Moving and Retirement
Outdoor Recreation Driving Population Boom in Rural Areas; Land is Cheaper and Recreation is Right Out the Back Door
The trend is part of what drove the overall slight growth of the rural population in the United States from 2016 to 2017, for the first time since 2010, according to a Stateline analysis of census data. (Rural counties are those defined by the US Office of Management and Budget as outside cities and their suburbs.) The population in rural counties grew by only about 33,000 during that time, to about 46 million. While counties with large mining and farming industries shrank, counties with large recreation industries grew the most, by about 42,000, to about 6.3 million. more »
Federal Reserve Research, Warning: Don’t Infer Regional Inflation Differences from House Price Changes
House price growth has varied significantly nationwide since the end of the Great Recession in 2009: In some metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs), prices have grown as quickly as 7 percent annually, while others have seen prices decline almost as quickly, with many more MSAs falling somewhere in between. Since households spend more on housing than any other good or service, we would expect that inflation rates would show the same variation. They do not. more »
A decade after housing bust, mortgage industry is on shaky ground, experts warn: "There is great fragility. These lenders could disappear from the map”
The ripple effects of a market collapse would be severe, and taxpayers would potentially be on the hook for losses posted by failed mortgage companies. In addition to loans backed by the FHA or VA, the government is exposed through Ginnie Mae, the federal agency that provides payment guarantees when mortgages are pooled and sold as securities to investors. The mortgage companies are supposed to bear the losses if these securitized loans go bad. But if those companies go under, the government “will probably bear the majority of the increased credit and operational losses,” the paper concludes. Ginnie Mae is especially vulnerable because almost 60 percent of the dollar volume of the mortgages it guarantees comes from nonbank lenders. more »
Joey: An 'Ominous' and Heartbreaking Diagnosis and a Last Walk Together
Sonya Zalubowski writes: I go into the bedroom, to check on Joey. He’s curled in a ball in his little bed. He only half-raises his head. Weaker than just a day ago. His nose is dry, hot. Sharp in my chest when I try to draw a deep breath. It hits me. The foolishness that I could even try to outrace both our maladies. That they won’t catch up with us before we reach the county line. That Joey would die in even more pain. That I will experience even more myself of the burning grind of my bone on bone hip. more »