John Mulkey, Housing Guru

“Want to Jump-Start the Housing Market?  Get Rid of the Realtors®”  The waggish title of a recent post on “Freakonomics,” immediately caught my attention.  The website, which offers money-saving and investment advice, sometimes does so with clever and quick-witted banter.  And while the title did...

Homes, like everything else in life, are an ever-changing commodity. Little more than a century ago most had no central heat, no electricity, no plumbing—none of the things we consider necessities today.  And only a few decades ago homes were dramatically smaller with an emphasis on function rath...

While the media seem to love the political theater surrounding the debt negotiations, the truth is: Neither political party is proposing to do what is necessary to restore fiscal sanity to our nation’s budget.  Regardless of who wins the debt negotiations, Americans lose.  Both parties have offer...

As the political rhetoric heats up in advance of the 2012 election, politicians on both sides of the aisle are wasting OUR time playing the puerile games of partisan politics when they should be seeking solutions to the serious problems we face.   We shouldn’t have to put up with the politics of ...

What if the housing market has already recovered?  What if today’s sluggish market is the rate at which homes will be sold for ten years or longer?  Could it be that the sales levels of the past decade were just an anomaly fueled by loose lending restrictions and the attraction to phantom “invest...

  Sluggish Housing Starts Show Depth of Crisis   Housing starts rose 14.6 percent in June to the highest level since January, coming in at an annualized rate of 629,000.  And while any improvement is better than none, the reality of the numbers demonstrates just how far new home construction has ...

Don’t look now, but the ridiculously stupid debt ceiling debate is entering its final lap.  Spectators are leaning on the rails to see which side will win.  What most fail to realize is that the date touted as the “backs to the wall,” imminent default event beyond which the U.S. credit rating plu...

With almost 25 million unemployed or underemployed and with consumer confidence feeble at best, what’s the significance of predicting a housing bottom?  Will it mean that home prices have stabilized and that the housing crisis and recession are over?  Does calling a bottom mean those who have bee...

Lake Arrowhead Georgia Supports the Wounded Warrior Project As a part of the Independence Day celebrations held in Lake Arrowhead Georgia, the neighborhood sponsored a Salute to our Military on Friday July 1st.   The focus of the event was to honor our men and women in the military and their serv...