Nosoup-
This is a great thread! I think you are providing a quite valuable service.
My request is not for specific information, but to see what the general attitude in the retail banking world is like. I live in one of the areas with overheated housing costs, and I have gotten so tired of worrying about a collapse in the housing market that my wife and I are going to sell our home and move into a rental for a few years and save the equity for investing in something more promising.
Am I out of my gourd? I was the eternal pessimist when I worked in the financial securities business, bailed out of my investments in the summer of '99. I avoided the crash, but also avoided some good returns in the mean-time, too!
Right now, in my area, the cost of renting a home is something like half the cost of buying, without the sacrifice of a decent down-payment. You can not buy event slum-style rental without being underwater with your first tenant.
If you work with any mortgage underwriters, how do they manage to write loans with such craziness? Is the secondary market still so strong that all sorts or irrational prices are still supported at the retail level? What is a (supposedly) rational investor like me supposed to make of all this?
