What If Housing Does Not Recover This Year
Many economists, perhaps a majority of them, think that housing will bottom sometime in the second half of this year and prices will begin to move back up in 2010. The reasons for the…
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Newest first · Page 207KB Home & Dr. Pangloss (KBH)
KB Home (NYSE: KBH) and the housing sector is far from out of the woods. Even if you pretend your name is Dr. Pangloss it is hard to find some decent data among the…
Toll’s CEO Toll Still Unloading Toll Stock (TOL)
Homebuilders are supposed to be a winners under the new tax incentive plan and with mortgages now priced at less than 5%. But after the close came a filing showing that Robert Toll, CEO…
Pending Home Sales Depressing, Red Cross Looking For Blood Donors
"Manufacturing is the worst it has been in decades." "Joblessness rose to its highest level in 37 years." "Consumer confidence fell to it the lowest level since measurements began 16 years ago." The "most…
Mortgage Applications Are Way Up, But Are Loans?
According to MarketWatch, "With mortgage rates approaching record lows, the volume of applications filed for mortgages jumped a seasonally adjusted 48% last week compared with the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s…
Hosing Housing
There was no way the November housing data was going to be good. There are too few people chasing too many homes. In some markets like Florida and Michigan, there are no people chasing…
Does Surge In Mortgage Activity Mean More Defaults Down The Road?
Lower interest rates on home loans are causing people to run to the banks. Thirty-year fixed-rate mortgages are as low as 5.2%. According to several media accounts, banks cannot handle the influx of new…
Federal Mortgage Assistance: It May Not Help
Henry Paulson has taken a lot of heat for putting TARP funds into big banks and ignoring the needs of homeowners struggle to pay their mortgages. Sheila Bair, head of the FDIC, says that…
Barney Frank To Paulson: Do It My Way (C)(BAC)
Most members of Congress are still remarkably upset that Paulson too the first half of the TARP money and used it for purposes much different than the ones he first set out. Instead of…
Homebuilders In Need Of Psychadelics
The news from the homebuilders isn’t looking any better. The NAHB sentiment survey in December came in matching the level of 9.0 in November. The association sees no improvement in the terms of sales…
A 200% Buyout Premium From Private Equity (ANL)
American Land Lease Inc. (NYSE: ANL) is perhaps one of the more unusual plays seen yet in private equity acquisitions. Despite a 200% premium, the more odd part of "for how much" is the…
The Specter Of Eight Million Foreclosures
Trying to guess how many homes will be lost to foreclosure over the next several years is a fool’s game. No one knows what will happen to employment. The role that the federal government…
Fannie Mae (FNM) And Freddie Mac (FRE) Could Still Trade Down To Zero
Some investors are still clinging to the hope that the share prices of Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE) will recover with financial help from the federal government. Both stocks trade below $1…
Washington Post Investigation: Fannie And Freddie Knew Of Dangers
The Washington Post once again did what it does so well. It uncovered some nasty documents, in this case about Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE). "Internal Freddie Mac documents show that senior…
No Fixing The Housing Crisis While People Feel Poor
The theory about the economy, which probably has the benefit of being true, is that while the housing market is broken, the rest of the country’s financial problems will remain largely unsolved. Too many…