make them a loan. Nice idea. I am surprised more people are not doing it.
Asking Price: $1,199,900
Income Requirement: $299,975
Downpayment Needed: $239,980
Purchase Price: $1,050,000
Purchase Date: 11/15/2004
Address: 6 Malibu, Irvine, CA 92602
First Mortgage $1,050,000
Downpayment $0
HELOC $500,000
Beds: 5
Baths: 3
Sq. Ft.: 3,030
$/Sq. Ft.: $396
Lot Size: –
Type: Single Family Residence
Style: French
Year Built: 2000
Stories: Two Levels
Area: Northpark
County: Orange
MLS#: S485174
Status: Active
On Redfin: 221 days
Unsold in 90+ days
From Redfin, “STUNNING. .SHOWS BETTER THEN THE MODEL. .FULL 5 BEDS-COULD BE 6 W/ HUGE UPSTAIRS BONUS/OFFICE) GOURMET KITCHEN W/ BLACK GRANITE, CHERRY CABINETS W/ GLASS DISPLAY, 6 BURNER MONO STOVE. .FML LIVING W/ FIREPLACE (USED AS DINING RM)SEP. FML DINING RM. .DESIGNER PAINTS, CROWN MOLDING, WAINSCOTTING FANS, WINDOW CASINGS, CHAIR RAILS. .FP IN LIVING, FAMILY & MASTER. .HUGE ROMANTIC MASTER SUITE W/ FP. .FABULOUS LG FAMILY RM. W/ ENTERTAINMENT CENTER & FP. .EX LG PROF. LAND/HARDSCAPED PRIVATE YARD. .CUL DE SAC. . GUARD GATED. .
Between the CAPS LOCK and the abbreviations (& FP. .EX LG PROF. ), this description is practically unreadable.
“SHOWS BETTER THEN THE MODEL.” This kind of BS is annoying.
GOURMET KITCHEN — You did notice our new award, right? Thanks Shhhhh.
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At 221 days on the market, this house is obviously overpriced, but that isn’t the story here. These people have already sold the house to Bank of America and made a $500,000 profit — sort of. Bank of America issued this homeowner a $500K HELOC in July of this year. How did they get an appraisal for $1,550,000 to obtain the HELOC? WTF was Bank of America thinking?
I don’t know if this HELOC has been maxed out, but if it isn’t, it should be. This house is not going to sell for a profit, and Bank of America has graciously consented to give these people $500,000 for the right to foreclose in a second lien position which will probably be entirely wiped out by the first mortgage during foreclosure. These people have every incentive to take the money, go to Vanuatu (a notorious tax haven,) and hide the cash in a safe deposit box in a bank there. Yes, it is illegal and immoral, but not any more so than the others who have defaulted on their loans. If the banks are really this stupid, they deserve what is coming to them.
CAN’T REMEMBER… SENTENCE ENDS WITH PERIOD OR STARTS WITH PERIOD? BETTER USE BOTH!
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I wonder when the line of credit was taken out.
I was just looking at a central Florida glossy brochure for developers, and saw one ad for mtges, with the teaser rate. The difference was clearly over $1000 per month. I looked to see the date, and it was June, 2007. So, as late
as June, the lenders were still doing this.
I think I don’t feel sorry for them at all. The bail out is a lender bail-out, and only superficially a buyer bail out.
Even the first sentence is worded incorrectly. “Shows better then the model” should be THAN the model. Do I want this kind of foo’ writing up legally-binding documents?
The double-period is ridiculous as well – it’s like a typed stutter.
The scary thing is that Bank of America is supposed to be one of the conservative banks. Buffett added to his stake in it only a few months ago.
This one was taken out in late July just before the credit crunch. Based on the frozen asking price level, I would estimate they have only taken out about $65,000 of the $500,000. A sale at the current asking price would get them out at breakeven with a HELOC of that amount.
I didn’t know you could take a HELOC if the home were for sale.
The banks won’t pay for this. We Americans and our children will. The Fed will do whatever it takes to bail out the banks, and that will cause long-lasting damage, just like the spineless bailout that started in 2001.
The prudent can revel in schadenfreude today, but we’ll be the ones paying tomorrow.
Oh, I thought she meant something like “shows better, then the model…(burnt down, was sold, etc).
