Friday Housing News: Bubble The Market Slayer

"Angel, you bloody git! I'm just trying to pay off my student loans and my bar tab! Why shouldn't I tap my home's equity?"

The 30-year-fixed mortgage is at a two-year high this week, and in even more bad news for ARM holders, the rates on that product are at 6 percent and climbing. It's time to look at things in a "post-bubble" world, folks.

Of course, property tax assessors are a little slow to get the hint. This kills me--you see triple-digit price appreciation in your home, and yet are clueless as to how your state or city might choose to levy bigger assessments on you as a result? Paying for all of those unfunded federal mandates costs money, people! :)

I'll be curious to see if the stratospheric prices for Manhattan condos can maintain or grow in 2006. New York, like other major bubble markets, is an island unto itself (Well, literally, in NYC's case), with revenue streams other markets don't have access to. But it still rrequires people to live there, and no matter what Bloomberg says, the median salary in NYC ($50,000-$65,000) is NOT gonna get you one of those debt machines.

DCist brings us a discussion about instituting a flat tax in D.C.. The real killer, as others have pointed out, is eliminating the mortgage interest deduction. To name-check Holden Lewis' favorite show, one blogger said that this would "drive a stake through the heart" of the housing market in D.C.

Posted at March 10, 2006 04:45 PM

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"Angel, you bloody git! I'm just trying to pay off my student loans and my bar tab! Why shouldn't I tap my home's equity?" The 30-year-fixed mortgage is at a two-year high this week, and in even more bad news for ARM holders, the rates on that product are at 6 percent and climbing. It's time to look at things in a "post-bubble" world, folks. Of course, property tax assessors are a little slow to get the hint. This kills me--you see triple-digit price appreciation in your home, and yet are clueless as to how your state or city might choose to levy bigger assessments on you as a result? Paying for all of those unfunded federal mandates costs money, people! :) I'll be curious to see if the stratospheric prices for Manhattan condos can maintain or grow in 2006. New York, like other major bubble markets, is an island unto itself (Well, literally, in NYC's case), with revenue streams other markets don't have access to. But it still rrequires people to live there, and no matter what Bloomberg says, the median salary in NYC ($50,000-$65,000) is NOT gonna get you one of those debt machines. DCist brings us a discussion about instituting a flat tax in D.C.. The real killer, as others have pointed out, is eliminating the mortgage interest deduction. To name-check Holden Lewis' favorite show, one blogger said that this would "drive a stake through the heart" of the housing market in D.C.