Real Estate Dispatch - 12/19/06

Blog Business

• The 5th Edition of the Carnival of Real Estate Investing was hosted at Mortgage Manifest this week and felt our post Keeping Your Tenants Happy During the Holidays was worthy of a mention. Once again, we’ve found ourselves absent from the Carnival of Real Estate, which focused on videos, web 2.0, and comedy. Other then the time we hosted the carnival — a few weeks back — we can’t seem to break into the carnival. I’m starting to feel like we’re in high-school all over again!
• Thanks to Derek Burress for his mention in today’s Real Estate Countdown!
• Much love to our friend Teresa for meme tagging me this weekend. I was unavailable to come out and play, but it seems like the virus has spread even without my help.

Back to Real Estate

• I’ll start with a question: Is there Really A down Time Of The Year for Real Estate? What do you think? Join the conversation!
• Think the economy is just chugging away? Don’t look now, but State of Emergency: The USA is $50 Trillion in debt and unsustainable. Sadly, our government has been ignoring any sense of fiscal responsibility, incurring huge amounts of debt, and putting the burden on my generation (and that of my future children). After finally starting to reduce our debt, Bush - like him or not - came to power and may have sunk us. Lets just hope our creditors don’t come to collect!
• The IEMortgageBlog shares a great post with us about What’s Important About Qualifying For a Home Loan. This is a good read for all those fist-timers out there.
• USA Today looks into the Los Angeles housing market and explores why, while monthly sales volume is down over 20%, median home prices have continued to climb. “The lack of affordable housing in Los Angeles has reached “crisis” proportions, says Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and the exodus of the middle class is hurting the city.”

  I can vouch for this report. I’ve been looking around at some of the homes in the city and prices aren’t coming down; it has to be unsustainable, though. Small starter homes in middle class neighborhoods are starting in the $800,000’s. I don’t know of too many middle class families who can afford that kind of money. It does look like things might be changing soon, at least from the ground level. I can’t go 10 houses in my neighborhood without seeing a For Sale sign.

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Tags: Angeles, biggerpockets, carnival, debt, Economy, estate, loan, Los, real, Real Estate Investing, trillion, Villaraigosa