The Blog of Author Mark MacKenzie: It's The Housing Market, Stupid!

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Real Estate Broker/Owner

ARCHIVED BLOG POSTS

2009 

About three months ago I wrote a post about the probability that we are in the middle of what is going to be our "lost decade".  I'm certainly not the only one to have made this comparison.  Knowing what I know now, I think that that possibility is not only going to be a reality, but a "lost deca...
01/31/2009
I have to give credit to Tom Friedman of the New York Times for this analogy.  Last week on Meet The Press with David Gregory, Tom Friedman compared the current banking crisis to the scene in Jaws when Roy Scheider sees the killer shark for the first time and says in shock and disbelief, "You're ...
01/31/2009
As part of President Obama's economic stimulus plan, a $7,500 first time home buyer tax credit has made its way into the legislation which has already passed in the House this week. The proposed new $7,500 first time home buyer tax credit is a revised version of the tax credit that was part of th...
01/31/2009
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog post about three reasons why the real estate market is actually worse than most people, including the NAR, think. A week after that post, CNN's Les Christie wrote an article supporting the unfortunate reality of this "shadow inventory". And then today, CNBC's ...
01/30/2009
The commerce department today announced that new home sales in December plummeted to 331,000 seasonally adjusted sales, this is the lowest level on record sine they began tracking the data in 1963. This is a seasonally adjusted sales decline of -14.7% from last month and -44.8% from December of 2...
01/29/2009
The reality that a lot of people within the Federal Reserve were hoping to avoid is that their efforts to jump start the housing market by plunging mortgage rates seems to have lost steam over the past couple of weeks as rates have risen and economic conditions have deteriorated. According to the...
01/28/2009
Local and long time Phoenix home builder, Fulton Homes, filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy on Tuesday, the Phoenix Business Journal announced in an article written by Jan Buchholz.   Chapter 11 will not affect Fulton's ability to provide customer service or home warranties. Fulton Homes becomes yet ...
01/28/2009
If you have read or heard about "The Millionaire Next Door" by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko, or if you are wondering how exactly you are still going to be able to retire with the current stock market turmoil, I wanted to let you know about a new book thay my friend Dr. Dave Shafer recen...
01/27/2009
I wish I could take credit for the "Bloody Monday" headline but I owe that to CNNMoney.com writer Julianne Pepitone in an article she wrote today about the job losses that were announced today which totaled 71,400 - in one day.  This brings the total to approximately 200,000 for the month, which ...
01/26/2009
In addition to ipods, it appears many Americans, more than most people thought, celebrated the holiday season with a new home too. The NAR released the December existing home sales report today which showed that home sales were up 6.5% on a seasonally adjusted basis from last month to 4.74 millio...
01/26/2009
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Mark MacKenzie

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