Lawrence Yun, the Chief Economist of NAR and my doppelganger, has a new post up in which he discusses the growth in global population: In regards to the United States, some have claimed that the large number of people retiring and an eventual dying off of the baby boomers will mean less housing demand in … Read more
Continuing the tradition that started when the earth was young (or last year… depending on your definition of “time”), I’d like to present this year’s version of “Predictions Guaranteed to be Wrong, Or Your Money Back”! As we saw in the report card post, last year, I went 4.5 for 7 in predictions. I hope … Read more
In 2009, I batted .600 in predictions for 2010. And I thought that was fun. It’s one thing to make predictions; it’s another to look back and see how those predictions fared. How did I do last year in predicting events of 2011? I was hoping to be maybe 1 out of 7, since most of … Read more
Is here: http://prezi.com/1_mwtyk4vqcd/welcome-to-dystopia/ Welcome to Dystopia! on Prezi By the way, I’m really, really liking Prezi. I expect to use it from now on for all presentations. Amazing that a web app is better than even Keynote…. -rsh
The Wall Street Journal reports that rents are up and vacancies are down across the United States: Apartment landlords are enjoying rising rents and falling vacancies. The average effective rent, the amount paid after discounting, was $997 in the second quarter of the year, up from $974 a year earlier, according to a report scheduled … Read more
I have to imagine, given the focused readership this blog has, that most of you already know that NAR has been fighting a war against homeownership on multiple fronts in recent months. I’ve been doing the Chicken Little dance about these Federal issues for quite some time, after all. One of those fronts is the … Read more
Real estate people are some of the most optimistic people I know. They have to be in order to work a business in which they don’t make a penny without a transaction getting done, and the driving motivation for the consumer is a dream: The American Dream, the Dream of Homeownership, Your Dream Home. Real … Read more
The Wall Street Journal carried a story today on its front page entitled, “Banks Push Home Buyers to Put Down More Cash“. The key paragraph: The median down payment in nine major U.S. cities rose to 22% last year on properties purchased through conventional mortgages, according to an analysis for The Wall Street Journal by … Read more