George's Blog

$174,900 for 1.2 acres in upscale subdvision with ocean views to the southwest and to the north west.   Pacific Breeze subd. has greenbelt areas, a community water system, and it is outside of city limits. This lot is sheltered from the north winds and very nice ocean views. You can hear the surf...

Today was my first day back in the office after the Thanksgiving Holiday. It was late in the morning when a client stopped by my office. He walked in far enough to close the door and stood there for a moment clutching his keys. He was having trouble finding his words, then he said in a low shakey...

The subprime loans are just the tip of the iceberg. These loans were leveraged many times over as they were packaged and repackaged into Mortgaged Backed Securities (MBS), Collaterallized Debt Obligations (CDOs) and these investment instruments were then the objects upon which wagers or side bets...

The Housing Market will not stabilize and it can not start a recovery until it absorbs and/or reduces the the record levels of inventories of unsold homes. Inventories of unsold homes at or in excess of 12 months is forcing down sales prices, arresting development of new homes, leaving millions o...

We just had a sale fall out of escrow because the lender(s) wouldn't approve a short sale on an all cash offer that was approximately 83% of the outstanding balance of the combined 1st and 2nd mortgage. This amounted to a lender's loss of a little more than $26,000. Without going into to all of t...

Workers age 50 and older are rated at higher risks when it comes to health care insurance. Higher risks mean higher premiums for the businesses that provide health care coverage, for the employees who are paying for a portion of the health care costs, and for self employed individuals who are fre...

My neighbors just purchased their dream home in July '08 and now due to severe allergic reactions to dog dander they are selling it. The home is a beautiful log home built with 12" logs and it has a cathedral ceiling in the greatroom. The log walls on the interior have plenty of nooks, cracks, an...

The housing market as well as the broader economy has been destabilized by the extension of loans to homeowners with poor credit history and to homeowners with above average credit ratings who were never required to provide verification of income. Without assigning blame it is important to acknow...

When you look at the 25 worst housing markets in the U.S. and you consider that in many of these markets they are plagued by multiple variations of the following problems: High housing inventory and low demand High foreclosure rate which creates a high inventory of bank owned properties that are ...

I went to the US govt. census site to investigate the changes in the Homeownership rates from 1968 to the present, 2008. Since we just completed the 3rd Qtr for 2008 I looked at the 3rd Qtr findings. From 1968 to 1978 looking at the 3rd Qtr it was at 64.6 +/- .6 percent. From 1979 to 1983 looking...