Falling Housing Values: No Longer Just a Detroit Problem
March 17, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
Sold At The Top submits:
These are troubled times indeed… particularly for four regional housing markets where prices have literally fallen off the charts!
Prices for homes in Detroit, Atlanta, Cleveland and Las Vegas now sit at levels not seen in at least ten years.
Media Investigation Leads to Mortgage Fraud Indictments
March 17, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
Edward Harrison submits:
Mortgage fraud was rampant during the housing boom. Regulators were asleep at the wheel during all of this. But now we are getting some indictments as WFAA News 8 in Dallas reports (hat tip Housing Wire). This television station did the dirty work for regulators and uncovered massive amounts of mortgage fraud.
Will Mortgage Market Stay Bought?
March 17, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
Joseph Trevisani submits:
The Federal Reserve has paid a yearlong bribe to the housing market to keep mortgage rates almost a full point below average. The $1.25 trillion payoff also known as the Mortgage Backed Security purchase program is about to end. Will the mortgage market stay bought?
Honest corruption is when a bribed official performs as promised without asking for more money or welshing on the deal entirely. It is a variant on Senator George Washington Plunkitt’s famous term ’honest graft’. Senator Plunkitt, a 19th century New York Tammany leader said it best,
Reading Rates: Mortgage Application Levels Continue to Decline
March 17, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
Sold At The Top submits:
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) publishes the results of a weekly applications survey that covers roughly 50% of all residential mortgage originations and tracks the average interest rate for 30-year and 15-year fixed rate mortgages, 1-year ARMs as well as application volume for both purchase and refinance applications.
The purchase application index has been highlighted as a particularly important data series as it very broadly captures the demand side of residential real estate for both new and existing home purchases.
Loan Demand at Stand Still. Are You Nervous About the Year Ahead?
March 17, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
“The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased 1.9 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 1.7 percent compared with the previous week. The four week moving average for the seasonally adjusted Market Index is up 0.8 percent.”
Freddie Keeps Tax Credits, Focuses on Preservation
March 17, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
“The low-income housing tax credit industry can breathe a little easier this year: Freddie Mac is not actively pursuing a sale of its tax-credit portfolio.”
Fed didn’t know about Lehman accounting ‘gimmicks’
March 17, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
“Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Wednesday that the central bank didn’t know about Lehman Brothers’ use of controversial transactions that moved roughly $50 billion of assets off its balance sheet less than a year before it collapsed.”
Morgan Stanley’s Investa May Allow Exit From Funds in 18 Months
March 17, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
” Investa Property Group, an Australian real estate firm owned by Morgan Stanley, said it aims to open all its frozen unlisted funds to redemptions in 12 months to 18 months.”
Lehman Bros. Bankruptcy Offers Prime Example of How Not to Grow a CRE Portfolio
March 17, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
As corporate post mortems go, the report compiled by the bankruptcy examiner of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., may go down as the standard in bankruptcy documents. And what it tells us about the collapse of the once-venerable investment house will stand…
Price Fixing
March 17, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
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