Archive for April, 2008
Wednesday, April 30th, 2008
The Federal Reserve announced Wednesday that it cut
the Fed funds target rate by 25 basis points to bring
the key interest rate to 2.00%. The discount rate was also cut by 25
basis points to 2.25%. In an accompanying statement, the Fed
said "substantial" easing should promote growth, but ...
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Wednesday, April 30th, 2008
Fears of inflation pushed mortgage rates higher
according to the results of Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey
for the week ended April 24.
The Survey reported that the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM)
averaged 6.03 percent with 0.3 point compared to 5.88 percent with 0.4
point the week before.
Mortgage application volume ...
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Wednesday, April 30th, 2008
Zillow has just inaugurated another aspect to its
real estate services portfolio.
Now Zillow has turned the lead generation industry on its
head.
Calling its service the Zillow Mortgage Marketplace,
Zillow offers borrowers the opportunity to receive multiple free quotes
without submitting sensitive financial information on the site and for
lenders to ...
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Tuesday, April 29th, 2008
Housing price declines remain the greatest challenge to financial
markets and could prompt a deep recession, according to
Pimco's Bill Gross.
"Home prices which have fallen by 10% over the past 12 months and are
set for a repeat by this time in 2009. Lower Fed Funds? They would, in
Pimco's ...
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Tuesday, April 29th, 2008
Countrywide Financial Corporation logged in on
Tuesday with its third consecutive quarterly loss due to a sharp increase
it its provision for loan losses.
On Tuesday the Nashville Business Journal reported that Bank of
America is planning to modify or otherwise work out some
265,000 Countrywide loans, allowing those customers to ...
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Tuesday, April 29th, 2008
The Conference Board's consumer confidence index fell
to 62.3 in April's report on Tuesday, confirming declines seen earlier in
the month from other measures of consumer sentiment, yet coming in
slightly higher than the consensus expectation of 62.0.
The previous month's reading of 64.0 was revised upwards to 65.9.
Following a 35-year ...
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Tuesday, April 29th, 2008
Speaking in an interview with Fox Business news on Monday evening,
U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said he did not
believe that a second fiscal stimulus package was
necessary and that the tax rebates mailed out yesterday would make a real
difference to GDP. Read More Now
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Tuesday, April 29th, 2008
The S&P Case-Shiller home price index continued its
sharp decline in February as both the 10-city and 20-city composite
indexes posted record annual declines in excess of 12.5%.
The weakest markets over the past year have been Las
Vegas and Miami, which have fallen by 22.8% and 21.7%, respectively.
Jacqui Douglas, economic ...
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Monday, April 28th, 2008
Progress on the U.S. economic slowdown and housing
sector have been encouraging, according to U.S. Treasury
Undersecretary Robert Steel, speaking to Society of American Business
Editors and Writers Annual Conference in Baltimore, Maryland.
Read More Now
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Monday, April 28th, 2008
National vacancy rates in the first quarter of 2008
were 10.1% for rental housing, up from 9.6% in the fourth quarter of
2007, and 2.9% for homeowner housing this quarter, compared to 2.8% in
the previous quarter, according to a report from the Census Bureau on
Monday.
Read More ...
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