Posts Tagged ‘GS’Vultures Descend on Mortgage MarketThis post first appeared on Minyanville. In early 2006, when subprime powerhouse New Century went bust, vulture investors began to salivate at the opportunities a collapsing mortgage market would offer up like manna from the trading gods. They started raising money. And lots of it. Billions were poured into so-called “mortgage opportunity funds,” which planned [...] Sayonara, SECBy ANDREW JEFFERY This post first appeared on Minyanville. The horses, pigs, cows, goats, sheep, llamas, ostriches, dromedaries and rhinos have all left the barn, yet the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) still thinks it should be minding the door. In light of its woeful inability to perform even the simplest of tasks — [...] Foreclosure By DesignBy ANDREW JEFFERY This post first appeared on Minyanville. Many months ago, long before bureaucrats dreamed up their massive, ill-conceived loan-modification programs, the free market found a solution to the mortgage mess. Specialists in handling distressed debt amassed tens of billions of dollars to buy up bad loans at steep discounts. The offending institutions who [...] Keepin’ It Real Estate: Rich Get Stuck in Subprime SlimeBy ANDREW JEFFERY This post first appeared on Minyanville. From expansive estates in the Hamptons to mansions on the Malibu cliffs, the rich are watching their vast real-estate wealth evaporate before their eyes. Perhaps no market epitomizes the ultimate surrender of high-end real estate than the island of Manhattan, where housing prices had held relatively stable [...] Keepin’ It Real Estate: Housing Crash to Reach NYCBy ANDREW JEFFERY This post first appeared on Minyanville. Constrained supply, continuous demand and wealth beyond imagining: There’s a reason New York City real estate is the most expensive in the country. Easy lending, a weak dollar and gobs of Wall Street money pushed already sky-high Manhattan property values into the stratosphere during the housing boom. [...] Keepin’ It Real Estate: What’s My Mortgage Worth?This post first appeared on Minyanville. As the debate rages about whether or not we’re finally approaching a floor in home prices, let’s examine the value of another asset: The mortgage. When considering a home-buying transaction, buyers (and sellers) typically worry most about the value of the house. Lenders, on the other hand, are much [...] So, You Want to Fix the Housing Market?This post first appeared on Minyanville. Yesterday, I criticized Washington’s $700 billion financial bailout plan for missing the point. It fails to address the root of the problems facing the housing market and, by extension, the rest of the economy: Negative equity or a homeowner owing more on his house than it’s worth. On The [...] A Housing Solution that Focuses on (Gasp!) HousesThis post first appeared on Minyanville and our sister site, Dawn Patrol. Every once in a while, the most important news story of the day is the one the Wall Street Journal allots a mere 200 words. In a move that will soon be greeted with quiet mutterings of “I should have seen this coming,” [...] Housing Inventory Eases, But No Recovery In SightThis post first appeared on Minyanville, and our sister site, Dawn Patrol. Another month, another attempt to use a single data point to foretell the bottom in the housing market. On the same day the Case Shiller Home Price Index reported the fastest drop in home prices on record (again), the Wall Street Journal released [...] |