Unfortunately REALTARDS(r) aren’t they only ones who use poor grammar and spelling. I cringe when I see someone posting a sentence like this one: “This house is nice because it’s living room has a F.P.”
What exactly are “wainscotting fans”? Devices that blow air on your wainscoting if it gets hots? Maybe instead a few people that absolutely love and adore wainscoting come with the price of the house?!
I have been saying this for years.
Most people who do this are not stupid.
They just lack ethics or any kind of moral character.
Same with flippers.
They win when the market is going up.
When the market drops, they leave the bank holding the bag on their 110% loans and laugh all the way to to Vanuatu (or Montana for that matter). Now even the government is talking about bailing them out on their tax bills. What a joke.
Stupid people live in a dump and work some lame job for ten years trying to save up a down payment while getting priced out of the market.
They rent apartments while starter home prices go from $150k to $750k, then think they are going to be getting a great deal when prices fall back to $500k with higher interest rates.
Sounds like a good plan. Get the HELOC, put the price up and ride the HELOC for ten years using it to pay the payment on the first and the HELOC.
Kind of the new housing ATM version of the old Credit Card kiting of just rolling debt around and around until they bust out.
On a percentage basis, the projected decline in this home’s value from the peak wouldn’t be as great as yesterdays’s home. Current price is $396/sq ft; say it drops to $250/sq ft. that would 36% drop whereas homes like the one from yesterday will probably drop 50% or more.
Still not a good investment, show’s that you should only buy a home to live in.
I am really going to have to start thinking practically about living outside ‘California’ and train my mind to be happy!
Many ex- and non-Californians are happy, so it should not be a difficult task.
I wonder if they applied for the HELOC a month later if they would have approved it? It’s scenarios like this that make me believe this crash is going to take a long time to recover. If banks still had these ridiculous underwriting standards in July of this year, there is no way we start to recover in 08 or 09. Try 2010 or 2011.
One house off culver. Bring your earplugs.
I was interested in buying this place except they priced themselves out of the market. Initially they put it on the market for $1.35M. Now the market has crashed I will wait it out.
As far as it being better than a model; when I looked there wasn’t shutters, cheap flooring, etc. In fact the only obvious upgrade was the granite kitchen counter. It would require a lot of money invested in it to make it to model standards.
The current owners wanted 300K quick profit, now they are not so greedy and reduced that to 150K. I think in the current market this should go for $1M and in a year or two 800K
If they had priced it properly when they first tried to sell it then it would have sold quickly and they would have dug themselves out of the pit. Now they are playing catch with the market. They should fire their realtor
IrvineRenter,
What’s with the music selection? Elvis for 2 days in a row?! 🙂
We need some more Frank Sinatra. I would buy that house for 700k right now, but I doubt it will ever drop that low. I think it will drop to around 800k. The one in Columbus Grove is only 200 sq foot smaller and they are asking 850k today.
A good comp is 19 Sunnyvale, in escrow now at around $1,015,000 with a $10K buyer credit. That is $352 per sf in the same neighborhood also on a culdy. The location as it relates to Culver of Sunnyvale is much better than being one house away, so that premium will help negate the premium for an extra bedroom and 3-car garage. Both have mediocre lots as all these properties do.
I think market price for Malibu right now is in the $1.025 to 1.05M range. House in Northpark and Northwood are still moving, albeit with price drops and long stays on the market. A house I kind of liked in Northwood, 18 Blue Spruce, just got into escrow, my guess at around $340 per sf.
and many are also regretting their decision to leave. it comes down to what is important to you – the native Californians definitely take a lot of what’s here for granted, so it’s good to explore something else then determine what should be “home.”
As a native, my wife couldn’t wait to leave Irvine. We jumped around, had kids, then came right back. “I realized I wanted to go back to the bubble,” quoth my bride. Irvine is home once again.
Ahh the discount associated with overhead power lines, adjacent train tracks, and a nearby dump. You can HAVE CoG.
I don’t think it will get down to $800K. Probably $850-900K if we’re all lucky. I’d buy it right now for $900K… Heck, I’d probably buy it right now for $950K.
Attention Ethel Krawitz or Malibu owners! If you really want to sell that house and can get your bank to agree to a monster short, just look me up. Today, I’d give you $950K for the place. Act fast though as the equity in my home across the tollroad is disappearing everyday (a near 20% head shaving from peak) so my offer will get lower and lower for the next couple of years. I have 20% down in the bank, great credit scores, and are ready to make a move to a big ole NP house.
