Felix Salmon put together an interesting chart that shows national mortgage payments vs rents. Not surprisingly, with interest rates now below four percent, buying has become cheaper than renting. He adds: Of course, not all markets work this way: around New York, there are lots of places where it’s still a lot cheaper to rent [...]

Are you wishing you could live in Danville, Alamo, Lafayette, or Pleasanton but don’t think you can afford a single-family home? Well… maybe you can. Check out just how low some single-family homes have sold for over the last year. Danville: Sold Under $500,000 Lafayette: Sold Under $500,000 Alamo: Sold Under $700,000 Pleasanton: Sold Under [...]

With interest rates so low and Bay Area rents so high, it’s no wonder that a lot of younger people are considering buying their first homes. And because they are generally cheaper, many are considering buying a condo because… well… that’s what you are supposed to do. You buy something inexpensive, build up equity, and [...]

Wall St Journal, by way of Calculated Risk had some housing comments recently along the lines of markets “improving from the bottom up“. They referenced some data suggesting a surge in buying activity within lower price sectors of real estate in New York and New Jersey. They continued with analyst commentary suggesting that it was [...]

A lot of people are asking what I think will happen in the housing market in 2012. But rather than just give a laundry-list of predictions, I’d like to share my thoughts within the context of steps that different type of readers and clients may be considering. First, a general note on the housing market… [...]