Quote Originally Posted by clodhopper View Post
That is the normal or traditional pattern. But much of the federal debt is tied to the interest rate, ie what the .gov pays in debt service. Not all of it is at a locked rate. The fed wont willy nilly raise interest rates as it also raises the debt service that comes right off the top of tax receipts. That downward pressure on rates will keep them lower than would otherwise be logical. We wont see Jimmy Carter interest rates because it will collapse the economy from the debt service. Currently the solution is to BRRRR run the money printers. Some other stupid solution will come after this. Raising the rates, the logical response, will be avoided at all costs. So this housing bubble, based on cheap money, will extend longer than it would otherwise.
Yes, I've heard much the same elsewhere. The thing is, while low interest rates are great for real estate (and wall street) they suck for people who's retirement is invested in "safe" bonds and blue chip stocks. It's gotten to the point where real estate and the stock market are the only things making money anymore and they both seem to be ripe for a "correction" (i.e. crash) some time soon.

As far as real estate itself goes, there is a huge range of prices. Sometimes just for fun I get onto Realtor.com and look at home prices in other parts of the country. I set up a "base" house requirement, like 3 br, 2 ba, detached home with 2 car garage, and then see what that goes for in various markets.

There are still parts of the US where you can get a pretty decent home with a couple of acres for ~$150k or less. That seems nuts here in CO where you can barely get a 1 BR 1 BA condo for that much.