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Yes, the housing bubble burst, the crash is here, mortgages are melting down, and it's O-V-E-R. Now we just deal with the mess.
September 13, 2007
BUBBLETALK - New thread to talk about the mortgage meltdown and housing collapse
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312 comments:
1 – 200 of 312 Newer› Newest»OK...LET ME LOOK!
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YUP, JUST WHAT I THOUGHT.
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ONE BEDROOM STILL $350,000.00
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HAVE FUN RENTING.
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DOPES!
Watch out evil realtwhores, FBitches and moron renters. Blowfly's back in town again. I'm gonna buy myself a $1 million dollar Miami condo for $50k and then rent it out to the first dope dealer I can find. I heard they pay Cash only and Cash is what is music to my ears. LMAO @ condo developers and pre-construction speculators. How's it feel to walk away from your life savings or deposit money borrowed against primary residence equity. All of you, morons and assenine renters:
Press your head firmly between your legs and kiss your ass good bye!
My neighbor bought the another house next to theirs about six months ago for $525,000 in Queens, NY. He thought it was a pretty good deal. He spent probably close to $100,000 for remodeling it using equity in his primary house. He and his wife both just got laid off from work, and his realtor told him that he should price the second house for about $350,000.
So, all in all he spent $625,000 and can get $350,000 all in a matter of months. Some investment... He might even lose his first house now!
How do you call the Bottom?
I honestly think we aren't going to see a huge drop in prices over a short amount of time. Rather, creeping inflation due to lax monetary policy coupled with stagnant to mild declining house prices will continue to eat into household wealth for some years to come.
So here's my problem....I want to upgrade to a nicer house, how long should I wait into this cycle to act? I keep telling my wife --3 months and then we will see where the situation is, but I have already used this excuse a few times.
dopes/blowfly just don't do it for me anymore.
Big banks are hitting up the Fed for $500 mil. each. The Fed is allowing 30% of deposits to be shifted to brokerage units of said banks. Investment banks are way off their recent highs. No market for credit.
Sorry, there's just too much evidence about.
blowfly is an ASS,
but ya gotta like that post this time!
blowfly is an ASS???
How dare you, you forgot 2 most important letters "ET" I'm your biggest ASSet!!! I have called for it in 1984 already to those of you that have been listening. Obama who? Forget him, what America needs is a real first black president, PRESIDENT BLOWFLY!!! I'll make sure that there are chitlins in every pot, birth control pills in every purse and I'll reinstate debtors prison, whip lashes for late payments and the death penalty for bankruptcy. Campaign contributions from realtwhores, FBs and renters NOT ACCEPTED!!!
I am on every federal auction email subscription for seized/forfeited/foreclosed housing and property that I can find.
You think the banks are eating it?
The I.R.S., Dept of Treasury (Drug Enforcement,) VA, HUD, FDIC, U.S. Customs, etc., have so much GARBAGE on their hands its unbelievable, if not down right scary!
For example, I saw a seized, run-down singlewide on a quarter acre scrub lot in a fly over state. Minimum bid set up by the Fed was $43000. Liens, including $90,000 mortgage balance, totaled over $370,000!
Gee, you don’t think that the government’s going to eat that one, do you?
Years ago, I used to get these on email a couple times a year, now I get them EVERY DAY!
This is not going to end well.
One way or the other, the taxpayer is going to take it up the a#s
Can't tell
but i think blowfly swallowed
Market skyrocketed today after the big sell off yesterday. Let it go folks, all those long term serious negatives from yesterday are gone. Poof! Disappeared overnight. After just one day, everybody got rich in America and with good credit.
THIS MARKET AND GOVERNMENT ARE TOTALLY RIGGED! AND THEY ARE NOT DONE WITH YOUR WALLET YET, SHEEPLE.
"Watch out evil realtwhores, FBitches and moron renters. Blowfly's back in town again."
Hey blow, long time no see. Welcome back...I need some help with all these sheeple and trolls.
Hey Republican sheeple and other morons, get to know what your "busy GOP leaders" are doing, while you are spinning hard the hamster wheel to pay for their expensive salaries and pervert lifestyle. You guys are geniuses!
"Young Republican National Federation President under investigation for sexual assault on sleeping man
Glenn Murphy Jr., chairman of the Clark County Republican Party and president elect of the Young Republican National Federation resigned after news leaked that he is under investigation by the the Clark County Sheriff's Department for "criminal deviate conduct," a felony.
Basically, he is accused of giving oral sex to a sleeping man who woke up and did not approve of what was taking place. Mr. Murphy insists the sexual act that he provided to the unnamed man was "consensual."
A 22-year-old man who claimed that on July 31, Murphy performed an unwanted sex act on him while the man slept in a relative's Jeffersonville home.
Murphy, a 33-year-old Utica resident, has not been arrested nor has he been charged with a crime. A copy of the police report has been posted on an politically focused Internet site and another was provided to a reporter with The Evening News and The Tribune on Tuesday evening.
Larry Wilder, Murphy's attorney, said Murphy is cooperating with police and Prosecutor Steve Stewart. Wilder said Murphy contends the sex act was consensual.
In 1998, a 21-year-old male filed a similar report with Clarksville police claiming Murphy attempted to perform a sex act on him while he was sleeping. Charges were never filed in that case."
Down, but not out: "I'm not a real estate bum," Realtors say
"[Realtor Liz Seither] hangs up the phone and deflates. It's not been her lucky year. Banks threaten to repossess six of seven investment properties. She slashed millions off prices, but still no buyers. Of her 40 home listings, no sales are pending..."
http://tinyurl.com/29d3bg
Finally an article about stupid realtors who drank their own Kool-aid. I'm so tired of articles with delusional realtors talking about how it's a buyer's market and now is the time to buy or the market will rebound any time now. It's good to see that they are drowning in the mess they helped to create.
HEAR YEE!! HEAR YEE!!
ATTN ALL HP TRUE BELIEVERS!!!
Please sign this petition!!!
http://tinyurl.com/ywkfvj
THANK YOU!!!!
Doug Kass:
http://tinyurl.com/39nyoz
I've been lurking this blog for a while now, with nothing really to add. But I have to say, renters/investors waiting to pick up a house for pennies on the dollar are going to be very disappointed. Crashes of 30%, 50% or more are VERY low probability events. Notice I'm not saying impossible because nobody can predict the future.
We had a 27% (?) stock market crash in 1987 and buyers erased that about 30 days later. Japan real estate is down a tremendous amount, but they don't have the same consumerism mentality that Americans do. Bill Gross and others have predicted the consumer would run out of bullets for the last 25 years. A lot of other "gurus" predict recessions all the time that never materialize.
Those "gurus" got that designation by making one lucky guess once upon a time. Now everybody seems to think they actually KNOW something. Nobody knows. Economies are too complex to predict.
I'm a renter, because I don't like chasing bubbles or acting like a sheep for everybody who has a hand out for your money. But a year from now I expect to have good selection and a good investment opportunity, that's all. NOT great properties dirt cheap, unless I can find a reason to live around those empty FL condo communities.
Fahrenheit 417,000
The temperature at which delusion burn.
Brian
Dopes sounds more nervous than ever.
Median price is down, your last leg is kicked out from under you.
Haha.
GOP GAY OLD PARTY
Essentially what it comes down to is this. There are certainly problems in the market, but it is nothing that time cannot heal. The only thing one can do is be confidant that things will work out and be creative enough to make things work in a difficult market. Crying about it and complaining about it will do nothing at all. The media has spun this whole thing out of control. We are located on Hilton Head Island and things are actually beginning to pick up here a little bit.
"Stuck in So Pa"
HEy, what IRS/GVT auction mailing lists are you on? Can you recommend any in particular?
http://tinyurl.com/ywsa52
In the American Home case, Partow, 41, of Chugiak, helped a client refinance his home in 2006. Even though the client provided accurate information about his income, Partow listed the income as $20,000 per month - "an amount that significantly overstated [the client's] true income," according to Partow's plea agreement.
"There are certainly problems in the market, but it is nothing that time cannot heal."
Correct. However, at this point, the time to heal looks to be a surprisingly large percentage of the average humans lifespan.
These people want a bailout of the ponzi scheme fraudsters:
Hillary Clinton
Barrack Obama
Charles Schumer
Chris Dodd
Sent these idiots a message and let them know we are dead set against a bailout of Wall Street, subprime lenders, flippers, liars, fraud rings and other assorted criminals.
What do you guys think the recent insider buying spike means?
“Authorities and real estate agents say similar problems arose during the wave of foreclosures in the 1990s, when houses stayed empty for months.”
“Chris Ragsdale, the Los Angeles Police Department’s senior lead officer for Westwood and Bel-Air, recalled one case from the end of that era in Pacific Palisades. The squatters changed the locks, turned on the electricity and brought in furniture. When the agent trying to sell the place showed up, they maintained that they had a lease.”
“‘If you know what you’re doing, you can get six months in a place with a kick-ass view,’ Ragsdale said.”
Blowfly…renters are in a great position. I am a renter and I am renting a 2500 sqft house for 1,100/month. I know its money that is not going to an investment but then again are these investments stable…NO! so why pay in right now. What I did was…so my home a while ago, took my 100 G’s out of da bank player and sat and continued to watch this real estate shit collapse. Now, when these properties drop drastically, I will pay in CASH, 50 G’s and walk around with my shit not stinkin. SNAPS! Everyone needs to get out of the FOG and get your money out of the bank and sit on your ass for minute.
"It is still an environment where risk perception is the main market driver"
Actually it is a market where BOJ and Bernanke were played by nimble hedge funds using "Event Driven" strategy to take advantage of risk perception.
Yen Carry Trade is live and well, as people begin to realize that BOJ can be played the fooled.
On Wednesday the yen fell back to 116.12 yen to the dollar as Speculators and Hedge Funds cashed in on the yen's two-day rally, heartened by the solid rise in Wall Street stocks, despite more signs of difficult credit conditions in short-term money markets.
This is a risk-aversion fuel rally in the Japanese currency, where Speculators and Hedge Funds sell the yen to buy assets in higher yielding currencies.
In other words speculators and nimble hedge funds using "Event Driven" strategy to take advantage of the bad news from Bernanke Aug 7 meeting minutes to strengthen the yen then immediately sell the yen to buy beaten down stocks in other countries with higher yielding currencies.
http://money.cnn.com/2007/08/29/
markets/forex.reut/
index.htm?section=money_latest
Yen hits two-year low against dollar
The yen suffered its biggest one-day percentage decline against the dollar in more than two years and against the euro in more than three years Wednesday, as investors took recovering U.S. stock markets as a cue to slash short-term bets that the Japanese currency would strengthen.
Now it will be all about selling the three-months US Treasury again to buy back into the asian markets as the only FEAR from Speculators and Hedge Funds is how much profit they will lose if they do not get the jump on the next guy as GREED is the main motivator.
http://finance.yahoo.com/
intlindices?e=asia
Speculators and hedge funds will listen in on Friday meeting asking themselves the question.
Will Bernanke let the US Dollar Index fall and allow Inflation to grow or not save the housing market?
http://quotes.ino.com/chart/
?s=NYBOT_DX
US dollar weaker in Sydney morning trade as Fed rate cut hopes surge
http://money.cnn.com//news/newsfeeds/
articles/newstex/
AFX-0013-19231887.htm
Financial markets will be on edge Friday when Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke talks about housing in his first speech since credit markets seized up earlier this month, and stock and bond prices began to teeter.
The central bank chief is scheduled to give the keynote speech at the Fed's annual symposium at Jackson Hole, Wyo. The gathering, organized by the Kansas City Fed, is normally a low-key, academic affair addressing such issues as demographic change, income inequality and economic forecasting.
This year is different. The meeting, which pulls economists and central bankers from around the globe, comes amid falling consumer and business confidence and growing expectations that the Fed will be forced to cut interest rates to stave off a possible recession.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/
economy/2007-08-29-bernanke-
speech_N.htm
anyone see this movie yet, some interesting info about the federal reserve about half way through. Not sure about the accuracy of all the info. Most of it seems to make sense, and if any of this is true we are TRULY f****d in America, good luck out there everyone, i think we are going to need it!
