I asked you all how you answer the question "where do you live," and Mike D's response made me grin:

It depends on how familiar the person is with Baltimore, these are terms I've used in the past:

"Downtown"

"Downtown... well... technically it's MIDtown."

"North of the Harbor"

"Mount Vernon" (This is what most residents in the area say anyway.)

"Mount Vernon... well... technically just outside Mount Vernon."

"Midtown"

"Midtown-Belvedere" - "Where's that?" - "Near the Belvedere Hotel." - "Oh... You mean that's not Mount Vernon?" - "Technically? Nope."

Most often, I just default to, "Near Penn Station."

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 3:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Comment of the day, Neighborhood and neighbors
        

There are 3 options:

1. Pull the Fed rate subsidy and housing prices WILL fall further, the only question is exactly how high rates will go and exactly how low prices will fall.

2. Keep the Fed rate subsidy program going indefinitely. The price of housing measured in dollars will be higher, but measured in anything else, gold, gallons of gas, gallons of milk, or loaves of bread, it will be lower.

3. Pursue real pro-growth policy that leads to higher wages and allow those higher wages to drive up prices.

One thing the prior decade showed us is that asset appreciation brought about by financial engineering is unsustainable. The supports being offered now are merely financial engineering, be it on a much larger scale than Wall Street.

See his full comment here.

Do you agree that those are the only options? What do you want the Fed to do (or not do)?

Posted by Jamie Smith Hopkins at 3:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Comment of the day, Mortgage rates, Mortgages