cycle: Is That a Light at the end of this tunnel? - 01/03/08 03:45 PM
I just got back from our National Association of Realtors conference in Las Vegas. Over 30,000 Realtors from around the world gathered to discuss legislative issues, mortgage fraud, marketing, the election and the economy. There's enough going on in each of those categories to write a whole column but since I promised you an update on the state of our market, that's what we'll focus on.
By far one of the highlights of our annual conference for me is the opportunity to talk with our Chief Economist. This year our new CE, Dr. Lawrence Yun, was joined by John Tucillo, our … (5 comments)
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cycle: Short Sale Tax Foregiveness Bill signed - 12/21/07 12:38 PM
President Bush signed into law today a new measure giving tax breaks to homeowners who have mortgage debt forgiven. Under preexisting law, the debt forgiven by a lender, such as for short sales and refinances, was generally taxable to the borrower as debt discharge income. With the passage of the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007, a taxpayer does not have to pay federal income tax on debt forgiven for a loan secured by a qualified principal residence.This tax break applies to debts discharged from January 1, 2007 to December 31, 2009. Qualified principal residence indebtedness is debt incurred in … (6 comments)
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cycle: Boom & Bust Cycles - A Real Estate Primer - 12/17/07 12:40 PM
If you read my rant at the media in this column a couple months back, you remember one of the things I told you was how the media tends to generalize. If you believe what you read and see in the mainstream media, network TV, syndicated columns, etc., you're laboring under the delusion that the entire housing market from one coast to the next is failing, prices plummeting, foreclosures skyrocketing - and it's just not true.
Areas like ours that grew the fastest during the past 5 year run-up, (Riverside County led the nation with 155% appreciation from 2001 - … (2 comments)
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cycle: Observations on the Housing 'Crisis'. - 12/13/07 07:05 PM
In the past month or so, I've talked with economists from the California and National Association of Realtors, Dr. John Husing, the CEO's of Coldwell Banker, Prudential and Re/Max as well as a Deputy Director of the FED. They are all in agreement on the housing situation - they don't know what in hell is going on either. But I've panned a few nuggets from these conversations that might help you better understand where we are and allow you to make more informed decisions on your own housing questions.
#1 - All Housing Is Local. Every market is different with its own … (30 comments)
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