patrick.net

zzyzzx says

As long as they can sell more profitable luxury houses, they have no incentive to build affordable housing.

The desire in a big home is real estate brainwashing and might be mostly an American phenomenba.

When rates actually went up the following day to 6.15% after the Fed’s announcement, there was lots of splainin’ to do. Although rates would settle at 6.06% on Friday night, the cracks in the narrative had been widening since late May when mortgage rates started their move down. Every realtor, broker, housing industry publication has made the innuendo or explicit case that when “rates” go down everyone was going to be fine, and the housing engine would restart. Additionally, if you ask one of these industry insiders about mortgage rates, they refer to the latest news from the Fed. No matter how many times I have pounded the table that the Fed does not control mortgage rates, the bond market does, those in the industry failed either to grasp or overtly acknowledge this fact. Do the Fed’s actions have an impact? Sure, but the bond market had already front-run the move with large drops in August when the Yen Carry Trade started to unwind. The confusion out there has gotten so bad that Jerome Powell himself had to state explicitly from the podium that “he can’t really speak to mortgage rates.”

https://open.substack.com/pub/m3melody/p/wait-what

He could control mortgage rates if he wanted to by simply buying a trillion or so MBS.

He's not desperate yet because the Federal government and corporations are expanding the amount of bonds at a reasonable rate.

HeadSet says

I would never prefer a trailer to a built house, but these trailers I have been in are quite nice. They look the same inside as other modest single-story homes, with a similar layout kitchen, bath and bedrooms. You just do not get an attic or basement.

You described an Eichler, lol.

HeadSet says

She was able to buy an acre of land and put a trailer on it.

And it gets a pink slip from the DMV so is not counted as a perm improvement on the property tax assessments. Need to pay more for the loan on them though.

You can have them added as a property improvement, tho. Involves an affidavit that you won't move it off the property and you surrender the pink slip to the property tax authority. Ppl only do that to get better financing for the trailer.

Eric Holder says

You described an Eichler, lol.

Eichlers can have basements/attics tho. Not common, but possible.

DemocratsAreTotallyFucked says

Eric Holder says

You described an Eichler, lol.

Eichlers can have basements/attics tho. Not common, but possible.

I thought they weren't supposed to have the former by definition and the latter are add-ons. There are some Eichlers in Bay Area with added 2nd stories, attics and such, but I never heard of basements in these. The whole "slab-on-grade foundation" thing was pioneered (or put into wide use) by Eichler, no?

DemocratsAreTotallyFucked says

And it gets a pink slip from the DMV so is not counted as a perm improvement on the property tax assessments.

I may have been using the term "trailer" wrong. These homes I am talking about are called "off frame" where two halves are brought to a site and assembled on a foundation. The roof is normal asphalt shingle. That example photo in my above post is one of those off frames.

HeadSet says

The roof is normal asphalt shingle

I was up on the roof today cleaning the gutters to get ready for the wet season.

The 17 years old shingles look a bit frayed at the edges. Supposedly it's a 20 year roof. Maybe we can eek out year 21. Time to start setting aside some money for this inevitability now. Because homie don't borrow.