Tom Toles for June 14, 2012

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    Dtroutma  almost 12 years ago

    With many areas going up 20% a year during much of the “Bush years”, WAY over the inflation rate on other than housing, the hyper-inflation in the prices, plus “phony” loan structure has indeed strangled the middle class, who often just had to have a place to live, weren’t necessarily “flipping” or playing “games”.

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    cdward  almost 12 years ago

    Of course, when bankers make loans they know are bad, they are also responsible. They should have been fired for intentionally making bad loans. Especially when they hide a lot of the details because they know their customers are not sophisticated enough to understand the legalese.

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    meetinthemiddle  almost 12 years ago

    Historically, property tax appraisals used to lag the markets by quite a bit – until during the bubble a lot of towns saw they were missing out on a lot of revenue and started re-appraising a lot more often.

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    Dapperdan61  Premium Member almost 12 years ago

    My house is currently appraised for more than what I could sell it for. Fortunately my mortgage is low enough so I’m not underwater either.

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    lonecat  almost 12 years ago

    If you discount the bubble, housing prices aren’t so bad figured over a twenty-year period. That’s often how bubbles work.

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    ARodney  almost 12 years ago

    Zoidknight makes it clear in most of his posts that he doesn’t understand capitalism.

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    Justice22  almost 12 years ago

    Your response to Trusted Mechanic is spot on. I was thinking that I don’t want that mechanic working on my car.

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    CasualBrowser  almost 12 years ago

    “Why would i dispute my appraised value if it’s less than market value?”-There is one reason: Putting it on the market. Having one more opinion of a property’s worth to point at to justify an asking price is sometimes worth the expense of having it appraised and adjusted. It makes the taxes go up, but if you sell before they come due, you’ve reaped a benefit.

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    krisjackson01  almost 12 years ago

    Under Dubya, they got rid of that silly law that when you write a mortgage you should have a reasonable expectation that the buyer should be able to pay the loan. The result was a frenzy of buying by people who really shouldn’t have bought. The lenders all made a profit, however, so they were fine with it. And they would be happy to do it again. Too bad Dodd-Frank changed things for them.

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    Justice22  almost 12 years ago

    “My number 2 Mom bought and paid for her property 48 years ago”

    I knew that hookers made pretty good money. Did number 1 Mom mind her working that trade? Good thing you didn’t have a Dad.

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    Dtroutma  almost 12 years ago

    Fairpointfan2: Thanks, also it’s important that ASSESSED (taxed) value is LESS than appraised “market” value.

    Speculation notably in Las Vegas, ARTIFICIALLY drove prices up. Elsewhere as well, in Ashland , Or, the increase WAS 20% per year during “BUSH years”, and driven by, well, greed, actually.

    The old “invest in land, they ain’t making any more”, is generally true, (Much of the housing in the San Francisco Bay area is on fill. There is less bay, more bedrooms.) It is that general inability to create more land in “desirable” areas that drives prices up. The insanity is that so much desert land is being built on, population expanded, and THERE ISN"T ANY WATER available locally, so importing it is wiping out other areas. “Poor planning on your part, doesn’t equal an emergency on m part”, DOES represent a lot of the crash and burn in these same desert areas, and the crash is only starting.

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    lonecat  almost 12 years ago

    People often don’t know it’s a bubble until it bursts. If it doesn’t burst, it’s not a bubble. Until it bursts, people keep acting as if it will never burst.

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