You might think that with all the empty houses in this country right now, renting would be easy.

Except that those house aren’t for rent. They have been foreclosed, and banks don’t play landlord. Even in Seattle, where the housing crisis isn’t as bad as it is in other places, brand new townhouses sit empty for months while rents rise.

And for people like my brother, who has both good credit and a sizeable down payment and a very very good job, the credit crunch is kicking his ass. He’s been trying to buy a house for nearly two years. But the property values have skyrocketed so much here that 500k is the median home price.

Under the old credit rules, you would need to make about 125k per year to get a mortgage on a 500k house (using the very old fashioned rubric of your mortgage should be no more than 3 or 4 years worth of your total income).

But Bro is doing well, and he wants to be real estate baron someday. He had been looking at multi-family properties. But a few months ago when he found a super cheap (under 500k) triplex, he went for it.

And everything on his end of the deal was fine. On the sellers end it was fine. The bank, however, did not have the money available for a loan.

The bank did not have the money.

Seriously, the bank did not have the money.

How the fuckity fuck does that happen?

Fast forward to now. Bro has found a really lovely 4 bedroom, 2 bath house in a really good neighborhood with easy public transit access to work. It’s 535k. And in the neighborhood it’s in, that’s a steal. He’s putting in an offer and hoping they can work something out so he doesn’t get stuck with t