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/
Careful blowfly,
You might just get a few donations.
Then you need to file as a candidate.
LOL!!!
This rally is all about yen carry trade as Speculators and hedge funds sell the Yen to buy the Kiwi.
BOJ has lost control
Should Bernanke put more fuel on the fire by allowing the US Dollar Index to drop below 80?
http://www.nasdaq.com/aspxcontent/
NewsStory.aspx?cpath=
20070829%5cACQRTT200708291245RT
TRADERUSEQUITY_0770.htm&
Kiwi Rises Against Yen On Wednesday Versus its Japanese counterpart, the New Zealand currency saw strength on Wednesday.
By the early afternoon, the currency had advanced to a mark of 80.95 against the yen. Traders moved ahead of Japanese data due out later in the day regarding Retail Trade and Sales for July.
Stuck in So Pa said...
"I am on every federal auction email subscription for seized/forfeited/foreclosed housing and property that I can find."
Have any kick butt links?
I have one.
http://www.countrywide.com/purchase/f_reo.asp
ENJOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The dollar weakened against the euro and other currencies Wednesday as speculators raised their bets that the US Federal Reserve would soon move to cut borrowing costs.
The dollar has been alternatively tugged down and bolstered in recent weeks as global stock markets have been battered by volatile trading swings.
Some speculators have bought dollars as a "safe-haven" investment amid the market turbulence while others have sold their dollar holdings fearing an imminent cut in US interest rates.
Rising expectations of a rate cut undercut the dollar again Wednesday, but triggered strong gains on US stock markets.
http://www.turkishpress.com/
news.asp?id=191641&s=b&i=&t=
Dollar_weakens_against_euro_
amid_rate_jitters
It is unfortunate that the rest of BOJ members do not feel the same way that the Honorable BOJ Atsushi Mizuno does about raising interest rate.
http://www.nasdaq.com/aspxcontent/
NewsStory.aspx?cpath=
20070829%5cACQDJON200708292235
DOWJONESDJONLINE000903.htm&
BOJ Mizuno:Japan Low Rates "Not Unrelated" To Subprime Woes
Bank of Japan policy board member Atsushi Mizuno said Thursday that Japan's low interest rates may have contributed to global subprime jitters and magnified volatile moves in the foreign exchange market.
"Recent turmoil in the financial markets proves that keeping rates that aren't in line with economic fundamentals could lead to risks of destabilizing financial markets," Mizuno told business leaders in Kofu, west of Tokyo.
Mizuno, considered a hawkish board member, said the recent credit market crisis was caused by a mix of factors, including Japan's low interest rates, as well as excessive optimism on credit investments.
Last Thursday, the central bank's policy board voted to leave monetary policy steady, keeping the unsecured overnight call rate target at 0.50% amid the financial market turmoil.
Mizuno, the sole dissenter, voted to raise rates. BOJ Gov. Toshihiko Fukui noted at the post-meeting press conference that Mizuno is convinced the market turmoil doesn't pose a systemic risk to Japan's economy.
Yen May Extend Losses Versus Euro, Dollar on Stocks, BOJ Rates
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/
news?pid=20601087&sid=
aOidGnT9kwpc
The yen may fall for a second day against the euro and dollar on speculation rising global stocks and low interest rates in Japan may encourage investors to sell the currency and buy riskier assets.
The mortgage meltdown and real estate slump have forced many people into a holding pattern, a frustrating situation with no end in sight for the need to Sell home owners as buyers understands that time is on their side.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/
article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/27/
MN0JRP1CO.DTL
In the Bay Area, sales volume has fallen to the lowest level in 12 years. Although prices in certain higher-end communities are holding steady, they are decreasing in neighborhoods with a large number of new or entry-level homes. Houses are lingering on the market much longer.
But the numbers don't tell the underlying stories of the countless individuals who need to sell a house to get on with their lives.
For sellers, a home that does not attract bids means they are unable to move. There is always the option of dropping the price, which works best for people who have owned their home a long time and built up substantial equity.
Excess Global Liquidity thanks to Yen Carry Trade provided by BOJ.
Speculators and hedge funds might not be investing in US real estate, but that does not mean the bubble will stop there.
It is still all about GREED and "the Path of Less Resistance" as Speculators and hedge funds sell the yen and buy asset like stock, gold, and oil.
http://forums.craigslist.org/
?forumID=6
WOW - this dude makes Casey Serin seem like
http://www.bakersfield.com/
hourly_news/story/222984.html
Once-prominent real estate salesman David Crisp last week received two new default notices on the Stockdale Highway offices he bought in April and was named in a lawsuit demanding repayment of more than $160,000.
The Stockdale offices are the latest addition to a growing list of delinquent properties associated with Crisp.
The lawsuit follows others filed by collection agencies in recent months.
Two loans totaling nearly $1.9 million taken against the 8800 Stockdale Highway building racked up default notices last week, records show. Crisp, who turned 28 this month, once touted the space as a showcase for a now-defunct giant towers development with Cal State Bakersfield.
More than 85 local properties associated with the former Crisp & Cole Real Estate company have defaulted since the beginning of the year, according to an ongoing Californian tally. No other local real estate agency shows a similar pattern of defaults on high-value loans.
The properties carry first mortgages worth more than $44.2 million and second loans totaling more than $9.3 million.
State real estate officials are investigating details of some transactions, two former employees have told The Californian.
Crisp could not be immediately reached for comment Tuesday morning.
http://dwb.sacbee.com/content/
business/projects/boom/story/
13702903p-14545580c.html
In another era, David Crisp might have raised cotton or drilled for oil.
But nowadays the business of Bakersfield is real estate, and Crisp, 26, makes his millions buying and selling property in the second-hottest housing market in the nation. He does it in a style that would make an oil tycoon proud, tooling around his hometown in a $560,000 Mercedes-Benz McLaren sports car and flying investors around on private jets.
"The young hotshot of Bakersfield real estate," says his 58-year-old business partner, Carl Cole.
Crisp personifies the California housing boom at its most extreme - a boom so powerful that it's turning even places like Bakersfield into hotbeds of high-end homes and gated communities. In this city of long-standing economic stagnation and a cowtown reputation, the median home price has nearly tripled in four years to $293,765.
In those same four years, Crisp has gone from waiting tables and loading UPS trucks to co-owning a firm that figures to sell $300 million in real estate in 2005. He's building a $5 million mansion in Bakersfield's ritziest development and planning a high-rise condominium-retail tower.
Like many caught up in the California housing boom, he's convinced that the good times won't end soon. Crisp remains optimistic despite warnings, in Bakersfield and elsewhere, that the market is cooling.
"Every month is better than the last month," Crisp said. "It's not slowing down. We're still selling three houses a day."
"The media has spun this whole thing out of control."
Riiight, it's the medias fault. They were late reporting the bubble and are still trying to call the bottom. The media is not responsible for hedge fund losses, overzealous builders and 143 lenders going under.
Greenspan new book
http://www.koco.com/
money/14001280/detail.html
A former American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. branch manager in Alaska, hired at the now-bankrupt company after an FBI probe caused him to be fired from Countrywide Financial, was sentenced Monday to serve more than two years in prison.
Kourosh Partow also was ordered to pay a $50,000 fine and $190,000 in restitution for wire fraud after he falsified documentation to secure "stated income" mortgage loans from Melville-based American Home and Countrywide.
In a document submitted before sentencing, Partow's lawyer, Kevin Fitzgerald, argued that the two companies had competitive cultures that encouraged "a blind-eye mentality
Judge H. Russel Holland heard the case at U.S. District Court in Anchorage.
Partow was fired from Countrywide in June 2006 after FBI scrutiny of his loans provoked an internal audit. American Home immediately hired him to be a loan officer and branch manager of its Anchorage office, court records show.
After federal authorities executed a search warrant on his office in October 2006, Partow withdrew the equity from his house and sent it overseas, then fled to France and Iran.
But he returned to the United States, and on April 20 he pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud, one at each bank, in exchange for other wire fraud charges being dropped.
In the American Home case, Partow, 41, of Chugiak, helped a client refinance his home in 2006. Even though the client provided accurate information about his income, Partow listed the income as $20,000 per month - "an amount that significantly overstated [the client's] true income," according to Partow's plea agreement.
In the Countrywide case, he admitted to knowingly overstating an applicant's income to qualify for a loan in 2004.
Stated income mortgages, a type Alt-A loan, allow loan officers to list borrowers' incomes on mortgage applications but do not require documentary verification of those figures. By misstating applicants' financial statuses, Partow enabled them to qualify for loans they might not otherwise have gotten.
The indictment against Partow listed 14 loans or fraudulent applications and charged him with eight counts of wire fraud related to $2.2 million in American Home loans and a $156,000 loan from Countrywide.
In addition to overstating borrowers' incomes, the indictment alleged that Partow engaged in a scheme to generate paperwork showing falsely that borrowers had made 20 percent down payments on their properties by engaging in "an unwritten side agreement to have the seller repay the borrower the alleged down payment amount."
Such tactics often involve the complicity of an appraiser who overstates the value of the property, mortgage experts said.
Fitzgerald's sentencing memorandum said Partow was compensated "most importantly" by commissions based on branch profitability, and that he "had authority ... to accept loans otherwise not strictly complying with the loan criteria."
The document said he was one of "a fair number" of employees hired by American Home after Countrywide fired them in connection with the FBI probe.
http://www.newsday.com/business/
ny-bzahm0829,0,1995673.story?
coll=ny-sports-section_nav
One banker said people in Wall Streets don't like it when banks raise rate on Jumbo loans in the whole sell level because they make money packaging the loans, so when banks raise rate in the whole sell level it hurt people in Wall Street but don't believe everything you hear or read in the news there is no credit crunch at the retail level for people that qualify for a loan.
In other words the banker is saying if you are living in a city in the early stage of the housing bust, your mortgage brokers are probably going to tell you that it is harder to get a jumbo loan at a good rate because there is a credit crunch going on.
In the world of the mortgage brokers that is a true statement.
But go to your local bank and find out why. Chances are there is no Credit Crunch and you could probably find a better deal if you have a 20% down payment, good credit, and want to get a loan within your means.
What the media is not telling you is that Jumbo mortgages is taking a hit at the whole sale level and not the retail level.
With a smaller pool of people purchasing home, banks are in direct competition with mortgage brokers.
Therefore Jumbo mortgage are taking a hit on mortgage brokers.
The banks still need your business so they know better then to cut off the line of credit to people in the retail level.
Chances are you might even get a better rate at a bank for a mortgage these day if you know how to play the game.
http://www.naplesnews.com/news/
2007/aug/25/jumbo_mortgages_
take_hit/
The lawn that I planted is turning to brown
The smile on my face
Has turned to a frown.
Oh, little flip -
Where did we go wrong?
-- Housing Poet Laureate
Hilarious posting at brokeroutst.com.
Desperation is showing
http://forum.brokeroutpost.com/loans/forum/2/160042.htm
This is what smart speculators and nimble hedge funds live for.
Easy picking waiting for the big boys to make their mistake, thus the wild swing in FX market as smart speculators and nimble hedge funds take profit one day and make more the next.
http://www2.oanda.com/cgi-bin/
msgboard/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=
get_topic;f=16;t=008944
Citigroup and Bank of America Now Day Traders
Citigroup and Bank of America previously functioned under a Federally-mandated limit of 10% of their cash to play with in the markets, loans, trades, and other foolish stuff they do.
Since their sloppy trading is resulting in the drawdown from Hell they recently asked the Fed to let them break that 10% limit.
The Fed, being stupid, cheerfully granted their request.
I'm halfway through the article so this is just about what I've read so far.
In essense, they can now slam down 30% of their money on the table to day trade the markets with under the guise of, well, you read it.
"The Fed says that it made the exemption in the public interest,..."
