Sep
20
2008
“This may be the best week in 20 years to buy a house.”
By Charles Turner“This may be the best week in 20 years to buy a house.” This is what Dave Ramsey says in the first couple of minutes of last night’s radio show. “This weekend may be the very best day…Great time to buy.” The podcast is a 20mb file.
He says he’s never made a statement like that in 20 years of programming. I’m not a regular listener so couldn’t vouch either way. We’ve discussed “Buy Now” statements in the past. It is not a statement for everyone and he makes note of that in the show (I listened up to the first break in programing; about 10 minutes). Markets are funny things. After the week’s stock market ups and downs it’s amazing (at least to me) that the Dow ended down less than 40 points.
How did this guy who has declared bankruptcy, gotten to be a financial guru?
He’s also a christian conservative which is dead giveaway that he’s driven by nothing but pure greed. He’s no doubt being paid to say things like this.
Smart people don’t take their financial advice from talk radio prophets who didn’t have the good financial sense to avoid bankruptcy themselves. And certainly not from the real estate industry that has brought us to the brink of The Great Depression II.
How does it feel knowing that your government is going to bail out all the bad loans your industry is responsible for promoting? Glad it will be your kids experiencing a diminished future due to the bad debt you helped to create.
Well put, Naysayer. One has to wonder why Charles even posted this, it’s so inanne.
Well, I guess one way to bring back the housing market would be if we get double digit inflation, interest rates dip below 4%, and sub-prime loans are on the table again. And why wouldn’t they be? We could have another great run-up, and then the Feds could buy up all the bad loans again, and run the national debt up to 20 trillion. It’s only money. That’s what I’m looking forward to. Oh, and a big moose burger!
Bring it on, Holmes.
Maybe Dave Ramsey is right. At this point we’re either closing in on the bottom, or we should just put up a statue of Lennin in Pioneer Square because the feds will own everything.
I actually listened to the clip. First let me say, shame on you, Charles, for not giving more details! It’s all in the details…
So let me tell you what he says regarding buying now:
1) NO OTHER DEBT!
Use a 15 yr fixed
2) NO second house, no house to sell.
3) Healthy emergency fund in place.
4) Your PITI is no more than 25% of your take home pay…25%!!!!
5) Good credit
6) Must have job stability
7) Healthy down payment
He goes on to say that there are lots of motivated sellers and builders and few qualified buyers…”You can steal a house”.
So how many Portlanders fit that bill?!?!?!
LOL, 15 year fixed…hahahahaha, what a turn around from IO’s and neg am’s!!!!
Oh, and also take into account your higher taxes to cover the Iraq and Afghan wars, the AIG bailout, the Freddie and Fannie bailout, etc…we have tripled our national debt in 8 years!!!
shame on you, Charles, for not giving more details! It’s all in the details…
Of course it is in the details. I’m not a transcription service. The link was provided so that you, the educated readers of this blog, could listen to how he arrived at his buy now.
And if none of the comments laid it out as I did would you have? It took me very little time to type as Ramsey was laying it out. Not every one’s computer has the capability to hear or see the links. What was your intention? More importantly, what are your thoughts on his little speech?
When we see the little green signs on public property that say “Love Oregon? Buy a piece. http://www.buynoworegon.org”
http://www.homebuildersportland.org/home.html
What ‘educational’ info does it present. NONE!
This “Buy Now” crap is getting old. And to continue to post it is misleading by omission.
. It is not a statement for everyone and he makes note of that in the show (I listened up to the first break in programing; about 10 minutes).
I previously wrote:
On “Buy Now” campaigns:
They are wrong. Speaking for myself, national and even local “Now is a great time to buy” ads are mistaken. The market has clearly declined, is still declining and we will only see the bottom when looking at history. In all markets there are still opportunities to make a good purchase today but the blanket statement “buy now” campaigns are actually ass-backwards…
I disagree with Ramsey’s “aways get a 15 year mortgage.” If you can afford a 15 year mortgage, great. Get a 30 year and pay it on a 15 year term. The small hit in interest is a good insurance policy against the unknown. Going back to a 30 year payment if things get tight is better than not being able to make the 15 year payment that you are locked into by contract. $200,000 @ 6% for 30 years is $1200/mo. The same on a 15 year term is $1686. That’s $486 that can be allocated somewhere else if things get tight.
