RealtyBaron.com : Baron Briefs: Bush Not Worried about Housing Bubble:Okay, everyone breath a BIG sigh of relief: our leaders are not sweating the housing boom:The Bush administration is closely watching the housing boom, though so far the surge appears to be driven mostly by basic market forces and not speculation that could lead to instability, Ben Bernanke, the president’s top economist, said Tuesday.”The administration will continue to monitor” developments in the housing market, Bernanke said. “However, our best defenses against potential problems in housing markets are vigilant lenders and banking regulators, together with perspective and good sense on the part of borrowers.”Translation: “it’s called a free market…find your relief elsewhere, suckers”. Bush Said to Be Monitoring Housing Boom [Associated Press]Suckers?… The market may seem and be out of control, hence the creative mortgage options, the occasional incentives offered by builders, downward pressure on commissions, et.
Date Archives July 2005
Charlottesville’s market (as seen by HUD)
HUD’s analysis of Charlottesville’s real estate market – go here to read the PDF. I will be analyzing this later.
Bubble discussion
From the HousingBubble – What are your thoughts as to whether there is a “bubble” in Central VA? Is our market different? How? How not?
Greene is growing
Greene’s growth continues … Best Western breaks ground. WINA and WCAV.
Speaking of credit …
Equifax’s chief executive says he opposes federal legislation that lets consumers obtain a free copy of their credit report to help them monitor financial accounts for fraudulent activity.CEO Thomas Chapman called the legislation unconstitutional and un-American because it cuts into profits that Equifax and two rival credit reporting agencies — Experian and TransUnion — earn from selling credit reports and monitoring services…. You can get your free credit report here, but the service is not available to Virginians until 1 September. These companies have a massive responsibility to the consumers, a responsibility in which they have been negligent for some time, as evidenced by the numerous errors on each of their reports, their labyrinthian systems for removing errors and, last but not least, the recent spate of security breaches.
First steps in buying a home
One aspect of the article with which disagree is this – Start by going online and checking rates advertised by big lenders on their Web sites — Countrywide.com, LendingTree.com, E-loan.com and WashingtonMutual.com, to name a few. These sites all post rates for a 30-year-fixed loan and a 15-year-fixed loan, as well as for some adjustable loan rates. If you have your credit pulled my multiple lenders outside of a certain period of time (I believe it is one month) your credit score will most likely go down.
We’re Number 90!
According to Money Magazine, we are the number 90 place to live in the nation. I think that we used to be at least in Money’s top 10 a couple of years ago, but I could be wrong. Number 90 doesn’t have the same ring to it as Number One.