In the mind of the USG, doing this thing is going to fix the global cash and credit meltdown.
The bankers turned daytraders didn't hesitate to tap $500 million fun money that is "in our interest" they do so.
"There is a good chance that other large banks, like J.P. Morgan (Charts, Fortune 500), have been granted similar exemptions. The Federal Reserve and J.P. Morgan didn't immediately comment."
So, to address the credit and sub-prime pre-supernova-type implosion, Bernanke just opened the USG's bookie window to the 2 biggest banks ("and others") to try to day trade out of the massive global vortex that is possibly (somehow?) linked up to $10s of TRILLIONS in outstanding (not quite understood) derivatives, SIVs, other banks, hybrid CDO instruments and hedge funds.
Unfortunately, no other BOJ members seem to support a rate hike like the Honorable Atsushi Mizuno.
So yen carry trade lives on.
http://asia.news.yahoo.com
/070830/3/375v1.html
BOJ's Mizuno: Fed cut wouldn't preclude Japan hike
Bank of Japan (BOJ) policy board member Atsushi Mizuno said on Thursday a rate cut by the Federal Reserve at its Sept. 18 meeting would not necessarily prevent a rate hike by the BOJ the following day.
"Even if the Fed cuts rates, the important thing is underlying factors behind it. It's not as simple as 'because the Fed lowers rates we can't raise rates'," Mizuno told a news conference.
Mizuno, widely seen as a policy hawk, opposed keeping interest rates steady at 0.5 percent in the last two policy meetings and called for a hike to 0.75 percent, arguing that Japan's economic outlook is solid.
With retail sales in Japan flat speculators and hedge funds have no fear that BOJ will raise rate.
Yen Carry Trade lives on
http://www.abcmoney.co.uk/n
ews/302007126035.htm
The ministry believes the trend in retail sales remains flat.
'We do not think the trend has turned weak because temporary factors such as the prolonged rainy season, the fewer weekends and the July 16 earthquake affected sales,' an METI official said.
Retail sales in Japan fell 2.2 percent in July from a year earlier for their biggest decline in more than two years, hit by a prolonged rainy season and an earthquake, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said on Thursday.
The decline, which followed a 0.4 percent drop in June, was the ninth in the past 10 months. It was also the largest since February 2005 when sales tumbled 2.8 percent.
mkkby-
FYI, Japanese consumers were the darlings of the whole world in the decade before their RE market crashed and took their consumer economy with it.
A 50% off sale on American RE is not only possible, it's probable. Wages are falling and never could support the high RE prices in the first place, which is why the toxic loans were invented. Nobody wants to buy our toxic loans anymore, so we'll have to go back to buying RE based on incomes. That means a huge crash.
The fact that your income can buy a home in your area that's 2 -3 X income and 20% DP makes no difference. Most people, apparently, do not have as much money as you.
Anyway, cheer up, not only will those making 20K a year be able to buy homes after the crash, you, with your higher income, will be able to buy several okay houses as investments or one really REALLY nice one to live in, much nicer than the one you could have bought last year.
What kind of salary can hedge funds mangers earn this year if they can not maintain the same kind of returns as last year.
The pressure is on, October bonus month is coming.
http://www.kansascity.com/
business/story/251396.html
The 20 highest-earning managers of private equity firms and hedge funds had an average income of $657.5 million last year.
To compare: That was 22,255 times the annual pay of the average American worker.
Who'd a thunk we'd ever have another credit crunch?!? We're supposed to learn from history. And all under the watchful eye of the first MBA prez! I guess an MBA isn't what it used to be.
"But I have to say, renters/investors waiting to pick up a house for pennies on the dollar are going to be very disappointed. Crashes of 30%, 50% or more are VERY low probability events. "
This statement shows you do not understand basic economics and the context in which predictions like this are made. Prices tend to fluctuate around the historic mean, so the bigger the bubble, the bigger the drop. The real estate price run-ups of the last 5 years have been very atypical and have never happened before.
"We had a 27% (?) stock market crash in 1987 and buyers erased that about 30 days later."
Wrong! It took about a year and a half for the market to reach its October 87 peak. Anyway, this has no relevance to the housing market.
"Japan real estate is down a tremendous amount, but they don't have the same consumerism mentality that Americans do."
It does not matter. Americans cannot spend if they have nothing to spend. Savings have been negative for some time now and credit is tightening up. Salaries are horrible thanks to all the good jobs that Bush has outsourced to India.
CPI fraud directly linked to subprime credit crisis
In 1983, the Bureau of Labor Statistics was faced with an awkward dilemma. If it continued to include the cost of housing in the Consumer Price Index, the CPI would reflect an inflation rate of 15 percent, thereby making the country’s economy look like a banana republic. Worse, since investors and bond traders have historically demanded a 2 percent real return after inflation, that would mean that bond and money market yields could climb as high as 17 percent.
The BLS’s solution was as simple as it was shocking: Exclude the cost of housing as a component in the CPI, and substitute a so-called “Owner Equivalent Rent” component based on what a homeowner might “rent” his house for.
The result of this statistical sleight of hand was immediate and gratifying, for the reported inflation index quickly dropped to 2 percent. (This was in part because speculators needed to offset their holding costs by renting out their homes while their prices skyrocketed, thereby flooding the market with rentals that pushed down the cost of renting a house or apartment.)
While the BLS was correct in assuming that this statistical ruse would fool the average citizen into believing that inflation was only 2 percent (and therefore be willing to accept a meager 4 percent return on his bank savings), what is remarkable is that the ruse also fooled the bond traders, and apparently continues to do so, leading analyst Peter Schiff to describe these supposed savvy bond traders as the “hormonal teenagers of the capital markets.”
http://tinyurl.com/2pckvk
As a wholesale lender for Washington Mutual, one thing I've learned is that there is always another connected industry contributing to the factors of market movement that you never considered.
One example of what CA legislators did to the housing. The Dems in Sacramento have never met a tax they didn't like, and they have raged against prop 13 (protects housing tax rates) for years. They finally found a way around it; in just the last few years they raised the cost of new building permits from $50 per house to over $14,000 per house. That money usually went to build new parks, etc for the new area in question; but now it goes to fix all the parks in the whole city. (And the money that used to fix all the parks? In their corrupt pockets, no doubt.) That's just one example of the additional fees they added. But they intentionally inflated the fees to reach $150,000 before you've even broken ground on the actual house, so the price of a new home goes way up. (And the price of old homes follows.) Thus they get around prop 13, by legislating policy to inflate home prices, and they collect more tax money on the inflated values.
But now with the market implosion, they have a new problem in CA. They can't sell them at those outrageous prices, but it isn't profitable to build new ones with those inflated fees and taxes. So they are already starting to rehab old homes to avoid the new fees for new homes. Expect more fees to be imposed on rehab construction.
By the way, with the housing market so inflated, I have no problem with a price "correction." They had to come back down. It just seems like there's a lot of jpooy at the expense of those who ignorantly bought at the hight of the bubble. It happens to people every time there is a bubble. Unfortunate for them, but buyer beware... I take no joy in hearing of their hardship though. That's kind of like laughing at a retard who trips and falls... it was beynd his nature to avoid it.
Anonymous mentioned that Jumbo loans were still available.
They are, but Fannie and Freddie (The gov't institutions buying loans) aren't buying Jumbos. And they are the only buyers right now (hence the "liquidity crunch.")
If no one is buying a Jumbo, then they have to be willing to hold it and service it...at least for some time, until someone else decides it's safe to come back into the water.
And it is safe. They just raise the credit and lending standards a bit, and have a solid and profitable loan. They can even charge a higher rate for it, which is what they always used to do before the last couple years, which makes sense for the increased risk.
MIAMI - The champagne-popping days are over for Natalie and David Luongo, who banked enough money flipping a South Florida condo three years ago to stage a $100,000 wedding.
Now the couple are spending restless nights wrestling with the question that looms like a guillotine: Should they walk away from the $117,000 deposit they plunked down on another investment condo in the ritzy Miami-Dade enclave of Bal Harbour?
Or should they close on the one-bedroom unit, which is similar to others now on the market for less than the $585,000 they agreed to pay?
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/orl-condobust2707aug27,0,5403713.story?coll=sofla_tab01_layout
what's going on here?
www.homesdatabase.com/MP6309600
Price Reduced: 02/21/07 -- $390,000 to $385,000
Price Reduced: 04/03/07 -- $385,000 to $375,000
Price Reduced: 07/09/07 -- $375,000 to $360,000
Price Increased: 08/29/07 -- $360,000 to $385,000
i'm thinking it's going into foreclosure so they up the price right beforehand?
Housing Prices To Return All the Way To Pre-Bubble Levels?
http://seekingalpha.com/article/45976-housing-prices-to-return-all-the-way-to-pre-bubble-levels
I like this comment from a FL Newspaper:
geico caveman wannabe wrote:
This is the end result when one turns to easy money made on paper rather than earning an honest living through hard work. I know of several people who jumped in this same market and tried to convince me to do the same. They told me I was foolish and naive when I told them no. I instead chose to work other JOBS to make extra cash and have done well. I paid my bills and supported my family. The extra hours were tough, but I knew it would pay off in the end. I didn't have to rely on a market to make money for me; I relied on myself. I know some things about the market; I have bought and paid for homes that I LIVED IN, not homes I had no intention of ever occupying. I knew enough that the market could turn sour overnight and had no intention on getting involved. Even when others I know sold their modest homes, homes that were just fine and within their budget, chose to buy big, lavish, 5000 thousand square foot homes they had no business buying, are singing the blues. All the creative financing to get them into these homes is now the same financing that will screw them. Now these same fools who called me foolish are losing sleep, falling further into debt and filing for bankruptcy. I HAVE NO SYMPATHY FOR ANY OF YOU. My occupation is such that it is not affected by the recent slump in the housing/condo market and will not further be affected when things get REALLY BAD. That's right folks, REALLY F*ING BAD. Think you've read enough sorrow stories already? It has only begun. THIS STATE WILL FALL INTO A RECESSION, MARK MY WORDS. Charley Christ and his band of insurance and developer theives can't do enough to prop up this mess. Notice that all those who deny such are the ones who will be affected the most by the complete collaspe of their trade? They are doomed. Many of them are fleeing this state by the thousands, like theives disappearing during the night. They have no sympathy for you. Folks like this were called carpetbaggers years ago. Unfortunately for many, they learn nothing from history or have no clue of it. They're off to make their money somewhere else and looking for other suckers. They are scum and deserve nothing less than to be run over by a train. They are paying the price of leading idiots down their same paths and now they will pay dearly. F 'em. The sucking noise they hear is not another hurricane blowing through this sh*t state; it's the market caving in on itself.
Marky Mark
To the poster :one bedroom still
$350,000, etc...Just for fun, if
you "own", why don't you list your
house with a realtor, at what you
think it will bring, and see what
the experience will tell you about what's happening...because the real
test is, what if you want to sell...
My guess is you won't sell, but you'll have an idea how many potential buyers there really are,
how long it takes, how many price
drops you'd have to take or not..
just the basic reality check. Then
you could sell or not as you chose.
"It does not matter. Americans cannot spend if they have nothing to spend. Savings have been negative for some time now and credit is tightening up. Salaries are horrible thanks to all the good jobs that Bush has outsourced to India."
Just look at Case-Shiller. The worst hit cities, like Detroit and Cleveland, are down in the neighborhood of 5-7%. These are places where aggressive outsourcing has been taking place for 30 years. You expect economically more robust areas to do significantly worse?
Keep an eye on Case-Shiller. It is the only objective measure there is. Everything else is anecdotal. And if an area goes up 100 percent during a bubble and falls back 7%, that's a crash situation only for the folks who bought right before the music stopped playing.
"This statement shows you do not understand basic economics and the context in which predictions like this are made. Prices tend to fluctuate around the historic mean, so the bigger the bubble, the bigger the drop. The real estate price run-ups of the last 5 years have been very atypical and have never happened before."
