A Contrarian Hot Take on 2022 Housing Market

I just saw this article from NAR Research come across my news feeds: Leading Economic and Housing Experts Predict Multiple Fed Interest Rate Hikes, Slowing Inflation and Home Price Growth in 2022. The key takeaway: More than 20 top economic and housing experts predict two quarter-point interest rate hikes by the Fed in 2022. Next … Read more

On the Metaverse: Counterpoints and Arguments

I have had one of the more interesting and exciting things in a while happen on my recent post, The Metaverse is the Future: The Office is Dead. Long Live the Office. A couple of readers left lengthy comments disagreeing with my take, and criticizing it besides. I love it. It isn’t through polite agreement … Read more

Seven Predictions for 2022: Fresh Sounds of Jamaica Edition

Welcome to yet another edition of the Seven Predictions, sure to be wrong or your money back. This is one of my favorite annual traditions around this time of year, and whatever the changes in focus to the blog, I’ll have to keep this one up. For those keeping track at home, I just published … Read more

The Metaverse Is the Future: The Office is Dead. Long Live the Office.

A few nights ago, Sunny and I were talking about the Metaverse. As a former MMO gamer, I posited that it will be the future of the workplace. As someone who had a social life and dated in high school, Sunny thought otherwise. Turns out, she just couldn’t see herself piloting a little cartoon character … Read more

Quick Observation: Real Estate Agents in the Metaverse?

I’m gearing up to release the next two big annual pieces — grading myself on last year’s predictions and 2022 predictions — but I got yet another email from some PR firm: Investment in virtual real estate has become the talk of the town in the real estate world as millions are being poured into … Read more

The Seven Most Interesting People in Real Estate in 2021

Welcome to another installment of an annual tradition around here: the Seven Most Interesting People in Real Estate in 2021. I look forward to this post, as well as my Seven Predictions post, each year. Last year, I went out of my way to select interesting people who weren’t the Obvious Choices. This year, I’m … Read more

The Tale of Two Studies

I’m busy working on some blockchain-related research, but saw something come across my feeds that I thought deserved a brief treatment. On Inman, I see this: Where are the hearts and minds of Americans after 2021’s wild real estate ride? It’s a sponsored post talking about a study commissioned by Coldwell Banker looking at consumer … Read more

Why Is Anybody Buying Mortgage Backed Securities?

I’ve got a very busy week, but saw something on YouTube that made me want to explore a topic that I do plan on looking into deeper. So a brief post that is mostly a series of questions, all of which culminate in this one: Why is anybody buying mortgage-backed securities in 2021? Obviously, the … Read more