http://tastyrealestate.com A Real Estate Resource For Berkeley, Albany, and El Cerrito CA Sun, 17 Dec 2006 22:29:08 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en interesting, i did not know this. The Census Bureau does not make adjustments to the new home sales figures to account for cancellations of sales contracts. The Survey of Construction (SOC) is the instrument used to collect all data on housing starts, completions, and sales. This survey usually begins by sampling ... http://tastyrealestate.com/2006/12/17/cancellations-dont-count/ i was reading a book today and it caused me to think of the popular phrase "the housing ATM", used to refer to people refinancing their homes, withdrawing equity, and using it for consumer purchases. it's not really an ATM, because when you use that card you are not increasing ... http://tastyrealestate.com/2006/08/21/atm-or-credit/ various groups in the real estate industry are now objecting to the fact that the rent-equivalent number is included in the CPI. (they calculate housing inflation based on what you would rent your house for, and not what the overall price is. this has kept the inflation numbers artificially low ... http://tastyrealestate.com/2006/06/20/please-stop-raising-interest-rates/ i was pretty amazed by the figures in this article. the study cited estimates that 9.4% of all mortgage borrowers as of september have no or negative equity in their homes, and the figure jumps to 29% of all borrowers who took out mortgages last year. that's about $800 billion ... http://tastyrealestate.com/2006/03/23/upside-down-in-their-loans/ lots of data at the housedata.info site. pretty interesting graphs on there (because at heart we love statistics porn!) http://tastyrealestate.com/2006/02/14/house-data/ zillow has gone live with its site, and although its not the marketplace that some were speculating, it really is a very powerful tool, and once they iron out the wrinkles, i think it's going to really have an impact on the real estate industry at large. http://tastyrealestate.com/2006/02/09/zillow-is-live/ over on business week's hot property blog, chris palmeri is talking about what pimco's paul mccaulley calls the reflex effect. in short, this is emotional, momentum-driven behavior. Rising prices get more people excited about buying, even though they're paying more. Falling prices make people less excited about doing any transaction. This observation ... http://tastyrealestate.com/2005/12/22/the-reflex-effect/ i have had SOLD (nasdaq) in one of my stock portfolio watchlists for a while now, and today's announcement that MSNBC has signed an exclusive agreement with them to be the network's exclusive home buying and selling service makes it a much more compelling company to consider owning. http://tastyrealestate.com/2005/12/19/housevalues-and-msnbc/ it looks like the comptroller of the currency is starting to look seriously at the risks of negative amortization loans. we got the sense from this frontline documentary on the credit card industry that the comptroller of the currency generally hasn't been the strongest regulator of the banking industry, but ... http://tastyrealestate.com/2005/12/11/negative-amortization-loans-in-the-spotlight/ just saw this article about the DOJ suit against the national association of realtors linked from the matrix blog. i think the key paragraph is this one about the new opt-out rules to keep MLS listings off the internet: The policy does not require brokers to disclose to clients that their ... http://tastyrealestate.com/2005/11/21/good-overview-of-doj-vs-nar/