Thanks for the lesson, but I am somewhat familiar with basic econmics and mean reversion. Mean reversion can take place in one of two ways. Either a rapid movement (as you predict), or a sideways to slightly downward movement which takes a long time. Either way get you to the mean. I am simply saying the less violent alternative is much more likely. Only time will tell.
Thank you for the intelligent discourse.
Mkkby...
Here is my main link to government property sales. You have to do your homework once in each web page to get just the right info for what you want (residential, commercial, farms, land, etc.)
http://tinyurl.com/2bwe8b
Just remember one cardinal rule. No government branch's sale (fed, state, city, county, etc.,) absolves the winning bidder of any other taxing entities liens. Any sale only satisfies the agency holding the sale and no other.
Sometimes mortgages, civil lawsuits, court judgments, can be made to go bye-byes, but taxes, other than those that are settled by the sale, have to be paid. In other words, an IRS auction that has a million dollar IRS lien is considered settled, but just to the IRS, even if the property only brings one dollar! The half million that might be owed to the state/city/county is still considered OWED by the new owner!
Found this little tidbit searching for something else. Maybe Casey Serin shoulda thought a little bit more before he jumped into mortgage fraud with both feet and then blogged about doing so.
http://tinyurl.com/2ys88v
Enjoy your life snowflake.
My wife and I have been renting a condo in San Diego since December 2005. Our landloard bought it as an investment in October 2005 for $500,000.
In May she told us she could no longer afford it or her own condo in the same complex, and that she was going to have to short sell them. We figured it would be the perfect opportunity for us, so we made an offer of $415,000.
Well, six appraisals and 10 weeks later, the banks still had not made a decision. Meanwhile, my wife and I started to get nervous about the market. And my wife finally made her true feeling known that she did not want to buy a condo. She wants a house. So two Sundays ago we dicided to withdraw the offer. That Monday the banks finally agreed to the $415,000.
Since then exactly two people have come by to look at the place. We are so glad we backed out.
We lucked into a nice little house for rent that the owner inhierited recently. She has suggested that in a year or two she may sell it and that if all goes well we would be given first opportunity. Plus it would be a FSBO.
We're in our late 40s, no kids, gross over $100k, have no debt and still it would be a stretch at current prices, but we plan on saving like crazy and hope prices continue to slide to a "not insane" level at least.
High end prices down in Miami Beach ultra luxury market. I receive daily mailings from realtors bragging about the properties sold. I noticed one card yesterday that claimed the sale of a 3BR/3500 sqft unit #2803 in the Continuum in South Beach.
Listing Price $8.9 Million
Sales Price $6.7 Million
It was purchased by the previous owner for $7.5 million in 2005. Someone took a $800k hit.
If Keith is right and we are at the beginning of the crash then the bottom should fall out of the market. When this type of condo goes down to 1.5 mil, then I'll pull out my checkbook and it's time to buy. 8.9 Million for a stinking condo, unbelievable.
http://kiplinger.com/tools/slideshows/slideshow_pop.html?nm=Islands
Even the price of Islands are being affected.
Global warming = higher water tables.
Guess the smart ones are selling now, before they are..
he, he
under water?!?!?!
"We're in our late 40s, no kids, gross over $100k, have no debt and still it would be a stretch at current prices, but we plan on saving like crazy and hope prices continue to slide to a "not insane" level at least."
Man, if you gross over 100k and still have to save like crazy to buy a home, why are you even thinking to spend more than 400k in a house? You should be buying a 300k house max, according to your income. Unless you are planning to put $150k down.
Let it go, the ol' same trap of stretching the household to insane levels just to buy an expensive home that people can't even afford.
When, not if the houses go to 50% of value, what are you going to do?
The very fewest here have $100k in liquid cash.And if you did so what?
More than half the people in the US own their property free and clear.
Do you think I can rent my free and clear property for I don't know, let's say the payment on your new rental is $550, I can rent my free and clear house for $550 less than you and realize the same profit. You're not going to profit from the demise of the housing market. You may finally qualify to own your first home if you've been diligent in saving for the 30% down and you budget and have been on your job for two years... that's what it will take to buy one. The second house will cost you 60% down. Just like it should.
Then when you accomplish your second house if you try to profit from the sale later, you're just a flipping turd, just like those you dislike so much now. It doesn't matter what tool you use. If you're smart and used a shovel to dig a hole, good for you. If you used a spoon, no one will care after it's all done. A hole is just a hole is just a hole. No matter if dug with an ARM or 50% down....
For all the people posting long links here, USE TINYURL otherwise we can't open your long links. They are getting cut off when you post due to lack of space.
If you are not familiar with TINYURL, here's how to use it:
1. When you have a long link that you want to post, copy the url link and then go to the site http://tinyurl.com/ to paste it in the text field. After, click on the button "Make TinyUrl", then copy and paste short url on blogs.
2. Easier way if you use Firefox: just get the extension TinyUrl from the Mozilla site, which you can do all the above faster by just right clicking on any page and selecting "Create TinyUrl for this page" from the right click menu. Then paste the shorter link anywhere on the post.
@ jdc
"By the way, with the housing market so inflated, I have no problem with a price "correction." They had to come back down. It just seems like there's a lot of jpooy at the expense of those who ignorantly bought at the hight of the bubble."
Well, this crash doesn't affect only the people you've mentioned, but also:
1. Homedebtors who bought long before the bubble but were using the house as an ATM machine to live large or just to make ends meet (i.e., medical bills, retirees caught on the crazy and masked high inflation such as property taxes and insurance)
2. Homeleasers (never owner until house is paid for in full) who have job opportunities elsewhere but can't move w/o selling the house first.
3. Laid-off employees because of outsourcing, corporate equity congames that shortens staff, and jobs related to finance and real estate sector. Good luck making payments after getting laid-off.
4. Divorces. Most home buyers need dual income to make ends meet. Once the couple splits, there goes the house. And as we know, divorce rates are skyrocketing.
5. All those millions of people making late payments on credit cards and mortgages, or who are getting into foreclosure, won't be able to get a home loan or refinancing for 7 years. Nope, no more subprime loans for people with tarnished credit history.
So buh-bye new home buyers and housing ATM. Hello higher insurance rates (i.e., car), lost job opportunities that rely on good credit, and lack of capacity for renting properties to live in. If you think that inflation is bad, try to live without good credit...everything will get much more expensive for those people. How do I know? I studied Risk & Insurance Management at university.
Keith....You should get a laugh out of this article. I know I did!
Boom of condo crash loudest in Miami
http://tinyurl.com/2x7r64
@ Turdly
"More than half the people in the US own their property free and clear. "
Let it go again, the misleading assumption that homeowners and baby boomers are swimming in money. If that's the case, why the average American family has $10k in credit card debt alone? Why 40 million Americans can't/don't have health insurance? Why the average amount in retirement accounts is ONLY $8k, while half of the population don't have a retirement account at all? Why are we seeing years of negative savings? Own property free and clear my arse, if they were making their homes an ATM machine and are struggling to get by as you can attest by all the stats mentioned above.
Hey Turdly, you should work for Fox or Kudlow, writing their BS to fool the stupid sheeple. Unfortunately, your trolling doesn't fly here.
The August 30 political cartoon in the Washington Post by Toles is just a scream -- and housingPANIC all the way.
This link will get you there on the 30th, but after that you may have to hunt just a little.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/opinions/cartoonsandvideos/toles_main.html
'August 30, 2007 9:17 PM
if they were making their homes an ATM machine and are struggling to get by as you can attest by all the stats mentioned above.'
First, 'THEY' are a rather small group of folks about 3% of homeowners, hell, let's say they are 30% I don't care. But it isn't close to every homeowner.
Here's how it works;
Average american owes 10k on cards. If someone owes 20k, than someone owes nothing. THAT'S a 10k average.
If 4 households owe 40k than that means that 12 [don't care to be correct, care to get point across] OWE NOTHING! and that's a 10k average.
It's sorta like average intelligence. No matter the size of the room, whether it's your bedroom and just you and the spousal unit, or it's all of NYC, half the people are of less than average intelligence.
It's also why median price is going up.
Normal=three 1,000,000 and 75 200,000 home sell. median= 240k+-
now=three 1,000,000 homes sell and 25 200,000 homes sell.
Median= 308k+-
Median price is up!!!!
Yeah!!!! We included foreclosures as sales at full foreclosed amount, which we know is bullcrap but did it anyway! Yeah!!!
If you want to negate the 50% free and clear, I don't care if it's 10%. You're not going to make out like a bandit because you think you've got the only cash in town. That was the point sorry you missed it.
I can't be any clearer. If you have 100k cash, congratulations, many do not.
If I have $1,000,000 cash I'll eat your lunch. Many do.
Your 100k [or whatever you think is a lot of money to have liquid] does not give you magical powers to snap up houses in the coming dispair. it will make you qualify for the down payment portion of a single loan, possibly if the property is exceptionally inexpensive [read that who the hell would live there?] two down payments.... IF you budget for both houses WITHOUT A RENTER. Rental and lease agreements are gone as qualifiers for income property. You'll budget with both and still probably not be approved.
Just as it should be.
Just released: Mozilo interviewed by Bartiromo:
http://businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/aug2007/db20070829_117563.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_top+story
August 30, 2007 9:17 PM
So all you got out of 300+- words was that soemone might be a little off on a stat that was used as emphasis and not fact, and only vaguely related to the arguement?
Who are you anon and why are you here?
Anon, who'd of thought that something like that would come from someone as noble as our dear dear anon. Oh anon, we know you so.
I know the difference between median and average. I was typing median and using averages, because the answer [which is all I wanted to get at] is demonstrably larger, and I didn't want to lose anyone. I'm looking to be correct, I'm looking to make a point. The punctilious amongst you will do the corrections, if I got my point across to those incapable....
August 29, 2007 -- CNBC'S endless fawning over "Money Honey" Maria Bartiromo and her younger, fast-rising rival Erin Burnett has the network's lesser-known finance femmes on the warpath.
A source says reporters including sexy blonde Melissa Francis, who covers energy, have complained to CNBC suits that while they get zip, Bartiromo and Burnett are treated like princesses - with massive promotion, regular gigs on the "Today" show and "NBC Nightly News," perks such as limos and gushing quotes from network brass in newspaper articles.
"The catfight that started with Maria being jealous of Erin's rise has spread down the line. Now all of the other female reporters are getting p - - - ed off," our insider said.
"They're going to management and telling them they want equal treatment - better public relations, better placement on the air. They are all being divas now. It's gotten ridiculous."
CNBC brass have only themselves to blame for the in-house bitching, according to our source, who said, "It began when Maria was first caught in the Todd Thomson ethics scandal. They should have disciplined her then, but they went out of their way to defend her because she was the big star." Bartiromo raised eyebrows by accepting private international flights with Citibank honcho Thomson on the bank's corporate jet.
As we've reported, in recent months Brooklyn-born Bartiromo has fumed over CNBC's promoting of Burnett, a Maryland-bred farm girl who's seen by some as a fresher, less scandal-plagued version of the "Money Honey" and has even been dubbed "Maria 2.0."
CNBC bigwigs have continuously flattered Burnett in news stories about her rising star. This past Monday, a Washington Post article headlined "Looking Good at CBNC (Pretty, Too)" had CNBC senior vice president Jonathan Wald gushing, "She's smart and driven and really cares, and that comes through in everything she does."
CNBC has muzzled Bartiromo, Burnett and Francis, and declined our repeated requests to talk to any of them. But a network flack pooh-poohed the alleged rivalry, sniffing, "That's insane. It sounds like the jealousy is coming from outside the building."
Hey Keith....I was just Googling bubble stuff and I came across an article from Az central circa 2002. It's pretty funny to read it now.
Housing market immune to slump
http://tinyurl.com/ysymrv
Hey Keith....I was just Googling bubble stuff and I came across a housing article from AZCentral.com circa 2002. It's pretty funny to read it now.
