Mortgage rates continue to be in the news and are weighing on the minds of some homebuyers. Earlier in the month we looked at the dollar impact of higher rates (http://www.amybergquist.com/blog/2007/06/14/rising-mortgage-interest-rates/). The final result was that the changes we’ve seen over the course of this year (6.25% to 6.75% on a 30 year fixed) have resulted in monthly payments increasing by about $33 for every $100,000 borrowed. Since that post, rates have stabilized and even
New England’s “Rising Star” has several initiatives underway to promote economic growth and increase home ownership. I’ll be writing about some of these projects and programs in future posts. In the meantime, I came across an interesting article on the Wall Street Journal Online that talks about a very different strategy, purposely planning to shrink a city. According to the article, Youngstown, Ohio has seen its population decline by 60% over the last fifty years.
I’ve written about the lack of affordable of housing in CT before. Add to this a few of my other pet peeves, suburban sprawl (yes, I know it is counter-intuitive for a REALTOR to dislike sprawl) and youth drain, and we’ve got the potential for long term economic hardship not only in CT, but all of New England. Clearly, on a town by town basis, we can start business development and real estate development projects