Category Archives: housing

Matt Cooper has a column in the April issue of Portfolio advocating the privatization of Fannie Mae. The big problem is how to do that: for all that the US government repeatedly reiterates that there is no federal guarantee, no … Continue reading →

Martin Feldstein has a bright idea: allow homeowners to refinance 20% of their mortgage balances with the government, where the new loans amortize over 15 years and reset every two years at the interest rate on 2-year Treasury bonds (currently … Continue reading →

Mark Stein picked up on it yesterday; the WSJ splashes it across the front page today; Whitney Tilson has included it in his 75-page slide show entitled "Why We Are Still in the Early Innings of the Bursting of the … Continue reading →

I’ve been meaning for a while now to link to Richard Bitner, a former subprime mortgage broker who has published a very readable book entitled "Greed, Fraud & Ignorance: A Subprime Insider’s Look at the Mortgage Collapse". Here’s a taster: … Continue reading →

From Barry Ritholtz’s Florida correspondent: There is currently an 8-10 month wait to get a court date to have a foreclosure filing heard in Dade and Broward counties… As one broker said to me, "these bums sitting in $3,000,000 homes … Continue reading →

James Surowiecki: A study of several major developed economies between 1960 and 1996, by the British economist Andrew Oswald, found a strong relationship between increases in homeownership and increases in the unemployment rate; a ten-per-cent increase in homeownership correlated with … Continue reading →

Manny Fernandez reports that a pair of New York State lawmakers is attempting to implement a one-year-long moratorium on foreclosures. He illustrates the extent of the problem with this graphic: Now have a look at what Hank Paulson said today: … Continue reading →

Francisco Torralba has a fascinating look this week at the differences between the mortgage securitization markets in the USA and in Spain. Spain has experienced a much bigger housing bubble than the US, but the problems there are tiny compared … Continue reading →

I don’t think I persuaded many people with my 5,550-word defense of vulture funds this time last year. Maybe Kambiz Foroohar will have better luck, with his heartwarming story of vulture funds saving homeowners from foreclosure. Or, you know, maybe … Continue reading →

It’s great to see my friend Christian Menegatti quoted in a front-page NYT article. But what will his wife think? Christian Menegatti, lead analyst at RGE Monitor, said the firm predicted more homeowners would walk away from their homes if … Continue reading →

Now that Fannie and Freddie can buy jumbo mortgages up to $729,750, there’s new demand for houses up to that range. Dean Baker thinks the demand isn’t likely to be enormous, however: The law as it is written is time-limited. … Continue reading →

Josh Barbanel reports on a sale at Trump World Tower to Chinh Chu of the Blackstone Group: According to several people briefed on the deal, Mr. Chu paid an extra $5 million to buy a 1,200-square-foot outdoor space on a … Continue reading →

John Authers looks at what drives house prices: Tim Bond of Barclays Capital points out that once house prices start to accelerate, people expect them to keep on rising at that rate. All other factors are swamped. As he says: … Continue reading →

The NYT has one of its big 2,000-word pieces on the housing market today, this time concentrating on the phenomenon of negative equity. The estimate the article cites is very high, and was greeted with some skepticism by Calculated Risk: … Continue reading →

I really like this idea from the Office of Thrift Supervision: it looks like it can reduce foreclosures and help provide liquidity to struggling mortgage lenders at the same time. Here’s how it works: take a borrower who’s underwater, with … Continue reading →

The average house on Courtenay Avenue, in north London, is worth £6,803,900, or $13.3 million. Well, it is very convenient for the Highgate Golf Club, after all. In total, there are thirteen streets in London where the average house is … Continue reading →

Josh Barbanel reports: So far this year, 13 co-ops worth $20 million or more had closed or were in contract, compared with only 11 completed sales in that price range for all of last year. Note this is co-ops, not … Continue reading →

The most expensive building in the world is up for sale, with a $3.5 billion price tag. Its owner, Harry Macklowe, has been served a default notice, which has forced him to put his greatest asset on the block. It’ll … Continue reading →

In the US, the property bubble was big, but it wasn’t nearly as big as in the UK. Everywhere there was a property bubble in the US, rising house prices were a good thing for the city in question – … Continue reading →

Thanks to the top-secret FT Alphaville RSS feed, I saw today that Sam Jones has revealed to the world Trader Daily’s top trades of 2007. There’s a "Trade of the Year", which unsurprisingly involves shorting mortgages, and then there are … Continue reading →

How much money has New York property magnate Harry Macklowe lost over the past year? Jennifer Forsyth in the WSJ says that it’s more than $2 billion, although it’s not obvious where she’s getting her numbers from. Mish is more … Continue reading →

Justin Fox has another of his very pretty charts today, showing the evolution of house prices in 20 different cities between January 2005 and November 2007. Let’s say I allowed you to go back in time to January 2005 and … Continue reading →