Tag

crystal ball

2018 Housing Market Predictions: Key Qualifier = “Could”

“Hot Housing Market Could Cool Off in 2018” –USA Today headline (12/28/17). Long-time readers of this blog know that I put very little credence in supposed experts’ predictions (or anyone else’s, for that matter 🙂 ).** Whenever I see a headline like the one in USA Today this morning, I’m reminded of a colleague’s long-ago...
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Predicting Prices at the Pump

Gas Price Chicken-or-the-Egg Once upon a time, I used to think that you forecasted oil stocks by watching prices at the pump:  falling gas prices were bearish for the stocks; rising prices, bullish. Now, I think it’s the reverse, i.e., to forecast prices at the pump, you watch the action in oil company stocks. So, what...
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Contrarian Real Estate Bet

Which Way Mortgage Rates? According to a certain (contrarian) school of thought, whatever everyone expects to happen . . . won’t. In the housing market, there seems to be almost universal agreement at the moment that mortgage rates are going to be higher — perhaps dramatically — in the second half of 2010 and beyond....
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