real-estate
Hillary’s Rate Freeze Screws New Homeowners
Hillary Clinton has been touting her bold plan to save the crumbling housing market, which would call for a halt on foreclosures for 90 days and, most alarmingly, an interest rate freeze on mortgages for five years. There’s only one problem: her plan will screw new homeowners by increasing mortgage interest rates. It would also [...]
The credit bubble blew up in ‘05
Sales of new homes fell 2.8 percent from December’s levels, and the median price of an American castle dipped to $215,000, which amounts to a 15 percent decline from year ago levels. I am actually tired of writing about the continuing dismal saga that is this nation’s housing market.
I wrote a rather long-winded essay in [...]
2007: Naughty Banks Spanked- by Greg Strid
The meltdown in the market for subprime mortgage
securities is fast unraveling into a banking crisis that
threatens to drag the American economy into recession.
During the final stretch of the greatest housing bubble
in American history, financial institutions were tripping
over themselves to extend excessive amounts of credit
to prospective buyers that were lacking in both
qualification and responsibility.
No document loans, [...]
Major Home Builder Hovnanian Reels from Losses
The real estate market’s death spiral is taking a heavy toll on publicly traded home builders. Hovnanian Enterprises, the embattled and bruised New Jersey-based McMansion builder reported another staggering loss in the quarter that ended October 31. The total amount of red ink generated amounted to $469 million, or $7.42 per share. This compares to [...]
Wall Street Relies Too Heavily on Interest Rate Cuts
A decaying housing market, deteriorating credit conditions, a sickly dollar, sky-high oil prices, two expensive and useless wars, and the looming mass-retirement of baby boomers are the main ingredients that will create the fuel for a tumble in US economic growth over the next year or two (or three or four, etc.)
Yet the party on [...]
Citigroup smacked by reckless bets
Citigroup reported a 57% decline in profits for the third quarter of 2007. Apparently it received some nasty wounds from souring fixed-income investments and sinking consumer loans. This sad quarter reflected approximately $5.9 billion of write-offs; once light was shed upon faltering securities prices and proprietary trades gone terribly wrong.
Much of the damage inflicted upon [...]
New Home Sales Hit 7 Year Low
New home sales cratered 8.3 percent last month to a seven-year, and the median sales price of an American castle dropped by 7.5 percent, representing the largest decline in 37 years.
More alarmingly, new home sales are off 21.2 percent over the past year. As for the scary drop in the median sales price, this would [...]
Pending Home Sales Plunge
More bad news emerged on Wednesday from the beleaguered housing market. The National Association of Realtors reported that pending sales of existing homes collapsed by 12.2 percent in July. The Pending Home Sales Index, as it is known, is based on actual contracts signed, and it swooned to register 89.9- the lowest level since September [...]
The Fed to the Rescue!
Captain Ben, our rather green Federal Reserve Chairman, rode on his magnificent white pony named “Liquidity’ to rescue the panicking financiers on Wall Street, and, to be more accurate, the gambling dens, pits and crevices the world over. He valiantly slashed the discount rate – the rate charged by the Fed to member banks for [...]
Giant Mortgage Lender Files For Bankruptcy
American Home Mortgage, one of the largest mortgage lenders – and a glaring symbol of unsound business practices- filed for bankruptcy early this week. Mortgage lenders like American Home Mortgage are responsible for helping to inflate the largest housing bubble in American history. Now investors are running from the crappy mortgage-backed securities originating from these [...]
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