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The beer is placed inside a pocket of salty, pretzel-like dough and then dunked in oil at 375 degrees for about 20 seconds, a short enough time for the confection to remain alcoholic.

When diners take a bite the hot beer mixes with the dough in what is claimed to be a delicious taste sensation.

Here’s a question for you reality (vs NAR realty) agents. Ever wonder why you seem to be having such a hard time convincing sellers to set reasonable asking prices? Ever ponder why they have such a distorted sense of the true value of their homes? Ever try to get them to set reasonable asking numbers that are competitive with current market prices?

The short answer: NAR spin.

America’s distinction is that it was the first nation founded on the principle that you have a right to pursue your own happiness without government interference. But the government’s homeownership crusade means it gets to decide how you should live, and stick-and-carrot you into living that way.

This one could involve not just first time/move-up buyers, but a credit for buyers purchasing foreclosed properties or short sales (when the bank allows you to buy a home for less than the value of the outstanding mortgage).

During the past one or two decades, America’s economy has been, and increasingly so as it went along, dependent on the housing market. Homeowners and -buyers got to feel like they were making money every day just living in a home, brokers were raking in cash selling more and faster then they ever would have thought possible, and Wall Street took all that ant-like activity and leveraged it up the hilt in securities and other “innovative instruments”.

We’re All in a Race to the Bottom – Mr. Practical
People’s conception of deflation is false, created by sophists in government. Deflation corrects all the imbalances and debt loads of the massive inflation (excess bank debt) that’s occurred for 30 years (really since the inception of the Fed). Deflation lowers prices, just [...]

“They treat us like we’re starving and we need to do them all kinds of favors to possibly make some money,” said Michele Conte, a Corcoran Group broker who was recently asked by one former client to help her sell her apartment without a commission. She agreed to help, in hopes that the former client might eventually hire her.

“It was a tough decision,” Mark says. “You have kind of the emotional baggage of wanting to continue to own a house — the ‘American Dream’ theory. The flip side of it is, you kind of get to give up the baggage of all the maintenance cost — and all the maintenance time that goes along with it.”

“I could borrow $2 billion tomorrow for 3 1/2 percent,” said Speer. “But what am I going to do with it?”

Congress used Fan and Fred to promote affordable housing while keeping the costs off-budget. (FHA obligations are on- budget.) Some of the recipients of the largess, who have lost their homes to foreclosure, must be wondering if homeownership is a worthy goal.

Once again the pile of overoptimistic economist estimates continues to mount. Today, weekly unemployment claims hit 500,000 exceeding every forecast. This is (at minimum) the 4th time since March every economist was overly optimistic regarding unemployment claims. Nicely done guys.

“It’s painful, more painful than I thought it was going to be,” said Kris Crichton, who bought a $640,000 condo in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood using $50,000 in equity from a home she owned with her former husband and an interest-only loan for part of the mortgage. “I’m eating ramen and PB&J every day, but at least I have a house.”

Add to this the overwhelming supply of ‘distressed properties’, those with delinquent or defaulted mortgages and the dynamics are bleak at best. There are simply too many homes for sale relative to the natural demand. And home buyers are not demonstrating any perceivable confidence that we have found the bottom, yet. As we begin to see the data for the fall, we expect it will be soft, that volumes and prices will move lower, perhaps precipitously.

The limbo phenomenon is a radical departure from previous real estate crashes, when there were far fewer troubled loans and banks moved speedily on those who fell behind on payments. Now many lenders simply can’t keep up, and others appear reluctant to flood a weakened market with foreclosed homes.