From the category archives:

Housing

FDIC Looking to Reduce Principal for Underwater Homeowners

February 26, 2010

In yet another example that the government has gone mad, Sheila Bair, Chairwoman of the FDIC, is looking at a trial program to reduce the principal for homeowners who owe more than their home is worth.
Under the FDIC program, borrowers would be eligible for a reduction in their mortgage balances if they kept up their [...]

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Another Silly Vote Pander in Housing

February 19, 2010

Today, President Obama spoke in Las Vegas where he promised to allocate $1.5 billion to unemployed homeowners in Florida, California, Michigan, Arizona, and, of course, Nevada who owe more than the home is worth.
I know President Obama is an intelligent man. He was editor of the Harvard Review, usually given to a pretty sharp person. [...]

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Foreclosure Headline Great – Reality Bad

February 11, 2010

RealtyTrac released a report showing that foreclosures shrank 10% in January from December. While the press focuses on the headline, the details to RealtyTrac’s report are much grimmer and shows a housing market that is still in trouble. The month-to-month drop is a positive, but year-over-year foreclosures are up 15% from January 2009. REO (real [...]

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A Bubble In Search of a Pin

February 6, 2010

Here is a Letter from John Mauldin. As usual, a thoughtful piece that focuses on the headwinds the economy faces. I agree with John, and those he quotes, in many respects about how Greenspan, Bernanke, and the powers that be missed the bubble. However, we are naive to think that the Fed would ever prick [...]

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Homeownership Rate Drops

February 2, 2010

Great graph over at Calculated Risk about home ownership rates.

CR points out that home ownership rates are now back to the year 2000 level. CR thinks we may get to 66%, which is where it was in the late 1990s. CR points to demographics as the reason home ownership is higher. The average before that [...]

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Housing Storm or Eye of the Hurricane

November 26, 2009

If you listen to the news media today, you might hear how housing prices have stabilized and that the worst for housing is over. For this entire year, the media has reported how February sales outpaced January’s while March’s topped February’s and so-on. Just this week, October sales came in 10% higher than September. Compared [...]

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What Does the Increase In Mortgage Rates Mean

June 10, 2009

As the 10 year Treasury climbs, mortgage rates ride their back. Thirty year mortgage rates have jumped from the lows of around 4.75% to 5.57% this week. This may not seem like a large jump, and historically, current rates are still fantastic. But, the jump is having an impact on the housing market and bank [...]

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Free Markets At Work

May 24, 2009

Good article in NY Times about the Phoenix real estate market. Apparently, there are numerous investors, many out of state, who are buying Phoenix properties and renting them back to the previous owners. Often times, they rent to the troubled owners at a lower price than their mortgage was originally.
It shows that left to its [...]

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U-G-L-Y You Ain’t Got No Alibi

May 18, 2009

The Federal Reserve reported today that delinquencies increased substantially in the first quarter of 2009. You will notice a substantial rise in residential real estate, commercial real estate, and credit cards. The only one of the three that isn’t at an all time high is residential real estate, which is still below the S&L crisis [...]

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Greenspan Calls End of Housing Decline

May 12, 2009

Alan Greenspan caused the market to reverse its downward trend today when he was speaking to the National Association of Realtors (NAR) when he said that housing was stabilizing.
Oh joy, the man who caused the bubble and didn’t see a bubble forming is calling for a bottom. During the speech, he reiterated that he did [...]

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