Upon investigation, I found the prior owner had used a gutter spike to hang the curtain rod that kept falling down.I would tell the tenant if he broke it, he's responsible for fixing it.

Why this Spike?

Refinancing demand does have a huge correlation to rates as well.By the way, weve had a half point spike in rates in just a week.

Generally the market consists of knowledgeable buyers and sellers but spikes can appear under certain conditions that are not related to profitability. 

After the election there was a huge huge drop in the bond market, as we can also see in the interest rate spike.  

You can see the spike in house prices (third graph) in 2007 were much more influential on the % Median Income than the Mortgage Rate.Here we can see the median home price against the paltry rise in the median income.

It rose as a result of the Great Recession, after the economy started growing again but when when it still felt to everyone who was not a professional economist that we were in a recession.The Great Recession involved a massive loss of jobs, and that caused vacancies to spike, as always happens during a recession.  

Hey BP,I'm thinking about submitting an offer on an REO property.The price was just reduced today fairly dramatically.I took a look at the property and it seems to be a good candidate.My only concern is there are a large number of homes for sale in the area (particularly fsbo).I checked to see if the school district had recently changed or a spike in crime had occurred. 

So the potential for that velocity to spike is realistic and possible - and you end up with China and Australia styled real estate markets.

You could have a leaky toilet, dripping sink, etc. if the electricity didn't also spike to go along with that water use.