Isn't it great when Austin is on the good lists. And the good thing is, we're pretty good at getting on those good lists. That's GOOD isn't it! ;)
ANYWAY.....
From Agent Genius Magazine:
Forbes.com released their list of Top 10 Best Housing Markets based primarily on the stability of each metro area as measured by affordability rankings and foreclosure rates as an indicator of a lack of excess inventory, making the top cities what they call the best opportunities for home shoppers. Lists are a dime a dozen, but Forbes is pretty reliable with their data analysis and take a big picture view of the market.
Here are the top ten best housing markets:
1. Pittsburgh, PA
2. Louisville, KY
3. Houston, TX
4. Minneapolis, MN
5. Indianapolis, IA
6. Memphis, TN
7. Columbus, OH
8. St. Louis, MO
9. Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX
10. Austin, TX
Who do you know that could use our help right now? Please, don't keep us a secret!
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
February Housing Trends Newsletter
The February edition of our Housing Trends Newsletter is now available for viewing!
Lots of great information here. Who do you know that would like some free money? Remember the tax credit can be combined with some other programs to make the savings even bigger. How? Give us a call and we'll explore the options together.
Enjoy the report - and remember, please don't keep us a secret!
Monday, February 1, 2010
More about computers taking over.....
Installment #2 from my friend George Kahn's Blog...
Computers Run Amok, Part 2
Once the mortgage industry decided that anyone with a high credit score that was breathing deserved to buy a house, we should have known we were in trouble.
All bets were off, and we were in for a wild ride.
This fundamentally flawed concept was then multiplied by banks looking to rush in to this growing market to move more product (remember, in the upside-down world of bankers a loan is an asset and benefits the balance sheet.)
And then came the Quants:
A new breed of computer scientists and mathematicians, they were financial engineers that used super-powered computers and crazy-complex math formulas to pluck money from small discrepancies in the market and hand it to their investors. They worked for companies like “Process Driven Trading” and “Applied Quantitative Research”. They used “random walks” and “calibrated correlations”. They created CDO’s (Collateralized Debt Obligations) and CDS’s (Credit Default Swaps) and other “derivatives”, like side bets in a poker game, that were built to mitigate risk.
In reality, they just broke the risk up and made it so invisible that it began to permeate the system.
Once again the computer models, built by fallible humans, had some fatal flaws.
They were built on the “fact” that a sudden national collapse in American home prices would never happen.
They were built on the “fact” that the movement of the US housing market could not possibly trigger losses in stock portfolios that had nothing to do with housing; stock portfolios, say, of British stocks or banks based, say, in Iceland.
Oops.
For more information, I recommend two new books:
“Quants” by Scott Patterson (a writer for the Wall Street Journal) and
“I.O.U.: Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay” by John Lanchester (a British novelist who gives a bit of world view to this whole mess)
Computers Run Amok, Part 2
Once the mortgage industry decided that anyone with a high credit score that was breathing deserved to buy a house, we should have known we were in trouble.
All bets were off, and we were in for a wild ride.
This fundamentally flawed concept was then multiplied by banks looking to rush in to this growing market to move more product (remember, in the upside-down world of bankers a loan is an asset and benefits the balance sheet.)
And then came the Quants:
A new breed of computer scientists and mathematicians, they were financial engineers that used super-powered computers and crazy-complex math formulas to pluck money from small discrepancies in the market and hand it to their investors. They worked for companies like “Process Driven Trading” and “Applied Quantitative Research”. They used “random walks” and “calibrated correlations”. They created CDO’s (Collateralized Debt Obligations) and CDS’s (Credit Default Swaps) and other “derivatives”, like side bets in a poker game, that were built to mitigate risk.
In reality, they just broke the risk up and made it so invisible that it began to permeate the system.
Once again the computer models, built by fallible humans, had some fatal flaws.
They were built on the “fact” that a sudden national collapse in American home prices would never happen.
They were built on the “fact” that the movement of the US housing market could not possibly trigger losses in stock portfolios that had nothing to do with housing; stock portfolios, say, of British stocks or banks based, say, in Iceland.
Oops.
For more information, I recommend two new books:
“Quants” by Scott Patterson (a writer for the Wall Street Journal) and
“I.O.U.: Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay” by John Lanchester (a British novelist who gives a bit of world view to this whole mess)
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