Housing market immune to slump
http://tinyurl.com/ysymrv
Hilarious post on brokeroutpost.com (reposting with tinyurl)
http://tinyurl.com/22pafo
The desperation is showing.
housingdoom.com has a post about a plan that W is going to reveal tomorrow. thougths???
http://tinyurl.com/345l94
Cramer says it's not too late to short IndyMac -- BooYah.
Gov. Bail Out is here folks!!! Read All about it!
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2007-08-30-fha-subprime_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip#uslPageReturn
Bernanke: Fed Will Act If Needed But No Bailout
http://www.cnbc.com/id/20528520
"Dude, Where's My Bailout?"
(this is an absolutely classic dig at Bernanke)
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_37/b4049050.htm
well let's see.........bernanke is talking about sub prime now, the cnbc talking heads are arguing vociferiously about it now, and so now comes ther President of the Jewnighted states talking about it....
my, my, ....how the mighty have fallen..
poor dopes....
Bush Pledges Help for Subprime Borrowers, Rejects `Bailout'
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=azFpDTT1pbN4&refer=home
The reporter in San Jose Mercury News is looking for people to talk to in the bay area. Let's have a few people from here inject some sense of reality, and the need for a good drop of prices into the discussion. This reporter (Sue Mcallister) is generally very "bullish" (typical main-stream-media type, thinking of price rises as "good" and falls as "bad" etc. she's also a homeowner and that adds to the bias for sure), but can be reasonably objective sometimes. She definitely needs some input to frame the discussion right and not get the usual non-sense from Dataquick's John Karevoll etc. Please contact her if you can:
----
Sue McAllister 10:17 AM on Thu, August 30, 2007
I'm looking for a couple of the "not right now, thanks" potential home buyers to talk to about their perspectives on the market. If you are one of these and would be willing to talk to me for help with an article, let me know! You can email me at smcallister@mercurynews.com, or call me at (408) 920-5833. Or - if one of your friends/relatives/work-mates is in this category and you think they might chat with me, send 'em along. Seeking input. Thanks!
--------------
Now is the time to buy. And short sales are the way to do it. Go to
www.FreeShortSaleSecrets.com
www.DiscoverShortSales.com
www.ShortSaleBrothers.com
Banks are hurting and they need to get rid of some properties. Look at the lenders going out of business at www.lenderimplode.com
Good Luck
"A true indicator of the state of the U.S. economy"
Forget the Charts, the Experts, Etc.
The leading Beer Manufacturer in the world is experiencing a major shift in sales from "More Expensive Glass Bottle Premium Brands" to "Less Expensive Canned Value Brands" in the US without any recent price increases.
FHA Plan:Bring a water gun to fight a fire.
http://thegreatloanblog.blogspot.com
well its a 3 day weekend....let's see....where is keith going this weekend?????......
Try googling "EM3WEBBC02" and take a look at all of the bankrupt mortgage broker websites. Amazing.
I totally agree that the condo market in big cities like Miami is in for atleast a few years of mayhem. What really gets my goat, though is real estate investment scams like Foreclosuresdaily.com that charge thousands and promise people can make millions from their homes part time without ever having to look at or see the properrties or without any experience. Here is a great article on this scam and full of great tips and links of where to go to get your money back if you get taken. It is a absolute must read for anyone in real estate investing!:
Bestbraindrain article on real estate investment scams like foreclosuresdaily.com
B. Smithey
Keith, take a look at this article about what really went on at Countrywidehttp://www.consumerist.com/consumer/subprime-meltdown/inside-the-countrywide-subprime-lending-frenzy-293902.php
August Redhat
Bad news for Tangilo!
Labaton Sucharow LLP Files Class Action Lawsuit Against Countrywide Financial Corporation, Extending the Class Period -- CFC
Prime Newswire
August 31, 2007: 08:47 PM EST
NEW YORK, Aug. 31, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Labaton Sucharow LLP filed a class action lawsuit on August 31, 2007 in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, on behalf of persons who purchased or otherwise acquired the common stock of Countrywide Financial Corporation ("Countrywide" or the "Company") (NYSE:CFC) between April 24, 2004 and August 9, 2007, inclusive, (the "Class Period"). The lawsuit was filed against Countrywide and Angelo R. Mozilo, David Sambol, Eric P. Sieracki and Stanford L. Kurland ("Defendants").
If you are a member of this class you can view a copy of the complaint online at http://www.labaton.com/en/about/press/Labaton-Sucharow-LLP-Files-Class-Action-Lawsuit-Against-Countrywide-Financial-Corporation-Extending-The-Class-Period.cfm
The complaint alleges that Defendants violated Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder. Specifically, the complaint alleges that Defendants misled investors by falsely representing that Countrywide had strict and selective underwriting and loan origination practices, ample liquidity that would not be jeopardized by negative changes in the credit markets, and a conservative approach that set it apart from other lenders. Additionally, the complaint alleges that Countrywide also improperly inflated its reported income by understating its loan loss reserves in SEC filings.
On July 24, 2007, Countrywide announced that it was taking a $417 million impairment charge and would add $292.9 million to its loan loss reserves, and noted defaults were increasing in the prime market. In reaction to this news, shares of Countrywide fell 10.5% to close at $30.50 per share. Then on August 9, 2007, the Company warned of potential short-term liquidity issues. Shares reacted negatively to the news, falling $1.00 per share to close at $27.86 per share.
If you bought Countrywide securities between April 24, 2004 and August 9, 2007, inclusive, you may qualify to serve as Lead Plaintiff. Lead Plaintiff papers must be filed with the court no later than October 15, 2007.
Plaintiff is represented by the law firm of Labaton Sucharow LLP. Labaton Sucharow is one of the country's premier national law firms that represent individual and institutional investors in class action, complex securities and corporate governance litigation. The firm has been a champion of investor rights for over 40 years and has been recognized for its reputation for excellence by the courts. If you would like to consider serving as lead plaintiff or have any questions about the lawsuit, please contact one of our representatives or Christopher Keller, Esq. at 800-321-0476.
Had a CD at WAMU that rolled over in the last couple of days. I was over the FDIC limit and had read an article at thestreet.com that highlighted the fact that WAMU's loan loss reserves only cover 43% of their nonperforming loans. Ouch!
So today I elected to get my money out via a cashier's ck. Normally, the branch of WAMU that I use is staffed by high school kids or maybe some young adults in their early 20's. Today, of all days, actual adult supervisors in their 30's-40's were in the branch.
When I asked a young high school-age teller for my money back, she called over one of the adults. We then proceeded to have a discussion as to why I wanted my money back.
Him: Better rates at another bank? [WAMU is pimping a 5.3% CD in Oregon, if you can believe that. Most bank CDs are now topping out in the mid-4% range.]
Me: No. I'm concerned about your bank's exposure to sub-prime loans.
Him: We got rid of a bunch of sub-prime loans.
Me: I'm very concerned that your nonperforming loans are undercapitalized.
Him: Where are you getting your info?
Me: thestreet.com
Him: We had a meeting this week and our deposits are stronger than any other banks.
Me: I've seen figures that show that your bank is only capitalized to 43% of your nonperforming loans.
Him: [snort] No bank is fully capitalized against its problem loans.
Me: Key Bank (which is where I planned to park the money) is capitalized to 260% [an error on my part, they are only capitalized to 206%].
Him: [Gave up at this point and I got my money].
Glad the wife wasn't with me today, she'd have come unglued.
Fun, fun, fun.
Ihad the same discussion at Downey. I'm over FDIC so I pulled some money out.
manager" you're one of my depositors at our branch, why are you pulling out?'
me
'Downeys funding abilities and exposure, yadda yadda.
mamanger
' how in the world do you know these things'
me
'how in the world do you not know these things/"
http://www.petitiononline.com/bailout/petition.html
So honest folks have to foot a bill again???
Great idea for a blog post! What can you really say about the bubble burst though? It's here now and there's not a lot to do besides make the best of it.
Wewantyourhide is in for a heap of trouble. Good business gone bad and getting worse. It is time for the fat lady to sing for Countrywide?
Mortgage Company Accused of Defrauding Katrina Victims
Email
Share August 31, 2007 7:14 PM
Joseph Rhee Reports:
Angry homeowners hit hard by Hurricane Katrina are accusing Countrywide Home Loans of reneging on a promise to help them by temporarily suspending their mortgage payments.
According to a class-action lawsuit filed in Louisiana today, homeowners say the mortgage giant is now demanding any deferred payments be paid up immediately, often with interest and penalties attached. Plaintiffs' attorneys say that as a result, many struggling homeowners have been sent into foreclosure.
In a goodwill gesture after Katrina hit two years ago, Countrywide announced it would suspend mortgage payments for hurricane victims for up to 90 days. Homeowners say they were told by Countrywide agents that any deferred payments would be added to the back end of the loan term, and that no lump sum, interest or penalties would be imposed.
According to the lawsuit, however, homeowners have been notified by Countrywide that they have to either pay the entire deferred amount immediately or restructure their loan in a way that would cost them thousands of additional dollars.
Click Here for Full Blotter Coverage.
Plaintiff Donna Hellmers of Hammond, La., told the Blotter on ABCNews.com that she was "dumbfounded" by the change in policy, and when she demanded an explanation from a Countrywide agent, she was told "the lender has changed their mind." Hellmers, who said her family faced severe financial hardship after Katrina, accused Countrywide of "taking advantage of people when they're down."
A similar class-action lawsuit was filed against Countrywide earlier this year by Texas homeowners affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. A homeowner in that case reportedly recorded a telephone call with a Countrywide agent who explained the company's apparent change of heart. According to the agent, "Unfortunately, we were telling people things that we should not have been telling people."
Countrywide Home Loans had no immediate comment on today's lawsuit.
WaMu is a $2 stock waiting to happen.
Heavyweight hedge funds hit by August blues
Financial Times
Updated: 8:11 p.m. PT Aug 31, 2007
August looks to be the worst month for hedge funds in seven years and is close to being the worst since 1998 as almost all hedge strategies have failed to perform.
The average hedge fund was down 3.2 per cent with one trading day left in the month, according to Chicago-based Hedge Fund Research, after a sharp recovery from a far worse position in the past two weeks. This is the worst since November 2000, when hedge funds were knocked back 3.5 per cent in a month.
"A manager who is flat in August looks like a hero at this point," said Yannis Procopis, deputy chief investment officer at CMA, a $2.6bn (£1.3bn) fund of hedge funds.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20535603/
This is why the stock market is so volatile!
Hedge funds hit critical list worldwide
Financial Times
Updated: 8:11 p.m. PT Aug 7, 2007
Hedge funds globally suffered their second-worst week in four years during the final full trading week of July as continuing concerns about the spread of US credit problems took their toll on performance.
The Hedge Fund Research index of investable hedge funds, one of the most widely followed hedge fund performance benchmarks, fell by just over 3 per cent in the week beginning Monday July 23 as global markets fluctuated wildly.
It represented the worst week of performance since the week beginning March 26 this year, when the index fell 3.4 per cent as global stock markets suffered a sudden sharp sell-off.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20165802/
Here are the cold hard facts.
http://tinyurl.com/2sqgrb
The White House is clueless!!
http://www.cnbc.com/id/20533556
QUESTION:
If it was O.K. for prices to soar, why is it not O.K. for prices to fall? One of the virtues of our country's economic system--and one which staved off revolution during the last Great Depression, was that the event was a great leveler for all. Rich, poor and middle class suffered alike. This latest bailout, like all government bailout, preserves the status quo in favor of the "haves" and thereby works disproportionate harm upon the "have-nots," which, in this case, are would-be homeowners such as me.
- Anon, August 31, 2007 12:31 PM on another post
ANSWER: The reason the Gov't will not let prices fall to much is due to the value of increased real-estate taxes. As properties when up... so to did the taxes that feeds schools, local gov't, and a whole bunch of gov't workers. They all gave themselves raises, and issued more bonds for projects; and in short increased thier 'reqired revenue levels' to the point were letting housing prices fall to much; will cause major problems in local gov't everywhere!!!
