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***A pretty good article with decent stats*** U.S.News & World Report A Housing Crisis Checklist Friday July 27, 3:33 pm ET By Alex Markels Have we seen the worst of the housing downturn? Most experts agree that things are likely to get worse before they get better. But...

I think they will give a statement that can be interpretted either way...toward a tightening or loosening bias. They will intentionally confuse the markets to create a little paralysis to calm things down.

Ben Stein a conspiracy theorist? I got a chuckle out of that one. Ben's the man. You gotta give props to a guy who can work in the white house, write a bunch of books, be a movie star, have his own game show, and do eye drop commercials. Wish I had half his brains or experiences... SM

Ben Stein's latest article puts the scope of this "crisis" into perspective. http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/yourlife/41148

A fair and balanced response deserves a fair and honest answer. I'll hit them one by one. 1. These stats have always had the same bias. The government has always been under pressure to show the same thing. There is some merit to the way unemployment is reported and how they don't track...

LOL! So does that mean that if I don't throw in the towel, there will be no bottom? Free houses for everyone! :) Just two comments: 1. If you think I'm a "cheerleader", then at least know that I'm a conditional cheerleader. I'm bullish on real estate if its done intelligently. All my...

Thats because its making me a fortune. For the last two years, if I had listened to the bears, I'd have missed out on low interest rates waiting for a "crash" that hasn't happened. Real estate is a great investment if you're a buy and hold person and you know what you're doing. Either the...

This post is a long list of trite bearish statements. 1. The U.S. will set new records for forclosures in the next 2 years. 2. This is going to play out in the next 2+ years. 3. You buy now you will see your equity evaporate. 4. Big mistake trying to jump into real estate...

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/tables/07s1175.xls The above link gives the foreclosure rate from 1990 to 2005. The current rate just published states that one out of every 134 households is in foreclosure which equals 0.74 percent. Based on these two datapoints, it looks like the...

***This article says one foreclosure was filed for every 134 U.S. households. Good data from a surprising source. Wonder why these articles never compare the foreclosure rate to the historical average as a percentage??? :) U.S. Foreclosures Are Up 56 Percent in First Half of 2007 New...

***Home ownership is down 0.5% over the last 3 quarters. Some of you may not remember way back to 2003 but those were rough times. I don't know about you guys, but I'm starting to horde canned goods and bullets. OK, I'm kidding, but I do like what the article has to say about a push toward...

That is a really cool graph. It is food for thought, and compelling. Based on how the numbers fall, the housing price index and build cost are obviously adusted for inflation. But do you know what index they were using to adjust it from? As an aside, I did notice that the index for...

http://investmenttools.com/median_and_average_sales_prices_of_houses_sold_in_the_us.htm Hope this link isn't too long, but its so cool. Among other things, it compares the median price of homes to the number of ounces of gold, or amount of stock you'd have to sell to buy it over time. We're...

Thats a simplistic way to look at it. You shouldn't compare housing cost to income if you are looking at the purchase price. Instead, you should look at housing payments (not price), vs. income. The average consumer saw the dip in the interest rates and refinanced. Unless they did a...

That would be me. I called a bottom a couple of months back. Guess it was a blip. Didn't count on the subprime fallout, but what the hey. Good news is that rents are going up and fixed rates are low...good for the investors... SM

That sounds right. And if you make a level payment every month, the amount of time that it will take to pay it off is different depending on how much you pay. So the amortization schedules are effectively a computation of what size payment you would need to make for it to take exactly 30...

I always thought of it as a pass-through. You are paying 6% on the outstanding principal. The bank takes that money, and then turns around and pays another entity 4% on that money, so they get to keep the difference of 2%. But that "other entity" that loans them the money creates it out of...

Cash out and buy bonds after the peak

Or they die before they ever get to enjoy it. For me, its the area under the curve. Trying to maximize the area of my happiness vs. time curve. Thankfully, the curve is concave up... :) SM

I saw one once. I'm not saying it was little green men. But, I'm an amateur astronomer and I'm always looking up. Didn't have time to get a telescope or binoculars onto it. Don't know if you've ever seen a satellite, but they are only visible just after dark or before day break. I was...