Mon, Dec 3 2007, 8:00 AM
If you don't have a TV, a radio, or a newspaper, you may have missed
all of the negative press surrounding the mortgage and
housing markets . The...
Fri, Nov 30 2007, 8:00 AM
It is sometimes hard to keep up with all of the housing surveys that
come from economic forecasters, trade associations, and the government
but one ...
Fri, Nov 30 2007, 8:00 AM
MSNBC, Reuters, and The Wall Street Journal were reporting early
Friday that the United States Treasury is about to
announce a plan to help some ...
Thu, Nov 29 2007, 8:00 AM
As usual the two monthly reports on home sales -
existing homes and newly constructed houses - were issued in lockstep on
Wednesday and Thursday a...
Wed, Nov 28 2007, 8:00 AM
Mortgage rates continued to decline by baby steps as
reported by Freddie Mac in its Primary Mortgage Market Survey. The 30-
year fixed-rate mortgage...
Wed, Nov 28 2007, 8:00 AM
The Associated Press was reporting early Wednesday that yet another
major mortgage bank "has finally bogged down in the mortgage muck that's
muddyin...
Tue, Nov 27 2007, 8:00 AM
The U.S. Council of Mayors released a devastating
report on the impact on member communities of the ongoing
housing market problems. The report, p...
Tue, Nov 27 2007, 8:00 AM
Washington, DC - Office of Federal Housing Enterprise
Oversight Director James B. Lockhart today announced the maximum 2008
conforming loan limit f...
Mon, Nov 26 2007, 8:00 AM
It may be hard to remember now but there was a time when real
estate was fun , maybe even fun and games. It was in those long
ago days before falli...
Mon, Nov 26 2007, 8:00 AM
Late Monday morning one of Citigroup's analysts, Stephen Kim,
downgraded the entire homebuilding sector because he
could not find anything to sugg...
Mon, Nov 26 2007, 8:00 AM
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) sent a letter on Monday
to Ronald A Rosenfeld, Chairman of the Federal Housing Finance Board,
expressing his "serious ...
Wed, Nov 21 2007, 8:00 AM
Tue, Nov 20 2007, 8:00 AM
The national media was trumpeting the good news about housing
start data released Tuesday morning by the Census Bureau and the
Department of Housi...
Tue, Nov 20 2007, 8:00 AM
The reason 3915 makes me so incensed is that it will still harm those
who it professes to protect. I could care less about what you think
CAUSED the...
Mon, Nov 19 2007, 8:00 AM
The stock market by mid-day on Monday was heading toward another hefty
loss and analysts were blaming - what else - fallout
from the sub-prime mar...
Thu, Nov 15 2007, 8:00 AM
Both long and short term interest rates dropped slightly last week
according to Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey for the week
ended Nove...
Wed, Nov 14 2007, 8:00 AM
No matter what you may think about Zillow , the
Seattle-based real estate firm and its somewhat crazy approach to the
market, credit must be given ...
Tue, Nov 13 2007, 8:00 AM
It has long since passed the point where the downgrade of a company's
credit rating or an announcement of reduced earnings because of problems
with ...
Tue, Nov 13 2007, 8:00 AM
It is one of the small ironies of the subprime crisis
that the very competition that private mortgage insurers thought was
ruining their bottom li...
Mon, Nov 12 2007, 8:00 AM
The Federal Reserve has released the October 2007 Senior Loan
Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices which addresses
changes in the supp...
Fri, Nov 9 2007, 8:00 AM
I'm not going to rewrite the HR 3915 bibles that have
already been written. This article will simply collate the most valuable
information availab...
Fri, Nov 9 2007, 8:00 AM
James B. Lockhart, III, Director of the Office of Federal Housing
Enterprise Oversight ( OFHEO ) took the New York State
Attorney General to task Th...
Thu, Nov 8 2007, 8:00 AM
New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo�s recently announced
investigation of eAppraiselT, a division of First American reverberated
throughout...
Wed, Nov 7 2007, 8:00 AM
As expected, the House Financial Services Committee passed
HR3915 out of committee to the full House of Representatives
with a favorable vote of 4...
Wed, Nov 7 2007, 8:00 AM
Mortgage rates fell last week to their lowest point
in nearly six months according to the results of Freddie Mac's Primary
Mortgage Market Survey f...