Don’t forget the cement place and lovely storage facility. All that and a hearty $6-7K per year just in Mello Roos!
I went to see Blue Spruce at an open house. Realtor was bragging about how he was going to sell the house that day. He was pretty obnoxious. Full of himself. But I guess he did manage to sell it (assuming it doesn’t fall out of escrow because the buyer can’t get a mortgage)
The house was okay, nothing special. Didn’t like the decor. If the decor/upgrades are to my liking then I am willing to pay a premium. But not everyone has the same tastes
How did you determine that Sunnyvale is in escrow and with a buyer credit? What is a buyer credit?
My gut tells me on this it should be at $895,000… let’s ride the wave and see how far she falls!
Also, surprised at BofA… my experience has been that they’re more conservative than most… at least when I wanted to borrow from them (or maybe there’s something wrong with me… excuse me while I go look in the mirror).
Thats true, I wonder if the people that bought there can smell that dump if the breeze flows there way a little.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22116043/
MSNBC just reported that the White House might have clinched a deal with mortgage industry on locking down the teaser rates for 5 years in case of homes that were bought between certain dates and that have the buyers actually living in them and where buyers are repaying loan instalments on time currently.
This is unbeilievable. I hust hope that Congress and public opinion blocks this irresponsible bail out at the expense of financially responsible Americans.
This program looks like one of those political moves that will most likely have little or no impact on the housing market. The politicians and banks will make a deal and let everyone know how caring they are(good PR). The announcement will be on the national news, with some handshaking……then there will be a problem……..nobody will know what to do next.
Zero down! WTF? 500K HELOC? WTF? Wait, wait just a minute here. Let’s just say, could these people qualify for the rate freeze program? If they do, then G*D Fkn’ damnit, I’m gonna scream!
Purplehaze,
Well if it helps, you can buy the same house newer, with a bigger lot on the outskirts of Phoenix, Peoria, Surprise, Buckeye, etc. in a master planned golf communities for $250,000-$300,00.
And there’s a reason for that. Phx pricing is over-bloated even at 250k. I have many friends and business contacts that moved there (and other ex-Cali locales). some love it, but many want desperately to come back citing things they didn’t realize they’d miss.
Again, it comes down to what’s important.
I’m sure they DO qualify for the bailout. Why not? It’s all about inflating prices (or not letting them drop) and deferring the inevitable.
Once again, the Banks are showing just how stupid they are. What’s going to happen after 5 years? The rate jumps, the payment jumps and the homedebtor dumps the property.
The responsible CEO would never have put his company in the position of WaMu & Co. A semi-responsible CEO would say, “Mr. and Mrs. Shareholder, we screwed up. But we’re going to admit our mistake, foreclose on all this crap now, sell the property for whatever the market will bear, write off the difference and get back to the basics and make some money for you.”
This bailout screams “Let’s sweep it under the rug for five years and pray that someone else will be CEO by the time the shit hits the fan.”
Buyer credit is when the sellers will credit the buyers 10k towards closing costs.
I will bet that if this does go through, it won’t apply to California. The banks will say they are doing it everywhere else- but here. The losses are so magnified in CA- one Foreclosure here will be like 10 in the Midwest.
Also- looks like the foreclosure process is more difficult for lenders in other states :
http://thebellwetherdaily.blogspot.com/2007/11/cleveland-federal-judge-dismisses-32.html.
Even if that ruling doesn’t stick- it is a shot across the bow for lenders. With the complexity of mortgage securities- they don’t know exactly who/where each loan lies.
I understand that CA doesn’t require judge oversight to the foreclosure process…. so will lenders “agree” with the gov’t and help out “poor ol’ homeowners” in the states where they know they will have issues anyways? In their minds, they can “screw” California- because who outside of our state will complain?
Me too.
Good luck getting financing with this “reward the irresponsible”
5 year freeze. (actually, it is not much of a reward, just a 5 year delay of the inevitable, while the principle owed grows each day this interest rate is frozen..but most of these people are too dumb to realize that)
You think the banks are tough now, just wait. Credit as you know it will be over. It is going to become a cash only econonmy, which as a cash only customer, I prefer, but Oh my what a day of reckoning it will be for all these binge consume on credit junkies.
Here’s to Cash! Hip Hip Hooray!
