Category — Mortgages-Financing

NEW YORK MAGAZINE‘s December feature article is a treatise on the Libertarian Tea Party.  Except the author, Christopher Beam, misses the obvious.   The Tea Party is NOT Libertarian.

The Tea Party Caucus with 68+ members in the House exists, and it isn’t the Liberty Caucus with 13 members which, of course, consists of Libertarians.  Ron Paul the outspoken long term spokesman for Libertarians is not a member of the Tea Party Caucus, and refused to join.

The Tea Party consists of American Values Voters, historically populists, who don’t have, don’t want, and don’t believe in ideologies, even those ideologies like Libertarianism that have some vague similarity to their voting values, which include, voting for candidates who are truthful and appear honest; who oppose government corruption and special interest legislation, and among other things, distrust government.

That tens of millions of American Value Voters exist, as they have existed for at least 190 years, not in NY or New England, but in rest of the US seems to be beyond the comprehension of progressive NY journalists who seem to never have taken a course in US history, of if they did, forgot US history.  This is aside from the fact they miss the obvious in the current makeup of the Congress.

ANN ALTHOUSE has the incomparable ability to observe and articulate reality.

The establishment left is demonizing the Tea Party exactly the way the establishment left demonized Vietnam War protesters in Lyndon Johnson’s time.

DR. HOUSING BUBBLE takes up this important question here.

The answer is home prices will fall significantly in California.  Home prices at 10x median annual income were not sustainable.   Given the fact that high unemployment will also become a significant factor, home prices will fall to about 2.5x annual income.  This factors in record low mortgage interest rates.

But what happens in cities in California where the population is declining?

APPRAISAL CUTS jumped significantly in September from August.

This isn’t a surprise in a falling commercial market.  This article in the CA Real Estate Journal reviews the CRE market statistics.

THE S&P/CASE-SHILLER home price index for July moved up including San Francisco.

3 Oceans has the story, and a roundup of mortgage market news, including interest rates going up next month.

The upward move in home prices in July is very temporary.  Lower inventory spawned the price increase and seasonal buying.  But lenders are holding thousands of REOs off the market, the Shadow Inventory.

Housing Needs Stabilization