Archive for January, 2008

MBIA Reports Record Losses While Connecticut Investigates

Thursday, January 31st, 2008

Less than 48 hours after it was specifically named as a target of a state investigation of major bond rating agencies and insurers, MBIA announced a record quarterly loss after writing down $3.5 billion. Read More Now

Mortgage Rates Still Falling Hitting Four Year Low

Wednesday, January 30th, 2008

Mortgage interest rates for the week ended January 24 continued to fall and long term rates hit their lowest levels since the spring of 2004 according to the results of Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey for the week ended January 24, 2008. Mortgage application volume increased 7.5 percent on a ...

NAHB Urges Mix of Housing Measures To Stimulate Economy

Tuesday, January 29th, 2008

As predicted, special interest groups are chiming in with suggestions as to what the economic stimulus package proposed by the Bush Administration and being debated by Congress should contain. On Thursday, about the time the House was approving its version of the legislation (the Senate has yet to act,) the ...

RealtyTrac Report Confirms Foreclosures Skyrocketing

Tuesday, January 29th, 2008

RealtyTrac® an Irvine, California based firm that bills itself as the "leading online marketplace" released its 2007 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report on Tuesday which revealed that, during 2007, more than 2.2 million foreclosure filings were logged against 1.3 million properties nationwide. While the whole year was bad, the month of December ...

New Homes Sales for 2007 Post Record Decline

Monday, January 28th, 2008

The sales of new houses continued to decline in December according to monthly data jointly released by the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Sales of new one-family houses during December were consummated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of... Read More Now

Countrywide CEO Waives Massive Severance Package

Monday, January 28th, 2008

One of the more colorful characters in the ongoing subprime drama has given in to pressure and announced that he will forfeit about $37.5 million in severance pay and perks that were to accompany his retirement. Angelo Mozilo, CEO of Countrywide Financial Corporation was scheduled to receive... Read More ...

Existing Home Sales Drop Again

Thursday, January 24th, 2008

Despite the steadily dropping sales throughout the year, 2007 ended up with the fifth highest sales of existing homes on record. 5,652,000 existing homes sold during the year but this was 12.8 percent fewer units than the 6,478,000 sold in 2006. Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said, "Home sales remain weak ...

Increased Loan Limts May Be Included In House Bill

Thursday, January 24th, 2008

Reuter's news agency was announcing late Thursday morning that the U.S. economic stimulus package being hammered out in Congress would include a temporary up tick in the size of loans that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae would be allowed to purchase. Republicans on the Hill have agreed to raise the ...

Mortgage Rates at 2.5 Year Low

Thursday, January 24th, 2008

Mortgage rates continued to fall during the week ended January 17 according to the results of the Primary Mortgage Market Survey released by Freddie Mac and, in the case of 30 and 15-year fixed rate mortgages (FRMs) reached the lowest level since July 2005. "Refinance applications are up 92% since the ...

The Consumer Spending Problem Wall Street Doesn’t See Coming

Saturday, January 12th, 2008

Well there certainly are a lot of opinions in the news media out there concerning the economy, lenders, recession, etc... Let's just apply some common sense for the moment. Consumer spending drives the economy. But what drives consumer spending? Lot's of things, but here are my thoughts. In the last 6 years, ...