Solution... Screw the dollar and all the purdent savers. We not only have forced socialism in the USA; we now have lost all moral principles. The price for this will be the destruction of the BUCK!!! Time to dump... trade that fiat trash today for anyTHING!!!
Huge earnings restatements coming for FED CFC WM DSL and a bunch of others for booking NegAM as income. Don't buy any of the lenders until they come clean on their income statements.
Hey, DOPES!
I bet your $350k one bedroon can be rented for $500...
HA HA HA!
BOJ member Atsushi Mizuno got his wing clipped.
Atsushi Mizuno take back his earlier statement.
Yen carry trade lives on
http://www.nasdaq.com/aspxcontent/
NewsStory.aspx?cpath=
20070830%5cACQDJON200708300158
DOWJONESDJONLINE000452.htm&
Bank of Japan policy board member Atsushi Mizuno clarified Thursday that the BOJ's policy decisions are independent of the actions of other central banks, and that it should raise rates once conditions are met.
"The BOJ's rate policy depends on the fundamentals" of Japan's economy, Mizuno said at a press conference in Kofu, Yamanashi prefecture, west of Tokyo.
"I don't think the subprime issue so far is affecting Japan's fundamentals directly" and it is not something that will constrain the BOJ in its policy decisions, he said.
Early Thursday, Mizuno said that Japan's low interest rates may have contributed to the global subprime-mortgage crisis, but hinted that if the Federal Reserve Board shaves interest rates at its September meeting, it would shift the tenor of the policy debate.
BOJ member Kazumasa Iwata said let see how far we can keep Yen Carry Trade going until the bubble pop.
Yen Carry Trade lives on
http://www.nasdaq.com/aspxcontent/
NewsStory.aspx?cpath=
20070901%5cACQDJON200709011700
DOWJONESDJONLINE000520.htm&
Bank of Japan Deputy Gov. Kazumasa Iwata said Saturday that monetary policy should focus on price stability, not asset prices.
Iwata made his remarks at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's annual Jackson Hole conference.
One thing that is good about the major re-adjustment of the real estate market is the fact that the non-professional investors ( read: speculators) and part-time and/or inexperienced real estate agents (NAR is expecting a fairly good drop in membership this year and next) will be washed out.
The worse the market correction, the healthier things will be when the cycle completes its correction.
Doesn't matter if you are in New York City or Saint Louis MO, the measure of how bad things will get before it gets better is the local dynamic. The national trend for the correction (including the implications for the mortgage market meltdown) will take much longer.
Buyers will still buy homes (see I didn't mention speculators) and sellers will still need to sell (there are always life changing events such as death, divorce, and debt, etc.)
it should be interesting to watch as it unfolds...
Maybe instead of BOJ holding rate down the Japanese government could raise minimum wage in Japan to sprue consumer spending.
http://afp.google.com/article/
ALeqM5gEHk-1qxzjEAgusJmCJnkj_
FBGTA
Japan's unemployment fell to its lowest level in more than nine years in July but sluggish spending and inflation lowered chances the central bank will soon hike interest rates, economists said Friday.
Japan is in the midst of its longest economic expansion since World War II. But companies have been slow to share growing profits with workers, meaning consumer consumption has lagged behind in the nation's recovery.
There is a easy way out of the housing mess.
The Federal Government to pass new law to require all employers to double their employee salary; thereby, bring down the housing affordability index.
House price would not be out of reach for most American and subprime borrowers can qualify for conventional loans.
So what the problem not afraid of a little inflation, if Congress wants a bailout why not make bailout program that most homeowners and renters can agree upon.
http://tinyurl.com/3cgqh4
500k empty house for sale goes up in smoke.......hmmm.
we here at acme enjoy our work immensely. if you have any bothersome expensive and unncecessary assets that you want to shall we say, go away......we at acme can make that happen for you........remember, a expensive empty house is a terrible thing. let the acme torch service deal with this problem for you. all it takes is a visit by acme, on a dark moonless night, and woela, your problems are over, and you have a insurance check and the dumbass crackers in the sticks will think the fire was started by lightning.....thank you for your support.....
BIG BEN DESCENDS THE MOUNTAIN WITH NEW GOSPEL?
WHILE Wall Street headed to the Hamptons for this final weekend of summer, Fed chief Ben Bernanke headed for the hills - quite literally, the stunning Rocky Mountain peaks of Jackson Hole, Wyo.
You remember Jackson Hole? The remote annual meeting place for the most important of central bankers. The place where just five short years ago Alan Greenspan reflected on the dot-com bubble that had just burst with spectacular impact.
"We at the Federal Reserve have considered a number of issues related to asset bubbles," the then-Fed chief observed in 2002. "We recognized that, despite our suspicions, it was very difficult to identify a bubble until after the fact - that is when its bursting confirmed its existence."
Well, now it is "after the fact" again, although it is hard to believe that even the myopic maestro didn't see this housing bubble busting. But in the summer of 2007 it is Greenspan's Fed successor, Bernanke, who is left to clean up the mess. And what a mess it is. Indeed, the credit tsunami of '07 is so vast and so complex, no one can really seem to quantify it, much less contain it.
It's been painful to watch Bernanke of late. Hamlet-like, he's tried to navigate the subprime terrain. Clearly the former Princeton professor is trying to make a clean break from the Greenspan tradition of never finding a crisis that didn't deserve a rate cut. And with no textbook to guide him, Bernanke surely has had the toughest job in Washington this summer.
While Big Ben went out of his way on Friday to warn that: "It is not the responsibility of the Federal Reserve . . . to protect lenders and investors from the consequences of their financial decisions," he basically threw in the beach towel by admitting that when those bad, risky decisions start to impact the overall economy, the Fed may have to act by cutting rates.
Yep, Bernanke helped ring out the month of August by giving America's risk-takers (the hedge funds, the private-equity shops and the real estate speculators) the all-clear signal they'd been clamoring for all summer. Rates will fall along with the autumn leaves. Bernanke blinked, and for that reason alone stocks actually finished the angst-filled month of August in positive territory.
When he was a high school senior, Bernanke earned the highest SAT score in his home state of South Carolina. But you don't have to be smarter than a 5th grader to realize that following on the heels of a Fed chairman who grew the debt punch bowl to record proportions - even trying to take a little fun out of the party is now nearly impossible.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/
09022007/business/
big_ben_descends_the_
mountain_.htm
At China's huge malls, high prices and few shoppers
Empty malls are one indicator of the country's overheating economy.
By Simon Montlake | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
from the August 28, 2007 edition
Page 1 of 2
Reporter Simon Montlake talks about China's malls and the culture of shopping there.
Beijing - For a closer look at China's sizzling economy, walk the marble floors of Beijing's latest luxury mall. From its Japanese-style food court selling $4 chocolate éclairs to its glittering floors of branded international fashion, Shin Kong Place is a palace of conspicuous consumption.
The only thing missing, on a sizzling summer afternoon, was customers. Sales staff idled at display racks as a trickle of young visitors looped around the frigid mall. Most were content to window-shop, dreaming of the day when they could afford to drop $100 on a tassled tote bag. "These prices are too expensive. People can't afford it," says Xu Tao, a car repairman who was visiting with his girlfriend.
As investors continue to pour money into malls, analysts say the signs of a real estate bubble are growing, as are predictions that some retailers may be heading for trouble. Empty malls are just one indicator of an overheating economy – growing at its fastest clip in over a decade – that is proving hard to cool.
To curb rising inflation, led by food prices, China's central bank raised interest rates last week for the fourth time this year. Real estate is also in the spotlight: Property companies were ordered in June not to borrow offshore. But the race to build goes on.
"The problems of overheating are already apparent," says Wang Yao, director of the information department for the China General Chamber of Commerce, an industry umbrella group. "The commercial real estate industry is facing problems. After some buildings are finished, nobody wants to rent space."
Too many malls in China
Since 2002, China has built hundreds of malls in towns and cities, each trying to get a slice of a retail pie worth $800 billion last year. Captivated by the promise of a vast consumer class itching to spend, foreign brands have jostled for space at the table only to find a scarcity of customers. As a result, retail vacancy rates in Beijing are currently 8 percent and rising as more malls enter a crowded market. [Editor's note: The original version misidentified the occupancy rate of Beijing's retail stores.]
Mr. Xu, who pulls in $266 a month – below Beijing's $400 average – is typical. He socks away one-fourth of his pay packet, as does Chen Ping, his girlfriend, who makes a similar wage as a store assistant. Asked if he isn't tempted to save less and spend more, he shakes his head.
"If we enjoy life now, what about the future? We need to think of our future," he says.
The rising cost of living is one reason why many here are reluctant to splurge in fancy malls. Unlike US consumers, many of whom use credit liberally, Chinese workers opt to save, knowing that a feeble welfare system is unlikely to provide for them.
As a result, consumption accounts for only 37 percent of China's economic output, about half the rate in the US.
Such stinginess bodes poorly for Beijing's mall developers.
A tiny URL just doesn't do justice like a headline. Sorry if post is too long.
From MSNBC
The New Money Pit
It started with subprime mortgages. Now owners of McMansions are defaulting, and the effects of the housing bust are beginning to ripple through the economy.
Foreclosure: A Lexington, S.C., deputy sherriff tapes a notice to a home (left); a house in Anthem Hills, now owned by the bank (right)
Willis Glassgow / AP (left); Tomas Muscionico for Newsweek
Foreclosure: A Lexington, S.C., deputy sherriff tapes a notice to a home (left); a house in Anthem Hills, now owned by the bank (right)
View related photos
By Daniel Gross
Newsweek
Sept. 10, 2007 issue - Walking through the gated community of Black Mountain Vista on a hill in Henderson, Nev., Thomas Blanchard offers a guided tour of real-estate woe. A row of stucco duplexes that recently sold for as much as $500,000 sit empty. "That's a repo," the real-estate agent says as he stands in front of 678 Solitude Point Avenue. Then he points to the adjacent houses, where yellow patches blot the spartan lawns and phone books lie on front porches, their covers bleached from weeks under the desert sun. "No. 680, repo; 684, repo. Those two at the end, repo."
Story continues below ↓advertisement
Three years ago, this Las Vegas suburb was teeming with modern-day prospectors armed with low-interest mortgages, all hoping to strike it rich in real estate. Now, what started with the subprime-mortgage mess and subsequent credit crunch are turning communities like Black Mountain Vista into luxury ghost towns. Buyers who got in over their heads are being forced to abandon their homes, leaving behind empty McMansions on the California coast and see-through condominium towers on Miami Beach. Real estate is turning into a money pit, sapping the fortunes of home buyers, hedge-fund managers and house painters alike. The really bad news? This is only the beginning.
"THEY PUT THEM UP, I TAKE THEM DOWN": "Here I am with 120 illegal ugly piece-of-trash signs I removed from telephone poles in Southeast Portland from May 13 to August 20 2007."
blowfly, America's first black president???
Picture a white house with purple Cadillac's in the driveway, all the windows in the house are broken, rap music blasting, trash in the yard (other than blowfly) pregnant teenagers and drug deals!
Hey, it does sound like D.C.
blowfly for Prez
Hey housing owners...it is not too late...you want to make a quick 100,000 dollars OR MORE...lower the damn price and sell now!!! A year from now the value on your home will FALL by at least this amount. Sell now and rent!!! Then in a year, buy for 100,000 cheaper.
Carry traders responsible for half of the dollar's turnover growth
INVESTORS pursuing carry-trades based on borrowing in Japan and buying Australian dollar assets have been responsible for as much as half the growth in turnover of the Australian currency, the Bank of International Settlements says.
The BIS warns that the build-up of carry trade positions introduces instability into the exchange rate. "The effect of carry trade activity on exchange rates is typically asymmetric and can be significant." It says the carry trade brings a slow and steady appreciation in a target currency, with the potential for sharp depreciation in target currencies when interest rate expectations or volatility changes.
