Stay Tuned

Planning a good post on housing affordability and what iit really means, historically and today.  Plus, if I somehow get some time this weekend there might be a bonus story (since that was the original purpose of this blog and all).

Dawgs in the Pac-10 Tournament

First, I am a bit upset that I missed watching Brockman and crew's last home game, but weddings do take priority over sporting events (I mean, let's all keep perspective here, we are just talking about dudes putting a ball through a hoop).

 

However, the huskies got their win and cut down the nets, and I was kept informed via text message while in a state that doesn't acknowledge the existance of the west coast. (Though I did see a story about the Huskies in the New York Times at the airport, who would have thought?). 

 

Now they are onto the next leg of the journey to the national championship (dreaming big here), The conference tournament starts tomorrow and UW plays at 2:30 on Thursday, I'm still figuring out how to work my work schedule so I can watch the game, but if nothing else I'll bring my laptop so I can get updates from the gamecast online. I would just tape it and watch it later, but I think that people at work won't be able to keep quiet about it for long enough.

Back from the southland

So, I went from a nice 70+ degree at the beach to mixed snow/rain in my journey back from South Carolina yesterday.  Aside from the bugs, tropical disease and poverty, the south is a pretty darn nice place.  I sent this picture to a few people already, but might as well post it up here as well.  It doesn't really do the place justice, but keep in mind this is taken in March and on a camera phone to boot.  

Hope everyone had a nice weekend.

Countdown to the dirty south

37 hours and counting.  Plus, UW - Seattle U tonight.  Busy day and a half coming up.

Treasury stress test home price predictions

Looks like the "Stress Test" that's been much talked about has had some of it's basic criteria released.  You can find the criteria and table here.  One of the most interesting aspect of the "stress test" that is being administered to these banks is that the two scenarios both have rather large house price declines built in, which tells me that whoever designed these tests is realistic about how much further home prices are going to fall, especially since their index of choice if the Case-Schiller Composite 10, which is based on the 10 largest housing markets in the US.  This would include LA among others, which has fallen somewhere around 35 to 40% already.  They are using a further 14% decline as their baseline for 2009 with the extreme scenario having a 22% decline. 

 

I doubt the National Association of Realtors will appreciate this information, they keep telling everyone that now is a GREAT time to buy (if you say it enough you might start to believe it I guess).

 

The optimistic viewpoint of this data is that if interest rates rise (they can't go much lower for home loans) then house prices will have to go down, because everyone is shopping a monthly payment.  The best time to buy is when interest rates are as high as they can go, because real prices are low, then later when interest rates inevitably go down, you can refinance. 

 

I think there are a decent number of financially savvy individuals who are on the sidelines right now because interest rates have nowhere to go but up, which means that house prices will have nowhere to go but down. There is an inverse relationship between the two that isn't covered much in mainstream media.  However, if you already have a house, this is perhaps the best opportunity you will ever have to refinance.

 

 

Seattle home prices back to 2005 where will the wheel stop?

Seattle PI and many others report. Calculated Risk also has some informative graphs re: price to rent ratios and historical affordability indices, which can be bound here

 

 

Real unemployment vs reported unemployment

So, numbers officially out today, 598k jobs lost in January, unemployment up to 7.6%.  Gee, 7.6%, that sounds bad, but not THAT bad, right?  Wrong.  When you look at historical graphs of unemployment, it's not stated that how unemployment is measured has changed over time, you can mostly thank Ronald Reagan for this.  Regardless, if you want to see a more realistic measure of true unemployment, check out table a-12 "alternate measures of unemployment" currently listed at 13.9%