Weekly News Round-Up
The phrase of the week is “Plunge Protection Team.” This is a working group convened by our illustrious president to deal with the financial ills that have hit this country. I couldn’t help but laugh at the Telegraph UK’s story, which referred to the PPT as “the dark arts unit.”
While the Brits may have started this round-up with a laugh, they got serious in the debate on recession vs. inflation. The BBC News has decided to report that we are in a recession. Yes, that’s right, folks, we are in our first month of what will become known as a recession. They also report that not everyone agrees with that assessment. Um, ya think?!?!?
Despite rescue attempts, foreclosures continue to rise. Guess those life preservers can’t reach all the unlucky homeowners with sub-prime loans, and neighborhoods are emptying out. (“There Goes the Neighborhood,” Atlantic.com). They also cannot rescue 90,000 mortgage company employees or builders who may go belly up due to the mess. CNN Money reported on the loss of jobs, in which California was hit particularly hard. And while we can gloat about the unscrupulous lenders who now have to beg for their dinner, we should remember that periphery jobs have also been lost, which may lead to ex-employees defaulting on their loans.
Just so you don’t feel so bad, or to see how rough some people really have it, you can check out the story on HomeGuide123, “Top 5 Most Ridiculous Mortgage Borrower Stories of 2007.” Just goes to show you how greedy and stupid some people can be, while others are just plain uneducated or gullible in the ways of mortgages. In all fairness, I don’t think these are really the 5 most ridiculous, just the 5 that were most publicized.
There has been much debate on Sweet Digs on rent vs. buy and whether to sell now or stay put. I wrote from personal experience, which generated comments, and three of our bloggers (Anna, Tracey, and Jenny) write regularly about their search for homes and the timing of it all. Now eFinance reinforces what the rent crowd already seems to know in their recent article, “Study Shows Huge Gap Between Rents and House Prices.”
You can read all about what the California Realtor Association’s outlook for 2008 on The Front Steps blog. Do take it with a grain of salt, as the National Association of Realtor website is taking a lot of heat for its number crunching, particularly with the Seeking Alpha blog.
San Francisco Schtuff did a few recent posts on then vs. now prices. There are 1997 vs, 2007 price comparisons for the Noe Valley, Pacific Heights, and Portero Hill, and another looks at Condo prices in SF from November 06 and November 07. What surprised me most about this second article is that almost across the board, the average DOM in 2007 was shorter than 2006. What’s up with that?