In its quarterly review, the BIS says it is hard to get an accurate fix on the size of the carry trade in foreign exchange markets.
The BIS says that some idea of the scale of the carry trade in Australia can be deduced from global banks claims on Australian residents in currencies other than the Australian dollar.
The BIS notes the relationship will be weaker during high volatility, when turnover can increase, particularly when carry trades are being unwound and the currency is falling sharply. The BIS says there is a close association between the carry-to-risk ratio and open interest in the Australian dollar on futures markets.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.
au/story/0,25197,22357047-643,00.
html
Yet another farm minister quits in money scandal
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's attempt to start on a clean footing by reshuffling his Cabinet is already stumbling with Monday's announcement that Takehiko Endo has resigned as farm minister.
Endo served only eight days in the post to become the second shortest-serving Cabinet minister in postwar Japan. Takashi Hasegawa, who was forced to step aside as justice minister in December 1988 after only four days in the job when he became embroiled in the Recruit money-for-favors scandal.
Endo is the third minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries to fall from grace in recent months. His two immediate predecessors were embroiled in money scandals.
Endo met with Abe Monday morning and submitted his resignation. According to those in attendance, Endo told Abe, "I apologize for not being able to meet your expectations."
http://www.asahi.com/english/
Herald-asahi/TKY200709030380.html
While US automakers going down Japanese going up.
Thanks to BOJ
http://www.asahi.com/english/
Herald-asahi/TKY200709010104.html
Toyota predicts sales of 10 million units
Toyota would become the world's first automaker to sell more than 10 million units a year if it achieves the target.
More good news for yen carry traders as the Yen continues to weaken.
http://www.macroworldinvestor.com/
m/m.w?lp=GetStory&id=269114041
Before the market opened, the Japanese government said capital spending by corporations in Japan fell 4.9 percent in the April-June period on an all-industry basis from a year earlier.
With such disappointing data, the market is not for buying the yen.
At noon, the dollar was quoted at 115.81-86 yen, compared with Friday's 5 p.m. quotes of 115.73-83 yen in New York and 116.22-25 yen in Tokyo.
The market fallout from the subprime mortgage slump is less severe than in 1998 after Russia's default and the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management LP, the Bank for International Settlements said.
The assessment from the BIS, which monitors financial markets for central banks and regulates lenders, contrasts with analysis from Standard & Poor's, which last week said the outlook for securities firms is worse than in 1998.
``Some investors began to draw parallels with the autumn of 1998, when the collapse of LTCM had triggered fears of instability in the banking system as a whole,'' the BIS in Basel, Switzerland, said in a report published today. ``However, the recent rise in U.S. 10-year swap spreads was less sharp than at the time of the LTCM crisis.''
Investors are demanding a yield premium over 10-year Treasury notes of 70 basis points to swap floating interest-rate payments for fixed, up from 54 basis points in May. The premium, which increases as the perception of risk deteriorates, had more than doubled in 1998 to 97 basis points.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/
news?pid=20601087&sid=
aSfEkp0NEolc&refer=worldwide
US credit default swap index tightens-Barclays
http://today.reuters.com/news/
articleinvesting.aspx?type=
bondsNews&storyID=2007-08-31
T125054Z_01_N31233840_RTRIDST_
0_CDS-INDEX-BARCLAYS-URGENT.XML
Hedge funds were responsible for 30 percent of the trading volume in U.S. debt markets in the last year, double the 15 percent these loosely regulated portfolios generated in the previous period, a study shows.
Within debt markets, Greenwich Associates found that hedge funds make up more than 85 percent of U.S. trading volume in distressed debt and nearly 55 percent of U.S. trading volume in emerging market bonds.
http://today.reuters.com/news/
articleinvesting.aspx?type=
etfNews&storyID=2007-08-30
T141142Z_01_N30419606_
RTRIDST_0_HEDGEFUNDS-FIXED-
INCOME.XML
Japan leads corporate shift to Vietnam in quest for cheaper labor
Corporate Japan is leading an Asian manufacturing switch from China to Vietnam, Eastern Europe, and South America in its relentless hunt for lower labor costs.
Although Japanese direct investment in China remains substantial, at just under $4.5 billion last year, Japan Inc’s interest in using China as its workshop was contracting long before TTI redrew its plans for further investment there.
For while China remains a huge resource of cheap labor, the advantages of other Asian hubs – in terms of transport and energy infrastructure, proximity to major trade routes and availability of materials – have begun to shine.
Japan’s investment in China in 2006 was more than 30 per cent lower than in 2005, and it is expected to fall another 30 per cent this year.
As Japan’s industrial giants from a wide range of sectors make their choices, they are forcing huge changes in their parts supply chains. So as Nissan and Toyota set up factories in Brazil and Russia, the companies that make tires and exhaust pipes must do the same.
In electronics, the Philippines and India are becoming more attractive, with Fujitsu and NEC building huge armies of engineers in those countries.
Towering over corporate Japan’s recent strategic rethink is the economic rise of Vietnam. Vietnamese workers earn average monthly pay of about $80 – half that of a Chinese worker and just a fifth of what a Japanese would cost. However, Japanese companies say there is more to the shift than cheap labor.
Japan’s largest trading house, Mitsui, has just set up a subsidiary in Hanoi. “Vietnam,” the subsidiary’s president, Ken Ozeki, recently told Japanese media, “could become even more reliable than China or India.”
http://www.thanhniennews.com/
features/?catid=10&newsid=31321
From Yahoo..
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Want government help to get out of a bad subprime mortgage? Don't look for Congress to come to your rescue anytime soon.
http://tinyurl.com/2ky7hv
I still think they will bail like they are on the Titanic (ever use the bail bucket on a big boat?) but not everyone seems to agree.
US oil prices climbed further above US$74 (HK$577.20) yesterday, within sight of its record high, as OPEC kept a lid on output in the run-up to its September 11 ministerial meeting.
US crude was up 50 US cents at US$74.54 mid-morning in New York. The US Labor Day holiday shut the New York trading floor but electronic trade continued as usual.
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/
news_detail.asp?pp_cat=22&art_
id=52736&sid=15218867&con_type=1
It looks like Hurricane Felix will hit the Nicaragua coast and decay a bit, then hit Belize and do some damage, and die out without causing much damage in Mexico at all, certainly not the offshore fields.
The models from our friend Chuck Watson aren't showing much infrastructure/energy impact at all; some disruption to the efforts to restore remaining damage from Dean, but that's about it.
http://www.theoildrum.com/
node/2942
realtwhore trying to sell an overpriced cr@pbox condo unit across from another up for rent or sale. She was holding an open house on LABOR DAY SUNDAY!! I just wanted to look at the rental. The agent was out in the street badgering people coming to look at the rental to come over to hers for purchase, and saying "you'll see the problems with the rental unit and really prefer to buy mine" Talk about desperation, she is just totally pathetic and I doubt her sales tactics are going to pay off.
The avalance has already started; its too late for the pebbles to vote.
The investment banks, Keith. Start placing blame where it belongs.
"Yes, it's counterintuitive. Clearly, it's not sustainable. Obviously, the solution to the mortgage mess (and the coming credit card mess) must be to realign the financial industry's interests with those of its customers, not just allow the customers to get screwed a little less.
Several years ago, when the attorneys general of several states investigated Ameriquest, the nation's largest subprime mortgage lender, they discovered that Ameriquest's ideal loan officer was a male used car dealer in his mid-20s, in other words someone willing and able to sell a piece of junk that would ultimately blow up in the customer's face. Read through Countrywide's training material and you'll find an interesting phrase they call "the oasis of rapport," a euphemism for ingratiating yourself with a customer so that you can sell them anything. A vice president for Mastercard cites something called "a taste for credit" to explain why customers who have recently been through bankruptcy are such profitable customers. In other words, the modern credit business is not about selling the American Dream, it's about selling very profitable time bombs, and then another even more profitable one after the last one blew up on the borrower, leaving him or her with worse credit and therefore needing to pay even higher rates of interest. What is needed it not longer fuses but a wholesale dismantling of the bombs.
This, of course, is more easily said than done, not only because the products themselves have become so convoluted that Harvard Law professors and M.I.T. math geniuses can't make sense of them, but because these mortgages have long been pooled together in huge funds that make the "bad apples" indistinguishable from the good ones–an extraordinarily profitable scheme that one consumer advocate aptly calls "mortgage laundering." What spooked Wall Street two weeks ago is that consumers are realizing they were sold lemons and they have stopped paying for them–not out of anger but out of pragmatism. If you have a family, you need a roof over your head that's not in danger of being detonated by an investor halfway around the world."
DOPES said...
OK...LET ME LOOK!
.
.
YUP, JUST WHAT I THOUGHT.
.
.
ONE BEDROOM STILL $350,000.00
.
.
HAVE FUN RENTING.
.
.
DOPES!
August 29, 2007 2:11 PM
----------
Hum, let me look. One Bedroom rents for 800 and they pop up & get rented on a regular basis.
Let me look at sales:
Yep all the sellers are still on crack wanting 350k after paying 300k+ at the peak in 05, the last time one was sold!!(exception: One's found in the foreclosure section)
Let me do the math, that means the monthly mortgage payment is well 2k and could be as much as 3k per month (PITI)
Odd, how can they make money renting it for 800? Oh well not my problem. I'll rent for 800 and call the FB whenever there is a problem and have them fix it and I'll bank the 1-2k differential and avoid all the closing costs!!!
While I'd never by a one bed condo in the first place, 2 bed 2 bath minimum and I'll wait and watch and when this all bottoms out in a few years I'll pick up a nice place from a desperate FB who is tired of being a flop lord and happy to take the loss just to get rid of the money pit/ball and chain!! Thats what happened last time and thats what will happen this time.
Geez when will people ever learn, but I guess that's why history always repeats itself!! At least I am smart enough to know which portion of history I want to exploit so that I can have a prosperous life and not a hellish one!!
CIAO BITCH (a.k.a. "DOPES" or just plain "DOPE")
why will they lower rates when the economy grew at that unexpected large amount?????????????/
I watched Glengarry Glen Ross last night on IFC. I hadn't remembered that they were pimping real estate in Arizona and Florida.
Priceless!
http://tinyurl.com/u5ukj
NY said...
My neighbor bought the another house next to theirs about six months ago for $525,000 in Queens, NY. He thought it was a pretty good deal. He spent probably close to $100,000 for remodeling it using equity in his primary house. He and his wife both just got laid off from work, and his realtor told him that he should price the second house for about $350,000.
So, all in all he spent $625,000 and can get $350,000 all in a matter of months. Some investment... He might even lose his first house now!
August 29, 2007 5:16 PM
Hilarious! I hope he remembers you cut up your arm from your wrist and not accross.
Fuzzy Bush math
You're about to hear that the budget deficit is falling. Don't believe it, warns Fortune's Allan Sloan. The deficit is much, much bigger than you think.
(Fortune Magazine) -- There will be lots of celebrating in Washington next month when the Treasury announces that the federal budget deficit for fiscal 2007, which ends Sept. 30, will have dropped to a mere $158 billion, give or take a few bucks.
That will be $90 billion below the reported 2006 deficit, and will be toasted by the White House and Treasury as a great accomplishment.
But I have a nasty little secret for you, folks. If you use realistic numbers rather than what I call WAAP -- Washington Accepted Accounting Principles -- the real federal deficit for the current fiscal year is more than 2 1/2 times the stated deficit.
http://tinyurl.com/2tdqlj
Check out my blog on the specifics of the Arizona hell hole written by me who is a realtor:
http://madmaxphoenix.blogspot.com/
Guess who is back, yen carry trade is back.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/
news?pid=20601085&sid=
a4gtGWLzuLuY&refer=europe
The yen fell for a third day against the euro as a rally in global stocks gave traders confidence to resume higher-yielding investments funded by loans in Japan.
The Japanese yen dropped against 10 of the 16 most-active currencies today as investors re-entered so-called carry trades on speculation U.S. economic growth will withstand a subprime- mortgage crisis. The difference in yield between benchmark two- year U.S. and Japanese bonds widened to 3.27 percentage points, the most in a week.
