Goddamn Real Estate

[Neil]

You people make me laugh.

We're talking about boring drives.  Clearly Alaska has no place in that conversation.

I've driven from sea to shining sea as it were 5 times, two "longest" drives were West Texas and Montana.

Glacier National Park is probably the most scenic place I've been to in your country.  Other than the dreadnoughts, of course.

[Barrister]

North Dakota in the middle of winter is awful.

And the terrain in Manitoba is a continuation of HD's terrain.  Driven in winter too many times.

Hell I still remember coming back from a Model UN conference and getting stuck in Fargo for 2 days due to a snowstorm that closed the highway.

[Grey Fox]

I didn't find the prairies that boring but that's probably because it was the first time. The Horizon is miles away, it takes a while to get used to it.

I drove from Montreal to Banff by way of Jasper & the most boring part? Montreal to ThunderBay. Forests & more Forests.

[crazy canuck]

You people make me laugh.

Those who dont live near mountains are more deserving of pity than ridicule.

The issue isn't whether driving through shield country is as scenic as driving through then Rockies, it is whether it is as scenic as driving through the tundra. 

My comment had nothing to do with whether driving through the prairies is more boring than driving through the Shield.

[Phillip V]

Average mortgage rates have jumped rapidly the past few weeks.



http://money.cnn.com/2013/05/30/real_estate/mortgage-rates-rise/

[fhdz]

The thing is, 3.81 is still a really good rate.

[CountDeMoney]

Will these rates help me sell my condo this fall?

[Tonitrus]

My REITs have been getting in the balls the last few weeks. 

[Phillip V]

My REITs have been getting in the balls the last few weeks. 

I bought several positions in AGNC as it fell hard the past week. Hopefully the sell-off has ended...

My thinking is that market expectations of the Fed ending/reducing bond purchases early is wrong.

[Phillip V]

Will these rates help me sell my condo this fall?

In Real Estate, Looks Can Sell

'Attractive agents both list and sell homes for more money than average-looking agents, say researchers studying the effect of beauty on sales.'

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324659404578503373420392566.html

[Syt]

So, what this tells us is that good looking agents sell their listings for more, but also need longer to sell.

Could it be that attractive people just set more aggressive prices than average looking people (who therefore sell faster)?

[Phillip V]

Half of All Homes Are Being Purchased With Cash

'More than half of all homes sold last year and so far in 2013 have been financed without a mortgage... The analysis estimates that around 20% of all homes sold before the housing crash were "all-cash" sales (or around 30% of sales by dollar volume). But over the past seven years, the all-cash share of sales has more than doubled, increasing by more than 30 percentage points.
...
The surprisingly large cash-share of purchases helps to explain why home sales have jumped over the past two years despite more muted increases in broad measures of new mortgage activity, such as the MBA's mortgage application index.

There's no exact way to know who is responsible for all of these cash purchases, though they are likely to include some combination of investors, foreign buyers, and wealthy homeowners that don't want to go through the hassle of getting a mortgage before closing on a sale. Mortgage lending standards have sharply tightened up since the housing bubble, with banks scrutinizing borrowers' tax returns and bank statements to verify their incomes and the source of their down payment.'

http://blogs.wsj.com/developments/2013/08/15/report-half-of-all-homes-are-being-purchased-with-cash/

[Ideologue]

There's no exact way to know who is responsible for all of these cash purchases, though they are likely to include some combination of investors, foreign buyers, and wealthy homeowners that don't want to go through the hassle of getting a mortgage before closing on a sale.

Three-quarters of all Americans will rent by 2015.  Or maybe they already...

I've been here before.

[CountDeMoney]

Why go through the hassle of a mortgage when so much can go wrong with the lender, such as illegal or accidental foreclosures? And since the government's not interested in protecting consumers, the only one that can look out for you is you.  Cash economies: they work.

[Ideologue]

I guess if you're going to have zero or negative growth anyway, fuck it.