Monday Morning Reading – 21 April 2014

– My mom liked my April monthly note; you might too! Interested? Subscribe now and I’ll send you April’s note.

– Getting into and around downtown Charlottesville has been a bit challenging for a while and now they’re asking the question – How will West Main Street be traversed after 1800 apartments and a hotel are built? Slowly. Very, very slowly. (one might think this conversation could have been had before approving nearly 2000 apartments, but that’s just me)

Getting a mortgage is getting a tiny bit easier. This is a good thing.

Student debt holds back many would-be homebuyers. Duh. Costs to attend college go up every single year, government keeps subsidizing student loans so colleges have no incentive to lower costs and debt loads keep rising. I know I’m a broken record, but this isn’t going to end well.

If the courts move out of Downtown Charlottesville, the relatively efficient way real estate transactions are closed in Charlottesville will change dramatically.

Albemarle County school class sizes are going up. So are real estate taxes in Albemarle County.

– It would be mighty cool if an artist like this was in Charlottesville.

Tesla is trying to remove the middleman in selling cars. There are some interesting parallels to the real estate industry in this conversation.

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1 Comment

  1. Mark April 21, 2014 at 13:36

    Kind of made me shudder when the shill in the Bloomberg video kept saying, “the states have determined that this [dealership system] is the best method of selling cars.”
    Well, yes, the state legislators, with the assistance of donations from the car manufacturer and car dealer lobbies, have indeed determined that dealerships are best…for manufacturers and dealers.
    As it pertains to real estate, I am for reducing the middleman’s commission to something reasonable that reflects 1) the fact that home prices have doubled and tripled in a generation while commissions have stayed the same, and 2) the fact that most consumers do a lot more research and prep independent of a real estate agent.

    Reply

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