I screwed up my first refi when I was in my 20s. I went from a fixed 30 year to a product I didn’t know existed but would have if I had paid attention: an ARM on a 40 year payment term! When rates went up I paid a hefty prepayment penalty (it was three years). My fault, I paid and nobody bailed me out. I was a lemming on the refi train. Don’t be a “buy now lemming”. Do your research.
Can’t really argue that rates are low. Can’t really argue the market is down. Can’t tell which direction either of those are going. They go up, Ramsey is right. They go down, he’s wrong.
The discussion of when and under what circumstances to buy a home is going to continue. The real estate market hasn’t stopped and properties are selling ableit at a much slower rate. All markets cyclical. Even if the bottom is created by government intervention, its still going to happen eventually. If you completely close your mind to the possiblity of things getting better you’ll be trapped in a cycle of buy high and sell low.
“Not every one’s computer has the capability to hear or see the links.”
If your computer is that old and decrepit that it can’t play a quicktime file and you’re to poor to afford speakers, then it definitely isn’t a good time for you to buy a home. It’s time for you to scrape together $600 and go down to best buy and get a new computer.
Chill out, Mr. Thrifty. Some of us browse at work, cough, cough, and we don’t necessarily have the power in install speakers and other upgrades. My system at home is practically surround sound with the damn huge monitor and other gadgets my techie spouse adds on. Do I really need a monitor as big as my TV?!?!?
Back to Mr. Ramsy…how many people fork over more than 25% of their pay to PITI? That’s the one that got me laughing. In Portland?!?!?!?! Yeah, wonder what his thoughts on Portland real estate would be. He would likely say that 90% of the folks that bought in the past few years are WAY in over their heads and rather foolish according to his guidelines.
And given the historic week of tax payer backed bailouts…$700 BILLION!!!, wonder if he takes the state of the union into consideration?
****Please note, I accidently deleted Squeezed’s previous comment. I thought I was deleting the duplicated comment on the Hyper Local post from this morning. —Charles
Below is Squeezed’s correction folowup of a portion of what I deleted:
ReShould read:
With all due respect this has to be the most ignorant statement you have ever posted. We have just had unprecedented government intervention in the markets and you are surprised that the stock market has not plummeted. *Beats head against wall*
Maybe you should work while your at work instead of surfing the web.
With all due respect this has to be the most ignorant statement you have ever posted. We have just had unprecedented government intervention in the markets and you are surprised that the stock market has not plummeted. *Beats head against wall*
Every patient that comes the the ER doors and gets medical treatment survives. Right? Every injured athlete gets surgery and comes back 100% (Ask Darius Miles. Pray for Oden). After the smack-down that the market took at the beginning of the week I am surprised that intervention brought almost whole by the end of the week. If this is my most ignorant statement to date I’d be surprised
I agree with Naysayer up until the last paragraph where I think that he unfairly holds me out as being responsible for the bailout by being a part an industry.
This post inanne? I can see that one might be happier thinking that the housing market is one sided and there is only one thing to do but how can you consider yourself informed if you don’t know what others are saying? What you are going to do depends whether you are in or out of the pool, and if you are in it, whether you are drowning looking for a line or floating around in a lounge chair.
And again, enough with the “your momma wears combat boots” type comments. Disagree with me, disagree with each other but your arguement weakens with the negitave campaigning. Leave it to the politicians.
I didn’t blame you wholly. I blamed your industry. But really, it was Wall Street that used you. Perhaps it was willingly but still, real estate was just the vehicle for the Ponzi scheme. It’s like Amway. it’s not the soap and vitamins that are the problem, it’s the pyramid scheme that surrounds it.
There, see? I’m not a total asshole.