Tuesday Open Thread
This is your open thread for today. Please post random links and off-topic discussions here.
I'm back from my long weekend, and I've got 132 emails / comments to catch up on! Yipes!
Off-topic comment? Interesting link?
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6 comments:
A possible worthy post
Figure s-crow might have some first hand experience...
Washington title insurance companies are wining and dining real estate agents, lenders and builders at the expense of home buyers, according to a state report.
Hmmm... a racket setup to bilk home buyers? pashaaah!
grivetti,
That article reminded me of the dot-bomb era and its crazy parties. I know someone who used to plan them for a local company. Free booze, food, gifts for all. For one party she did in NY, they actually paid models to act as attendees at a post-conference party. The idea was to chat up the potential customers, hoping to soften then up before the sales guy swoops in.
In the end, it is always the little guy that gets stuck with the tab. Back then it was the 50-year-old that lost 90% of his 401K. Today it is the home buyer.
As far as I am concerned, this is another foul scent in the wind, portending bad things ahead.
Is Renting Really Throwing Your Money Away?
35% downpayment and you can get a house based on FICO score alone in Canada--no income documentation. Does that work the same way down here?
Also, having been in Vancouver very recently, talking to its citizens, I report that the Seattle housing bubble is small compared to Vancouver's. 35% overpriced? A mild inflationary value. Vancouver's nearing San Francisco prices. Good luck finding a SFH below $500,000 CDN in the city (multiply by .86 for an Oct. 15 approximation of USD). They can't even claim mortgage interest and real estate taxes as tax deductions.
Some anecdotal information. A guy I know that works for a lumber mill in WA says his mill (didn't name it) just laid off 3/4 of their workforce because of the slowdown in the housing market. He also said that he knows of "many many" others, including Simpson, were doing the same.
I will refrain from obvious jokes, as it is never fun to be the victim of layoffs, but this don't look good for our gilded, untouchable, special real estate market.
Icos Corp., the largest publicly traded biotechnology company in the Seattle area and the developer of the erectile dysfunction drug Cialis, has agreed to be acquired for $2.1 billion in cash by its longtime partner, Eli Lilly and Co.
The proposed acquisition could spell trouble for Icos' 700 workers, with Lilly Chairman and Chief Executive Sidney Taurel commenting in a conference call Tuesday morning that a "significant number of jobs will be eliminated at Icos."
LHR,
I chatted up someone who worked at a mill, and he said the same thing. It's not pretty.
Synthetik,
This is a common tactic. You pay full price to get all the other buyers out, and the house off the market. Then, you just jack up the inspection, and get your money back at that point.
Totally normal, and a sign of a buyer's market. If it was a seller's market, he would just bypass and go onto the next buyer.
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