Housing, Loans, Credit Cards
The Fed raised the interest rate in the US to 4 %. Something like the 12th rate hike in a row.
We bought a new house; we're moving in April. I have a house I need to sell. Rising interest rates makes it harder to sell houses. So for me, this is a bad thing.
The Bank of Canada prime rate is 3 % currently, so we're a little better off here than in the US; hopefully things will stay that way until we can sell this place.
The housing boom might be coming to an end soon, as folks with average salaries aren't going to be able to get the kinds of crazy mortgages that these housing prices demand. In Canada, mortgage interest isn't tax deductible (like it is in the US) so really stupidly expensive houses aren't quite as easy to carry.
I saw one slightly good sign related to interest rates yesterday... one of those almost-daily offers of a pre-approved credit card with a bazillion dollar limit and no annual fee and a LOW LOW "introductory" rate actually had a more reasonable rate for after the sucker-magnet 1.9% introductory rate. I've seen them as high as 28% (those are store cards, usually) but typically they're 18% or so; this one was around 14%. It was an MBNA card.