Lovely architecture.

Vienna shared by Edith Kulka
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NAR said the median price of a home was $212,100 in August, up 14.7% from the year-earlier level, the largest growth since October 2005, as pricier homes saw large annual sales growth. Inventories rose 0.4% to 2.25 million homes available for sale, representing a 4.9-month supply at current sales rates.
Looking forward, rates that continue to rise will eventually pull back home purchases, NAR added.
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Koss noted that existing-home sales are unlikely to see an impact from the no-taper decision, with factors such as seasonality and a lack of first-time homebuyers playing into the upcoming numbers. “There’s not that great groundswell of first-time buyers coming in," said  Brian Koss, executive vice president at Mortgage Network.  -- Megan Hopkins in HousingWire
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According to the experts, interest rates will be at 5% next year adding that much more to a new home buyer's mortgage payment.
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Gertrude Muck-Erhardt shared Stratosphere Tower in Las Vegas
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Shared by Kathy Morlock
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Auction.com is facilitating the closing of 20 commercial assets in 11 states for the week ending Sept. 6, the company said in a press release.

The sales had a combined total value of more than $65 million. Among the highlights was a 90,804-square-foot retail asset in Chino, Calif. Mountain Village Plaza, which was listed by Rockwood Real Estate Advisors. -- In HousingWire

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Too big to fail will end only when regulators properly implement the financial-reform measure. Title I of the law authorizes the Fed to force financial companies to change their activities — including their scale and scope — when it is determined that the institutions couldn't be resolved in an orderly fashion through the standard bankruptcy process.

The FDIC procedure is designed to impose losses on creditors of bank holding companies while protecting creditors to operating subsidiaries. As a consequence, private lending to a holding company should carry a premium interest rate relative to loans to an operating subsidiary, which involves less risk. This approach will work only if the Fed — and, again, the Board of Governors in particular — requires banks to have enough equity and long-term debt issued by the holding company to absorb potential losses. So far, the signs from the Fed about their thinking on this issue haven't been encouraging.  --  Simon Johnson in Money News
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Former Abbey in Eichstätt, Bavaria

Shared by Werner Polwein
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Personal income increased $57.2 billion, or 0.4 percent, and disposable personal income (DPI)

increased $56.2 billion, or 0.5 percent, in August, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $34.5 billion, or 0.3 percent. In July, personal

income increased $21.2 billion, or 0.2 percent, DPI increased $32.7 billion, or 0.3 percent, and

PCE increased $18.3 billion, or 0.2 percent, based on revised estimates.  -- From the Bureau of Economic Analysis
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Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property

located in the United States -- increased at an annual rate of 2.5 percent in the second quarter of 2013

(that is, from the first quarter to the second quarter), according to the "third" estimate released by the

Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the first quarter, real GDP increased 1.1 percent.
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