Getting Started

A lot is going on in the real estate market around the Arroyo Seco, and I'm here to tell you about it.

At the moment things look grim. The prices of real estate, having shot to astonishing highs, have, on average, plummeted 27% in the last year. Interest rates are up from historical lows. Foreclosures are about double what they were a few years ago. Congress has gotten into the act, which always scares me. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are on the chopping block, which would have HUGE implications for the housing market all over the country. The economy is soft, fuel prices are through the roof, inventories are 'way up and sales are 'way down.

But that's not all. Some of what Congress has done has been, to my vast surprise, helpful. falling housing prices are making home ownership available to thousands of people who had been priced out of the market. Interest rates remain less than 1.5 points above historical lows, which means that by historical standards, they are still very low. At the best of times foreclosures were running a little less than 1%, now it's about 2%, hardly the universal catastrophe it has been made out to be. FHA loans, once scorned in favor of the kinds of loan programs that got us into this mess in the first place, are back in full force, allowing home buyers to own their own home for as little as 3% down. The FBI is rounding up and jailing hundreds of real estate agents and loan brokers on charges relating to unscrupulous practices, and about damn time, too.

I hope that this blog will provide a forum to discuss these and many other related issues. I invite questions and comments from my readers (as soon as I have any). What are your questions and concerns? What would you like to know more about in regards to life and the housing market in the Arroyo Seco area of Los Angeles County?