Trump tells us that bad news is fake news. With the economy not going his way, his explanations get more far fetched. I was particularly disillusioned to hear his 50 year mortgage plan.
I was never interested even in 30 year mortgages...that is a lot of interest to pay. With the average age of first time buyers approaching 40, with a 50 year mortgage, buyers won't obtain any equity until they're 70 years old.
While my former readers, who claim every post that it is their last visit to this blog, know that Trump knows real estate. For him to give such bad advice, speaks more to his obsession for administration approval, than his honesty. He knows that 50 year mortgages are candy for the bank, and sawdust for the public.
I'm not here to be polite or popular
While we really don't know whose idea such mortgages are, it is a truly a bad idea and will enslave potential home buyer for their entire lives. same goes for 7 or even ten year car loans, it will be junk before it is ever paid off. Many already never pay off their cars, but just keep trading in and extending a payment for their entire life.
ReplyDeleteI believe Henry Ford fought against car loans, believing he did not want to enslave his customers.
The debt spiral, in effect, raises prices and then panics hopeful homeowners to jump in before prices go higher, no longer able to even service a 30 year mortgage, the answer is not 50 year or 100 year signed by multiple generations of Japanese prior to their collapse in 1989.
The amount of peoples labor and freedom that they exchange for buying today and paying tomorrow is never calculated. It is declared that is what everyone does. It is all a symptom of an inevitable collapse.
Sounds like a bad idea, but at least it’s an idea. You and your new team offers nothing except NOT TRUMP.
ReplyDeleteNothing.
Ray is such a loyal apologist/bootlicker for DJT he should be given some kind of role in the administration
ReplyDeleteIt may be convenient and feel good to blame what is happening on Trump, but looking at the root cause of the many crisis we see, has been escalating for decades. I criticize bad ideas that Trump floats almost daily, I am willing to withhold final judgement until after they are actually implemented.
DeleteThe problem is Trump's personality is caustic and divisive. He upsets a lot of people who find his New Yorkerism not very appealing. I find myself to be one of them as growing up here in Allentown, I was glad I never grew up in Brooklyn, or the Bronx or Queens.....
DeleteRonald Reagan however was a unifier. When Reagan spoke people gravitated towards him. Although Reagan did have some stupid ideas, such as classifying ketchup as a vegetable, the day the Space Shuttle Challnger exploded, Reagan did a lot to help heal the nation of the sadness that caused; his D-Day speech in France was inspring just as his speech in Berlin to "Tear down this wall" reflected the feelings of most Americans.
Many Americans, including myself, do simply not understand Trump's friendship with Vladimir Putin, who murders women and children in their beds each night and Trump wanting to do buisness with him..
That in paticular has soured me and many other Americans on Trump and I do not intend to vote for any canidate that supports Trump in next years congressional elections.
Even if that means I just stay home and not vote at all next year, as Democrats basically are repulsve in general.
anon@7:38: I prefer no ideas to bad ideas. This blog is not blindly against Trump, but many of its readers are blindly for Trump. I'm hoping that Mackenzie and McCormick speak out against Hegseth sooner than later, but they seem to be still catering to the likes of your vote.
ReplyDeleteanon@7:45: I don't find Ray that way at all. On the contrary, he is very concerned about the debt, and the administration not squarely taking on that problem.
ReplyDelete50 year mortgages is just another indication of "you will own nothing," Many will not like it, but the not owning real estate has been going on ever since we linked school funding to real estate. You, in effect do not own your property as you are paying more and more every year in taxes that if not paid will result in taking that property. You are all perpetual renters.
ReplyDeleteYou no longer own your property, the electronics in your car, soon you will no longer own your computer, its software or the ability to store your own data.
You will be paying monthly for all of it, likely with an automatic withdrawal from your declining account.
That's not exactly true. LIDAR, or interest-only mortages before the 2008 bank failures were used similar to these proposed 50-year mortages, as all the borrower had to do was pay the interest on the morgage for a set number of years than have to refinance.