Mon, Nov 5 2007, 8:00 AM
Sides are quickly being drawn over a pending bill before the House of
Representatives which, if passed, will put in place some
stringent new standa...
Fri, Nov 2 2007, 7:00 AM
On November 1, New York State Attorney General Andrew M.
Cuomo announced that he is bringing suit
against one of the largest real estate apprais...
Thu, Nov 1 2007, 7:00 AM
What a fascinating and tumultuous time is upon us! Both the housing and the mortgage market are convulsing wildly! There are so many facets to the "bi...
Thu, Nov 1 2007, 7:00 AM
Mortgage rates showed substantial
declines for the previous week according to Freddie Mac's
Primary Mortgage Market Survey. Similar drops were re...
Wed, Oct 31 2007, 7:00 AM
Consumers, at least those who live in large apartment
complexes , may be poised to win one for a change if an article
by Stephen Labaton published ...
Tue, Oct 30 2007, 7:00 AM
As was widely expected on Monday, Merrill Lynch &
Company Tuesday morning announced the "immediate retirement" of
Stan O'Neal as the company's C...
Mon, Oct 29 2007, 7:00 AM
Several weeks ago we wrote two-parts of a three-part series on
foreclosure fraud , i.e. scams perpetrated against
troubled homeowners ostensibly to...
Mon, Oct 29 2007, 7:00 AM
A death watch was underway on Wall Street on Monday as investors and
financial analysts waited for what was rumored to be the imminent
resignation o...
Fri, Oct 26 2007, 7:00 AM
Countrywide Financial Corp , the largest mortgage
lender in the nation announced, before the stock marketed opened on
Friday, that it is posting a l...
Fri, Oct 26 2007, 7:00 AM
There were some pretty scary statistics swirling
around Capitol Hill on Thursday as the Joint Economic Committee (JEC)
released a report attaching...
Thu, Oct 25 2007, 7:00 AM
There was the tiniest ray of sunshine in the September New Residential
Sales Report issued on Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S.
Depart...
Thu, Oct 25 2007, 7:00 AM
It was one of those weeks when one had to wonder if Freddie Mac and
the Mortgage Bankers Association were operating in the same universe. The
former...
Wed, Oct 24 2007, 7:00 AM
The NAR report blamed the sales decline on temporary problems in the
mortgage market which disrupted sales and distorted prices on sales
closed duri...
Wed, Oct 24 2007, 7:00 AM
A popular theme in the responses we have received to our request for
feedback from the foreclosure front has been the
confusion , delays, and infle...
Mon, Oct 22 2007, 7:00 AM
A few weeks ago we asked you to tell us what you were seeing out
there ; stories about the effects of the subprime debacle and the
credit crunch on ...
Thu, Oct 18 2007, 7:00 AM
Reuters News Service and the Associated Press are both quoting a story
in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that the controversial
CEO of Countr...
Thu, Oct 18 2007, 7:00 AM
There is an old Western expression that a person's mood is "lower than
a snake's belly." Well lift up that snake and you just might find a home
buil...
Thu, Oct 18 2007, 7:00 AM
Buoyed by the strong employment figures for September that were
released last week, mortgage interest rates rose
slightly in all categories accord...
Wed, Oct 17 2007, 7:00 AM
The fallout from the mortgage meltdown continued today as ResCap, a
division of GMAC Financial Services, announced that it will be
restructuring its...
Wed, Oct 17 2007, 7:00 AM
Secretary of The Treasury Henry M. Paulson , Jr., is
in danger of becoming a household name in the midst of the sharp housing
downturn.
"The hou...
Mon, Oct 15 2007, 7:00 AM
Three major U.S. banks announced on Monday that they were responding
to some week-end jaw-boning by the Treasury Department and
forming a consortiu...
Fri, Oct 12 2007, 7:00 AM
Looks like people are finally starting to take the mortgage
situation seriously, and by people we mean the federal
government and major industry p...
Thu, Oct 11 2007, 7:00 AM
The National Association of Mortgage Brokers (NAMB) and many New
England based mortgage brokers had a rude shock last
week when a well known Harva...
Wed, Oct 10 2007, 7:00 AM
Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac vice president and chief economist released
a statement saying "Mortgage rates eased slightly this week following
three w...
