Housing Bubble vs. Housing Market Slowdown

Housing Bubble vs. Housing Market Slowdown

The central issue addressed by the April 2006 Economic Outlook issued by Freddie Mac on Monday is the conflict created between the strength of the economy and the increasing lack of housing affordability.

The report goes on to tie this lack of affordability to the growth in the popularity of adjustable rates mortgages and especially to nontraditional ARM products such as negative amortization and interest only loans. Use of these types of loans is often the only way families can qualify for a mortgage in these high cost communities. People buying homes with negative amortization loans are purely speculating in the market and they are speculating with someone else's money. This has driven the market onward and upward and pushed housing out of reach for many people in the market.

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Websites For The Home With No Homeowners Manual

Seems strange that a vacuum, a refrigerator, bicycle, even a 4 inch house plant from Home Depot, comes with a manual or at least a set of instructions (place in indirect light, water only when soil is completely dry) but a homeowner is pretty much on his own when trying to operate, maintain, and protect his largest and probably most complicated investment.

As with so many things today, the Internet comes to the rescue. We found dozens of websites from a simple search for "home maintenance". Several of those we reviewed provided excellent information that can fill in for that missing home owner's manual. Each of the three listed below has its place and we recommend checking them out and then book marking them for future reference.

• Home inspector locator
  
• All About Home?
  
• Home Management
  

Housing Bubble Conflicting Data Released

Housing Bubble Conflicting Data Released

The housing market threw the world another curve on Thursday. After five straight months of declining sales of existing homes, a sixth dreary month was pretty generally expected. Instead the National Association of Realtors announced that February sales of previously-owned homes had jumped 5.2 percent from similar sales in January. This was the largest monthly increase in two years.

Wow, so much for the housing bubble bursting. All of the "experts" are wrong. The national love affair with real estate continues. NAR itself said that the encouraging report was a sign that the market was "stabilizing" and should "level out" in the months ahead.

Of course this jump in sales was preceded by six months of price declines. So eventually the market had to readjust remember NAR has a vested interest in keeping prices high and keeping people buying

Credit Bureaus Roll Out VantageScore Credit Scoring System

Credit Bureaus Roll Out VantageScore Credit Scoring System

...So, now that we are comfortable with what constitutes a score, what our own scores are, and how that indicates that we stack up, it is all going to change.

On March 14 the three bureaus announced that they have collaborated on a new credit scoring system "to benefit consumers and credit grantors." The new system named...

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