Posts Tagged ‘Foreclosures/REOs’Housing Perspective: March Existing Home SalesEconomic data is inherently backwards looking. Forecasts, estimates and any other prediction of the future is a stab in the dark likely based on an esoteric predictive model and a bunch of educated guesses. And of all the economic phenomena, the hardest of all to predict is the cusp, the turning point. Nevertheless, despite the [...] The Foreclosure Epidemic: The Bulldozers ComethBy ANDREW JEFFERY This post first appeared on Minyanville. Simply put: There are too many homes in America. Travel to the outskirts of Phoenix, California’s inland empire — or even suburban Washington, DC — and you’ll find scores of vacant homes, for-sale signs, and soon-to-be ghost towns. Sprawling Lennar (LEN) cookie-cutter developments, Pulte Home (PHM) [...] Keepin’ It Real Estate: Jumbo Prime R.I.P.By ANDREW JEFFERY This post first appeared on Minyanville. Countrywide was to subprime lending what Thornburg Mortgage was to jumbo-prime. Now, both are out of business. Thornburg said it expects to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, ending a nearly 2-year struggle to fend off creditors and survive the credit crunch. The company, once the [...] Housing Perspective: February Pending Home SalesFollowing a pattern set with both existing home sales and new homes sales, pending home sales bounced in February, up 2.1% from the previous month. The National Association of Realtors’ released its monthly index that tracks the number of signed contracts, showing a gain to 82.1, from 80.4 in January. A reading under 100 indicates [...] Homebuilders Hoping Size Doesn’t MatterBy ANDREW JEFFERY This post first appeared on Minyanville. After nearly 3 years of bleeding cash, US homebuilders are on shaky ground. The market for new homes is being decimated by rampant overbuilding during the boom, and by the flood of bank-owned properties now being sold on the cheap. Prices remain in free fall. Even [...] The Mortgage Rescue Plan: Will It Work?By ANDREW JEFFERY This post first appeared on Minyanville. The answer? An emphatic no. This is simply the latest example of legal plunder perpetrated by the federal government against law-abiding, tax-paying citizens. The Obama administration’s scheme to help troubled borrowers centers on subsidizing interest payments, which would help borrowers make ends meet without angering those [...] |