You may not have to wait much longer too offer 950K.
Judging from the ungodly DOM, this house has seen absolutely no action where it’s currently priced.
I figure if you’re going to live in the middle of the desert, then there should at least be a row of giant casinos nearby.
Ho ho ho, cowboys and cowgirls! It’s President Santa!!!
Y’all been real good this year? Falling for that cheap easy credit? Gettin’ hornswaggled by flippers and mortgage hucksters? Giddy up!
Because you cowboys and cowgirls been soooo good creating the largest speculative equity bubble in 125 years, I’m gonna getcha $100 off yer mortgage for two years! Yee haw! And Merry Christmas!
Love,
President Santa
That’s some tortured reasoning there. It is neither illegal nor immoral to sell something for $2 when you bought it for $1 — and if it were either illegal or immoral, then BoA’s bad behavior is no excuse.
Can I suggest a title for a post? I recently discovered that my landlord is upside down in the three properties she owns (is that the sound of my deposit buying your christmas presents?). This led me to a post titled “Over 16% of Recent Homeowners are Under Water” (http://www.consumermortgagereports.com/category/upsidedown-housing/).
At the battle of Yorktown, the military band for the defeated British forces are said to have played the tune “The World Turned Upside Down” as Conwallis’ men marched out of the fort to surrender to Washington and the French. I think we are beginning to see a world full of home debtors turned, “Upside Down” by declining prices. A recent study by the Boston Fed says that it is not rising interest rates, but falling prices which causes people to stop paying their mortgages. If so, then the foreclosure trend depends more on who is under water than on who has an ARM reset. As more owners become upside down, the world will look to home debtors like it did for the British forces in 1781. Long live the rebels!!!
Agree on Blue Spruce Stuff It. Decent but nothing special. I found the entry way and kitchen tile to be a little hideous. Family room and secondary bedrooms were too small for our liking, but it was a nice location. Nice short walk to Canyon View Elementary and Meadowood Park. We thought about offering $925-950K for it, but figured it would best to let it become a comp and go for a house in the area we liked better down the line. My wife was in love with the laundry chute, although it didn’t appear the owners were using it for some reason.
I toured Sunnyvale and kept in touch with the realtor. I was hoping it was going to come down into the $900s and would have paid $950ish for it. Great floorplan IMO. Realtor told me the price she put it into escrow for. They had offers in the high $900s and didn’t take them. She wanted to get over $1M and she did…
Irvine Renter,
I want to thank you very much for this educational and enlightening blog. It has become part of my morning routine.
I find myself feeling quite upset and betrayed by my government. Since when does anyone who willingly purchases a home they cannot afford entitled to monetary help from the FED? I have seen several poles showing that the vast majority of Americans are against any sort of a bailout, and now, both the banks and the Fed are in the process of doing just that. I have read numerous stories and articles of the “poor” homeowner who is being foreclosed upon, and I feel as though it is mostly their voices that are being heared, and not those that represent the vast majority of responsible homeowners and renters.
I am in my thirties, and I am still a renter because I did not believe in taking out a loan I could not afford. I have saved a substantial amount of money, for a downpayment, and have been waiting a long time for prices in Orange County to go down. (Not unlike the numerous writers on this blog). It makes me sick to think that many of us will be stuck being renters for several more years while our taxdollars support homebuyers that live in homes that we ourselves could never afford. As it is, homeprices shot up to unaffordable levels for myself and many others precisely because there was a rush of people buying homes they had no business purchasing. Is our government now in the practice of robbing the poor to feed the rich?
What could be the fallout from this potencial bailout? Irvine Renter, is there anything that we can do? Perhaps organize? Rally? Draw up a petition? Something?
Thank you again IR, and thank you to this blog community. I enjoy reading all of your comments.
So here’s the deal with this mortgage “mortage solution”.
Say you’ve been sitting on your house for a while with nice fixed 30 year, or you have paid it off or you bought it in the last three years but you still took a fixed 30 year or you’re a renter.
So, maybe you have some money invested in the bank. Makes no difference whether it’s in CMOs, IRAs, mutual funds on international growth stocks, money market, whatever.
The point is that you are living within your means and hopefully saving some money.
Then you get these yahoos that are living “La Vida Loca” in an overpriced McMansion, driving leased Luxo mobiles and subsidized with a 1% teaser rate. Of course, the ain’t saving no money so the don’t own any of the aforementioned investment vehicles.