DeleteAs you don't build up a lot of equity in these 50 year mortages, they are quite similar, but you do build up a small amount. Also if you are fortunte to be able to sell your home for more than the mortgage balance, you just pay ofr the mortgage note and keep the rest as profit along with the small equity you have built up.
Oh, you own it far as paying for it, you just have everyone else controlling how you use it. MONEY and CONTROL is our life hence forth... and they're just getting warmed up!!! Stand by, sports fans!!!
Delete7:45 - Did you even read what Ray wrote? I did, and I don’t see it as an endorsement of the 50-year mortgage.
ReplyDeleteTo MM’s original post I think it’s disingenuous to characterize the 50 year mortgage as an actual “plan”. Yes it was mentioned, but that was a month ago and only fleetingly and likely as a trial balloon to counter the affordability crisis in housing that Trump inherited.
Yes, deporting illegals has helped increase supply in general, but that takes a while to benefit those actually doing the buying. With a fed chairman who is more interested in raising rates than lowering them, extending the loan term is really the only way for the Administration to directly affect the cost of buying. The plan would likely be to get some savings to the buyer up front on a 50 year term, and then have them refinance once Trump is able to put a Fed Chairman in place who is on the same page as Trump and is in favor of LOWERING rates.
On the subject of the Fed Chairman, I’d also note that current Chairman Powell was actually appointed by Trump, back in his first term when Trump was still taking advice from career insiders on which career insiders to appoint to government positions.
To me, that underscores the need to have people that are on board with Trump’s policies put in positions of leadership.
If anyone wants to argue about an appointment that’s been a failure, it’s Powell. I’ll happily beat the drum with anyone who wants Powell to resign or be fired, and for our local congressman to separate himself from Powell.
anon@8:33: The rub today is that rents are so high, that home ownership can still be the ticket. Nobody needs a 4,000 sq. ft. house on a half acre.
ReplyDelete“Nobody needs a 4,000 sq. ft. house on a half acre.”
ReplyDeleteCould you explain this sentence a little further?
I don’t understand the point you’re trying to make, but I get nervous when anybody starts telling someone else what they need.
That’s not something that we typically do in America, outside of democrat socialist circles.
anon@9:12: Don't get nervous. In reply to anon@8:33, if possible, I'd prefer to buy smaller and more modest, than be a renter.
ReplyDelete8:33 & 9:12 here - Thanks for the explanation. I agree, as long as it’s voluntary.
DeleteSadly, the idea of a starter home is often looked down upon in our instant-gratification society.
Often zoning and regulation disallow a very modest shelter, regulation causes increases in prices. Making housing more affordable will require many changes to regulations.
ReplyDelete9:30 - I would say a blanket statement like that can be very dangerous, depending on where it is applied.
DeleteAllentown recently amended their zoning code and wanted to allow tiny homes on undersized urban lots. That creates a plethora of other problems (parking, noise, overcrowding, etc), and I’m not sure if that proposal made it into what was finally passed by a typically rubber-stamping city council.
In addition, many other policies in Allentown that were intended to help with the cost of housing have actually had the opposite effect. Policy in Allentown is being based on emotion rather than results; on impulse rather than thought.
Since I brought up Allentown, I think the much more important concerns (than simply the price of homes) are things like what percentage of rental properties is sustainable (in relation to owner-occupied properties), or what percentage of the city population can be at or below the federal poverty line for the city to thrive.
I highly doubt that anyone in City Hall is asking those questions, and if they are, they surely aren’t publicizing the answers.
The recent revelation that 45% of all property sales in Allentown are being sold to investors should be setting off alarm bells in City Hall. Meanwhile city leaders continue to hit the ‘Snooze’ button.
The 50 year mortgage was another brain fart from Trump who just says things without thinking or knowing any details. He just says stuff to make it sound like he has a plan, which he doesn’t. Anyone in real estate knows that a longer mortgage only benefits the bankers. 30 year mortgages have kept the big banks in place while starving out the smaller local lenders who couldn’t keep their capital tied up for that long.
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