Housing Blogs

“The credit environment remains difficult, impacting the workings of the money, banking and capital markets.”That is how Paragon Finance director Nicholas Keen described the financial markets today. The situation is difficult; there is no doubt about that. Paragon’s lending volumes are down fifty percent. However, Keen goes on to explain: “If anything they (the credit markets) look like they’re getting a bit worse so it could be a long wait until the capital and bank markets are back to a normal level of functional operation.”…
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Alphonso Jackson resigned as Secretary of HUD today. And not a moment too soon. Think Progress has the list:A look at Jackson’s tenure of incompetence and corruption: Loyalty Over Merits: During a speech on April 28, 2006, Jackson recounted a conversation he had with a prospective contractor who had a “heck of a proposal.” This contractor, however, told Jackson, “I don’t like President Bush.” Jackson subsequently refused to award the man the contract. A former HUD assistant secretary confirmed that Jackson told agency employees to “consider presidential supporters when you are considering the selected candidates for discretionary contracts.”…
Original Source: feeds.feedburner.com/CalculatedRisk

News item: Newsday reports that longtime Hillary Clinton aide and fixer Maggie Williams made $200,000 working for a now-bankrupt sub-prime lender that was known for marketing high-fee loans to low-income borrowers.  The lender, Delta Financial Corp., hired Williams to improve its crisis-management operation after state and federal investigations  led the company to pay $12 million to borrowers.
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Original Source: feeds.latimes.com

CNNMoney.com is reporting a doom-and-gloom scenario that highlights the chaos on Wall Street caused by banks’ fear of loss threatening to bring down the financial system.

We’re suffering the aftereffects of the collapse of a Tinker Bell financial market, one that depended heavily on borrowed money that has now vanished like pixie dust. Like Tink, the [...]
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Original Source: www.drinkingisbelieving.com

Forbes, via Atrios.Thornburg, which is based in Santa Fe, N.M., has been beset by “margin calls,” or lenders demanding their money back.The company reached a deal under which its lenders would stop issuing margin calls if Thornburg raised $948 million.A bond sale arranged to raise money at a 12 percent interest rate failed, and now the company is trying to sell $1.35 billion in bonds at an 18 percent interest rate.
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Original Source: feeds.feedburner.com/CalculatedRisk

Forbes, via Atrios.Thornburg, which is based in Santa Fe, N.M., has been beset by “margin calls,” or lenders demanding their money back.The company reached a deal under which its lenders would stop issuing margin calls if Thornburg raised $948 million.A bond sale arranged to raise money at a 12 percent interest rate failed, and now the company is trying to sell $1.35 billion in bonds at an 18 percent interest rate.
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Original Source: feeds.feedburner.com/CalculatedRisk

The Boston Globe reports from Massachusetts. “More than 700 properties in Boston fell into foreclosure last year, about three-quarters of them in Dorchester, Roxbury, Hyde Park, and Mattapan. The city’s Homeowner Foreclosure Prevention Workshop workshop was one of a host of efforts the city has made in the past two years to contain the crisis. Carol Anderson,who lives in Dorchester, said she and her husband make $70,000 to $80,000 a year combined and borrowed $465,000 to purchase their home with no down payment.”
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Original Source: thehousingbubbleblog.com

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Original Source: www.mortgagenewsdaily.com

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Original Source: www.mortgagenewsdaily.com

The latest issue of Portland Monthly hit the stands this week. The cover story is about Portland real estate and why Portland is still America’s hottest hometown. Here are the reasons why you must BUY HERE NOW according to Portland Monthly:Low foreclosures. In 2007 little more than one percent of our existing home loans were in foreclosure or seriously delinquent, giving us the second-lowest foreclosure rate in the country behind Alaska….
Original Source: feeds.feedburner.com/portlandhousingblogspot

Paul Krugman explains the Paulson plan in the NY Times: The Dilbert Strategy Anyone who has worked in a large organization — or, for that matter, reads the comic strip “Dilbert” — is familiar with the “org chart” strategy. To hide their lack of any actual ideas about what to do, managers sometimes make a big show of rearranging the boxes …You now understand the principle behind the Bush administration’s new proposal for financial reform, which will be formally announced today: it’s all about creating the appearance of responding to the current crisis, without actually doing anything substantive. …
Original Source: feeds.feedburner.com/CalculatedRisk

With consumer confidence dropping, the consumer’s swagger is gone. Reports of foreclosure speculators profiting from other’s misfortunes …
Original Source: matrix.millersamuel.com

From Bloomberg: New York City Real Estate Market Slows as Wall Street Cuts Jobs New York City’s residential real estate market is showing the first signs of fallout as U.S. banks and securities firms cut the most jobs in seven years. Manhattan apartment sales fell in January and February from a year earlier and new properties came to the market at the fastest pace since at least 2000 … Transactions slid 6.4 percent to 3,250, while the number of condominiums, co- operatives and townhouses for sale at the end of last month climbed to 6,225, 15 percent more than at the start of the year. …
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New York City Real Estate Market Slows as Wall Street Cuts Jobs by Bloomberg - snips:March 31 (Bloomberg) — New York City’s residential real estate market is showing the first signs of fallout as U.S. banks and securities firms cut the most jobs in seven years. Manhattan apartment sales fell in January and February from a year earlier and new properties came to the market at the fastest pace since at least 2000, according to data from New York-based real estate appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. Transactions slid 6.4 percent to 3,250, while the number of condominiums, co- operatives and townhouses for sale at the end of last month climbed to 6,225, 15 percent more than at the start of the year. Declining sales indicate that the nation’s most expensive urban property market may founder this year as Wall Street retrenches, said Miller Samuel President Jonathan Miller in an interview…
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There’s an old joke that goes like this:

Man1 Seems like I’ve been married for five minutes.
Man2 Really? only 5 minutes?
Man1 Yeah, 5 minutes…underwater

Judging by the booing the president got at opening day for the Nationals yesterday while …
Original Source: matrix.millersamuel.com

Today we’ll try and unravel the twisted logic of Realty Times’ Blanche Evans and Lawrence Yun of the National Association of Realtors.  According to Evans:

This latest report should put the notion to bed that the housing boom was largely driven by speculators. The National Association of Realtors annual Investment and Vacation Home Buyers Survey finds that investors and second home buyers snapped up one third of the homes sold in 2007….
Original Source: housingdoom.com

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Original Source: www.mortgagenewsdaily.com

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Original Source: www.mortgagenewsdaily.com

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Original Source: www.mortgagenewsdaily.com

incompetent - in·com·pe·tent1: not legally qualified2: inadequate to or unsuitable for a particular purpose3 a: lacking the qualities needed for effective action b: unable to function properly…
Original Source: bp1.blogger.com