Today, President Bush signed the “Housing Rescue Bill.” So it seemed like as good a time as any to learn about it. There’s a lot to it, and a lot of fine print. But a couple of things stood out to me, as someone who represents buyers and sellers here in the real world: Foreclosure “rescue”: Homeowners facing foreclosure can refinance into low-cost fixed rate loans insured by FHA. But “can” is a tricky word. There are a lot ... Read More

So the PMI Mortgage Insurance Company, released its Summer 2008 U.S. Market Risk Index yesterday. The list looks at the top 50 U.S. housing markets, and assesses the likelihood that home prices will be lower in that market it two years than they are today. At the top of the list, Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario California, with a 95.5% chance of lower prices in the next two years. In other words, they're nearly 100% sure prices are going to drop. ... Read More

Forbes magazine just released their list of the 10 best cities for home sellers in 2008. And guess which market came in at #7? Our very own Denver! To assess each market, Forbes looked at unsold vacancy rates, construction starts (to see if a lot of new construction would be cropping up and making vacancy rates worse), job creation (to see if buyers would have jobs, so they could buy houses) and Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae's new conforming loan limits ... Read More

I just read a Christian Science Monitor article that said that the slump in the real estate market is forcing many realtors out of the business. The evidence was mostly anecdotal , with very few actual statistics to back up this theory of mass exodus. The only actual figure I saw was that Oregon Association of Realtors reports an 11% drop in their membership over the past year. Aside from that, it was a lot of talk about "experts" who ... Read More