A Real Estate Correction and One Other November 12, 2002February 22, 2017 THIS FAX SAYS IT ALL It snuck through in between the time I connected the phone line to send a fax and my pressing SEND. Damn, spam’s fast. Anyway, here was the nub of it, from an outfit called Union Trust Mortgage: Qualifying start rates as low as 3.95% Finance up to 107% on purchases Bankruptcy OK! Foreclosure OK! Low and no documentation loans If you have been turn down [sic], call us! “Great Credit?” The 3.95% introductory rate is for you. “Bruised Credit?” Try one of our 90% loan-to-value “no income and no asset verification” loans. My point is: This is a little scary. What happens to the real estate market when the folks who take these loans can’t make the payments and the lender has to foreclose? What happens if interest rates rise and the monthly homeownership costs rise apace? And why (while I’m asking you stuff) do people wash towels? Does anyone use a towel before entering the shower? No, it is used when, emerging, you are as clean as you’ll ever be! It is a conundrum. But not the real estate market. One of these days, we’re going to have a correction. And speaking of corrections . . . CORRECTION: LEWIS AND CLARK – A GOOD EFFORT, BUT NOT FIRST I made reference last week to the travails of Lewis and Clark, as recounted in the Stephen Ambrose biography, Undaunted Courage. I said they had been the first white men to make their way West all the way across the continent to the Pacific. Piffle, responded Peter Ludemann: “I think you’ll find that Alexander Mackenzie beat Lewis and Clark by a few years.. . . Not to denigrate what Lewis and Clark did (having worked summers in the woods, I know how tough it is even with modern gear), but please give credit for ‘first’ where it’s due.” ☞ Perhaps it was e-mails like this that drove Lewis, at the age of 35, to shoot himself in the head. (And when that didn’t work, to pick up his other pistol and shoot himself in the chest. And when that left him still breathing, to begin cutting himself with a razor.) A sad end to an amazing life.