Now, the time of reckoning is here and “La Vida Loca” is over for “Los Gringo Batos Locos”….. It’s ADIOS to La Casa de McDonalds and the Benz.
But nooo…. they cry that they’re were duped, that they didn’t have a clue and that they were in caught in the “sub prime” meltdown. Nevermind that someone with an income of $175K per household should be able to have a reasonable credit line.
Hence, the Big Bad Gov. decides to save them.
What will happen? La Vida Loca again for a few years. BUT, those of us who actually SAVED money are gonna get SCREWED.
Yes, folks. While Los Batos Locos on top of the hill go on with their profligate ways, those of us who saved some money are gonna see our cash go down because the value of our investments is gonna be hosed, the value of our dollar is gonna be devalued and the credit economy is gonna hit the entire country.
All so that Los Batos Locos can go on with La Vida Loca?
You know what? I’m gonna cut and paste this post and send it to our US reps, senators and the president.
As far as I’m concerned, I have no problem perhaps helping out a bit someone who was confused and makes 30K a year or less… but anyone who went in with 100% LTV into the latest bubble and that makes more than $100K per year per household should be kicked out the front door and their should lose their houses.
Period.
I don’t want to lose my savings on account of Los Batos Locos up the hill.
Comprende?
If you were a bank, for non-recourse states, wou think they’d go out of their way to keep you paying something, anything, instead of just walking and leaving them holding the bag…
Credit won’t be over. When you take a look at what is proposed, it is designed to extract as much money as possible from borrowers for as long as possible.
It is really a bailout of the banks, and a way to redo millions of loans where the terms didn’t really contemplate large price reductions within the couple of years before the rates went up. The lenders/originators were expecting to have the owners sell or refi their way out of the problem.
If the banks had thought declining prices within a couple of years were even a remote possibility, they could have specified in the loan docs a particular circumstance or person that could give automatic loan modification. For high LTV properties (e.g., 100% financing), I am surprised that so many institutions hadn’t even contemplated what they could do to mitigate problems in such circumstances. Even wild optimists should have thought there was a remote chance of horrible recession or change in world events might bring prices down to 90% of loan values.
If only Lou Dobbs had locked in on this problem instead of immigration…The bubble might have been shorter and less damaging.
I am not surprised in the least by Bush’s actions today. Why not?
Back in 2001, when this whole ARM mortgage thing really started to take off, I remember talking to a friend about the possibility of a disaster related to rising rates a resets. We discussed it many times, and eventually agree that there was NO way that the Fed/Feds would/could every let such a disaster happen. We even started to believe that the greater the amount of ARM loans in existence the more likely the Fed was to keep rates low. Of course, this was 2001, prior to 9-11, and we thought rates we about a low as they were ever going to be, and concluded that real estate was fairly valued bordering on over valued. Well the Fed eased to 1%, and the rest is history.
I primary lesson I learned is that Fed policy and government intervention are extraordinarily powerful factors in any effort at valuation. I have tried to highlight this many times on this board.
Interest Rates are the gravitational center of the investment universe (at least according to Warren Buffet in a 2002 essay published in Forbes). Why do you think every portfolio construction process begins with a macroeconomic forecast?
IR, your valuation models are based on a static macroeconomic environment. Ceteris Peribus, fundamentals based valuations should be extremely accurate. However, in the real world, things are ever-changing. I suggest you try rerunning you fair value estimates including one change: Interest rates at their all-time lows. Try it, and then tell us how far housing will drop…
BTW at 5.25% fixed rate 30 year the monthly debt service on this place rounding up to a $1MM loan is $5522.04. At 33% of Gross income that brings us down to a $200K/year income requirement. This is not a starter home, so I would assume that the buyer would be either (1) established in a reasonable career or (2) part of dual-income family.
Echoing Maureen, Tonye and others, I want to register my absolute opposition to a bailout.
A bailout is totally unfair to the most responsible people – people who refused to buy at insane prices using other people’s money, who save enough to actually pay for things they want to have in the future, and who pay significant taxes that end up paying for crackpot schemes like this. (And I count inflation as one form of tax designed to maximally scr#w savers.)
Mortagage interest rates went from a peak of around 8% in 2001 to a low of about 6% in 2004.
