This video started with a simple question: why do home prices remain high? With higher rates and plummeting demand, prices should fall.
It was natural to showcase my own terrible house, which I am forever trapped in due to the interest-rate phenomenon described in the video.
OTHER FUNNY ISSUES WITH MY HOUSE–
Parts of the plumbing system needed to be replaced. I got quotes from 3 plumbers, they ranged from $6,000 to $25,000 and all differed on what needed to be done. Principal agent problem in action. I went with the cheapest and it has worked fine for 2 years now.
After I bought my house, I found out the power was being stolen. My contractor brought this to my attention by pointing to the incoming power line that had been split to bypass the meter. My $4-per-month power bills then made sense. I called the power company to ask what I should do, and they said, “Not our problem.” Hmmm… I was pretty sure that if it was anyone’s problem, it was theirs.
My next-door neighbor is a graffiti artist with whom I don’t get along. One day “Fuck You” appeared prominently on his shed directed at my house. I asked him about it, maintaining I was a free speech absolutist and was totally fine with the graffiti, but if he had any issues he was free to come speak with me directly. My neighbor claimed he was just tagging while listening to a song with those lyrics, but the graffiti was repainted the next day.
Sources for the video:
Batzer, Ross, et al. “The lock-in effect of rising mortgage rates.” Available at SSRN 5021709 (2024).
New York Times graphs: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/15/upshot/mortgage-rates-homes-stuck.html
I used bankrate.com to calculate the interest rates calculations.