This was responsible for about 15% of a 150% increase in home prices. If interest rates drop to an unprecedented 4.5% and stay there permanently, the bottom will be 23% higher than the fundamental value I projected. Instead of a 40% decline, we might only get a 30% decline if this scenario were to come to pass.
The interest rate chart gets cut off. Look for it in this post.
https://www.irvinehousingblog.com/2007/04/02/how-bad-could-bad-get/
The link below is to a paper Bernanke wrote about Japan’s problems. He is of the opinion that Japan should devalue their currency in order to generate some inflations so that it is above their 1/2% interest rate. He contends Japans problems are the result of their inability to push real interest rates below zero to stimulate the economy.
http://www.iie.com/publications/chapters_preview/319/7iie289X.pdf
Apparently, the FED bias against inflation which has been mentioned in the FED notes from 2004 through this summer was completely reversed by what Bernanke was witnessing in the credit markets: Interesting sudden course change. I have never witnessed the FED move so radically and so quickly. After reading hte paper above, I gained a better understanding of Bernanke’s thinking on the matter.
BTW, once Bernanke believes he has forced the real interest rate below zero to stimulate the economy, interest rates will rise to regain control over inflation. The relationship between the FED funds rate and mortgage interest rates depends on the perception of risk and inflation. The perception of risk is increasing the spread for obvious reasons, and the perception of inflation will also pressure rates if interest rates get too low and stay there too long.
I hate to disappoint stuff it, but this house will propably go for 600k at the most, again with credit getting tighter, alot of nice inventory on the market, who will want to drop one mil on this POS with no back yard and not many upgrades as you mentioned.
I think people in cali have forgotten what one million is or what it should buy. 🙁
The bias against inflation is the Fed’s public persona. In reality, inflation concerns are trumped by fear of recession and deflation. When push comes to shove, and that is now, the Fed has demonstrated a repeating willingness to ignore inflationary pressure in order to prevent a free fall in GDP growth. The “Greenspan Put” is actually the Fed put, and maintaing sustainable economic growth the primary objective of all central banks.
You numbers on all-time low mortgage rates are actually higher than mine. Here is link to the same site, different chart:
http://www.mortgage-x.com/general/historical_rates.asp
Clearly the 30 year fixed was clearly right around 5.25% is September 2003. Take a look. Please note that this is at least 75 basis point below your “around 6%” number, and using your rought estimate would amount to another 7.5% increase in the intrinsic value of home prices.
Additionally, because the impact of rate changes is non-linear, the increase in house prices is greater for the same nominal rate decrease the lower the overall level of rates. This is captured from your chart (read convexity, and completely obvious if you consider what house prices would be if the prevailing mortgage rates went to zero. (Answer: the biggest fricken house ever).
So let’s get back to Japan. Since Bernanke has abandoned the previously espoused focus on inflation, I think we can both agree than recession/deflation is the current focus. With rates at historically low overall level, the Fed has a little power remaining to head off any downside risk. In fact they have 450 basis point of easing left (and a printing press). The Japan scenario is so horrifying because once the central bank reaches zero rates, if risk appetites are weak and GDP growth is still stagnant, the is essentially nothing more they can do. Result: 20 years of slow HELL including deflation, slow GDP growth, etc. etc.
My take… The Fed eases farther and faster than the market predicts to jumpstart the economy, maintain some measure of asset price stability, and we pay for it with higher inflation. On the inflation front, we were going to get there anyway (Social Security, Medicare, etc.), so really not that much additional damage.
30-year fixed at 4.5%, maybe…
I feel your pain! However, I’d rather be an ethical renter that can sleep at night knowing I have zero debt. Our time of affordable home ownership will come one day, and when it does, we’ll be just that much more appreciative.
Sounds exactly like management at my company 🙂
The boss hires a consultant to fix operational issues and PR banners fly everywhere, promises are made, etc, and the consultant walks away three weeks later with 25 grand. Meanwhile while my job is just as convoluted from day #1 and nothing changes.
LOL. I doubt Lou Dobbs preaching problems in the banking industry and the housing bubble would have brought in any ratings. Cool-aid drinkers were to busy watching ABC home-flipping/remodeling and queer eye for the straight guy.
(Warning, strong opinion content –>) The only people who actually followed Lou Dobbs and his immigration rehtoric were upper-class white conservatives employing illegal alien labor.