``Investor risk-taking appetite is likely to return.
The yen dropped to 158.32 per euro at 9:36 a.m. in Tokyo from 158.26 late in New York yesterday. It also traded at 116.24 against the dollar from 116.33. The currency may decline to 159.50 per euro and 117.50 versus the dollar today, Inoue said.
Property Speculators first to default.
http://thegreatloanblog.blogspot.com
This is an absolutely true story.
Yesterday a nervous woman came into my gift store. She was shaking and almost in tears. She said, " I don't know what to do. I am a Taurus, I just want to help people, I need some motivation, some positive thinking to keep me going."
I showed her some inspirational cards and tried to appear sympathetic. She went on, "I hate my job. I have got to change careers. I mean, I used to like my job but now I just don't feel like I can help people anymore. I just got over my drug addiction and now I just need to stay positive"
So I said, "I am so sorry. What do you do?"
She answered, "I am a mortgage broker."
I had to turn away to keep from laughing out loud.
I did sell her $12 worth of motivational cards.
"Leap and the net will appear." Or, maybe it won't.
Minding my own business, I met a "developer" yesterday. Open shirt, gold chain, tan. He couldn't stop talking, kidding, and bragging. Had been putting up houses since 2002, so he's probably retired with a mil' in the bank. Asked me if I owned or rented, and I thought 'here comes the pitch.' But he said his taxes on real estate run around $30,000 and he would be better off renting a house!
The point is - here was a land speculator, a real goofball; but for all that, he was like-able.
ADP report just out: gain of 38,000 jobs, 60,000 if government jobs added in.
But but but wait! It was August and everyone was on vacation!
I recently traveled to Bulgaria again, now a new EU member bordering Turkey and Greece on the Black Sea. I was there last time in 2003 and the real estate fever was just beginning. At the time, just four years ago one could purchase a whole village for about $10k. The average monthly salary is $200. It's pretty much an ugly place full of soviet style apartment buildings in various states of dilapidation. There are some older buildings predating the iron curtain that look quite charming. Bulgaria is a small country with a population of about 7 million. Most young people have left Bulgaria and are working in other European countries, the US or on cruise ships. What’s left is a mix of older folks subsisting, illiterate young people and a bunch of gypsies. Now here comes the mind boggling incomprehensible story. Starting in 2004 the country is gripped in a real estate boom, fueled by English funds coming in and snatching up any apartment or piece of land. I remember looking at some crappy house in 2003 that was offered for about $25,000 a block away from the beach. I could not believe my eyes this year. Apartments on the beach were going for 300,000 Euros (over $400,000). In Bulgaria the US Dollar has already become a pariah, everything is priced in Euro (the local currency name is Lev) nobody will take the green back. This is a sign of things to come! British real Estate companies (limited liability of course) are flying British tourists down there to sell them condominiums for retirement guaranteeing that the condos will be rented and “pay for themselves”. My question is “Who will rent them?” Now the Bulgarians working overseas are getting into the bidding game being frightened that if they don’t buy now their home land will be priced out of reach when they want to return. Does that ring a bell? Let me see, average monthly salary $200 per month, no industry to speak of except cheap stingy tourism (1 beer with 2 glasses please), mafias, uses Russian alphabet so no western person can read a sign AND MIAMI CONDO PRICES???? This real estate boom is world wide. Next, luxury condos in Mogadishu and Kartum.
Hey Keith, your girlfriend wrote another piece you might like.
prices faqll 75 percent and still not be priced to standard loan rules of no more than 2.6 yearly wage... that if the average househo;d is 44,000 in wages and it takes two earners to keep average house hilde than its 22,000 per worker or houswe value at average 56,000... not the 200,000 + that these non concuring govt numbers say
+
+
"Yes, the housing bubble burst, the crash is here, mortgages are melting down, and it's O-V-E-R. Now we just deal with the mess."
This perfectly sums up this thread and entire blog. It's full of exaggerations ("melting down"), assumptions ("housing bubble burst") and future predictions from someone other than God ("O-V-E-R").
You people remind me of the wishful thinkers who declare a football game "over" in the second quarter, only to find the lead changed hands 5 more times. You're also about as one sided in your opinions as the people you attack -- Angelo Mozilo, David Lereah...
I find the articles cited highly amusing, but the commentary is about as intelligent as clucking chickens. If you don't see the logical flaws in your discussions, then you ARE one of the chickens. Get a life!
I find the articles cited highly amusing, but the commentary is about as intelligent as clucking chickens. If you don't see the logical flaws in your discussions, then you ARE one of the chickens. Get a life!
____
Give an example of a logically flawed post, why don't ya?
The housing crash is exposing an industry which has been based on big money investors and brokers makeing exorbantant commissions and big egos buying big mcmansions they can't afford. Essentially, housing is crashing because it's perputaters are only concerned about their greedy selves.
Good folks were convinced that a $500,000 mortgage would bring them riches. How ridiculous! Now we know it was all a lie and housing doesn't just go up!
Eli Broad and Hank Greenburg were willing to put up billions to save their rich hedge fund investors.
Meanwhile our public schools are falling apart. Our kids don't have computers on their desks at school with good learning programs. Out streets haven't been resurfaced in years and our hospitals are closing down for lack of funding. Nor do we have a safe rapid rail service going across America. Nor can we sufficiently protect ourselves from illegals coming across the border.
The trillions of dollars that will be lost due to this housing crash could have funded every one of the projects listed above.
I am pissed off about this and America needs to change its priorities.
I hope this housing crash will wake people up and result in a more humble America that recognizes that we as a country will not survive if we don't make our public schools, our hospitals, our parks, our utilities, our transportation systems our first priority.
Good luck to all!
From Bloomberg.
Commercial Real Estate in U.S. Poised for Price Drop (Update2)
By Hui-yong Yu and David M. Levitt
Sept. 5 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. commercial real estate prices may fall as much as 15 percent over the next year in the broadest decline since the 2001 recession as rising borrowing costs force property owners to accept less or postpone sales.
``People aren't willing to do deals right now,'' said Howard Michaels, the New York-based chairman of Carlton Advisory Services Inc., which has arranged financing for real estate purchases including the Lipstick Building in midtown Manhattan. ``The expectation is that prices will come down.''
Investors in July bought the fewest commercial properties since August 2006 and apartment building acquisitions were down 50 percent from June, data compiled by industry consultants at New York-based Real Capital Analytics Inc. show. Archstone-Smith Trust in August postponed its $13.5 billion sale to a group led by Tishman Speyer Properties LP until October. Mission West Properties Inc., the owner of commercial buildings in Silicon Valley, said on Aug. 13 that the company's $1.8 billion sale may fail after a bank withdrew funding.
``There are so many deals falling apart,'' said David Lichtenstein, chief executive officer of Lakewood, New Jersey- based Lightstone Group, an owner of more than 20,000 apartments and 30 million square feet of office and retail space. ``People who can get out are getting out.''
@rcochran
I thought I had ran you out of town with the rest of the iliterate renter forgots. How's it feel like to sit on that threadbare smelling sofa in your 1BR rental shit-hole while Blowfly is relaxing by the pool in the comfort of his own luxury home sweet home? All of you moron renters and HP imbeciles gather round 'cause Mr. Sweet Deek is back in town. There ain't no crash and it ain't no joke 'cause I'm gonna leave all of you jackass renters in the smoke.
All those Countrywide ARMs are based on LIBOR. This is bad news and getting worse!!! If you have a toxic ARM that is adjusting, walk or a run!!!!! And don't forget Tangilo is going to want that prepayment penalty which is generally 6 months of interest.
Sense of growing crisis over interbank deals
By Gillian Tett
Published: September 4 2007 21:34 | Last updated: September 4 2007 21:34
As bankers have returned to their desks this week after the summer break, they have been searching frantically for signs that the markets are gaining a semblance of calm after the August turmoil.
However, the money markets are notably failing to offer any reassurance. While the tone of equity markets has calmed, the sense of crisis in the interbank markets actually appears to be growing – especially in London.
In particular, the cost of borrowing funds in the three-month money markets – as illustrated by measures such as sterling Libor or Euribor – is continuing to rise, suggesting a frantic scramble for liquidity among financial groups.
This trend is deeply unnerving for policymakers and investors alike, not least because it is occurring even though the European Central Bank and the US Federal Reserve have taken repeated steps in recent weeks to calm down the money markets.
“What is happening right now suggests that the moves by the Fed and ECB just haven’t worked as we hoped,” admits one senior international policymaker.
Or as UniCredit analysts say: “The interbank lending business has broken down almost completely . . . it is a global phenonema and not restricted to just the euro and dollar markets.”
If this situation continues, it could potentially have very serious implications.
One of the most important functions of the money markets is to channel liquidity in the banking system to where it is most needed.
If these markets seize up for any lengthy period, there is a risk that individual institutions may discover they no longer have access to the funds they need.
This danger has already materialised for vehicles that depend on the asset-backed commercial paper sector – short-term notes backed by collateral such as mortgages.
In recent weeks, investors have increasingly refused to re-invest in this paper.
As Axel Weber, a member of the ECB council, admitted this weekend: “The institutions most affected currently are conduits and structured investment vehicles . . . Their ability to roll these short-term commercial papers is impaired by the events in the subprime segment of the US housing market.”
This problem is affecting the wider banking system because these vehicles are now tapping other sources of finance – mainly liquidity lines from banks.
It appears that the prospect of receiving new liquidity demands has prompted banks to rush to raise funds – and, above all, hoard any liquidity they hold.
The high demand from banks to secure liquidity for the next three months, coupled with their desire not to lend out what liquidity they have, has made it virtually impossible to execute trades – even at the official prices quoted for such borrowing.
That has created some extraordinary dislocations such as the fact that the cost of borrowing three-month money in the sterling Libor markets is now higher than borrowing six-month or 12-month money. “The system has just completely frozen up – everyone is hoarding,” says one bank treasurer. “The published Libor rates are a fiction.”
This situation could become increasingly dangerous in part because many other markets, such as swaps, are priced off the three-month Libor and Euribor rates. So the interbank freeze could have knock-on effects throughout the financial system.
A more pressing problem is the large volume of asset-backed commercial paper due to expire in coming weeks, which is set to increase the scramble for cash by the banks. “Money market stability needs to return as soon as possible,” says William Sels, of Dresdner Kleinwort. Jan Loeys, of JPMorgan, notes: “The longer it lasts, the greater the risk that the current liquidity crisis will worsen.”
The crucial uncertainty is what, if anything, policymakers can do to combat the sense of panic. Some observers hope the problems in the sterling market, at least, may dissipate when the current maintenance period at the Bank of England comes to an end.
Others, such as Mr Weber, have suggested that banks themselves need to raise more funds in the capital markets to meet liquidity calls. However, many private sector bankers, for their part, say that radical steps from the central bankers are needed to remove the sense of panic.
Whether the central bankers are willing or able to really help – in the UK or anywhere else – remains the great question.
People, there will be a housing bailout. Nobody cares that 70% of the country disapproves of a bailout. More people disapprove of the war in Iraq. Is Bush running to withdraw the troops? No. Bills passed by Congress and Bush are not a popularity contest. Bubble bloggers have ABSOLUTELY NO SAY in what will happen to the bailout. Most senators are old and probabaly do not even know what a blog is. Sen. Robert Byrd is 89 years old. Sen. Frank Lautenberg is 83 years old. I seriously doubt anyone past the age of 50 reads blogs, especially politicians.
Please, nobody answer "Blow Hard", and maybe he'll crawl back in his hole -- I mean "luxury" home, which probably means the refrigerator box is lined with newspaper.
Dude, your IQ is showing.
I thought this board was moderated? If anybody is noticing, this is what happens when the grade schools have internet access and the teacher isn't watching. Posts that are off topic, abusive, pointless, rambling, ...
Good bye, everyone. There must be intelligent discussions going on elsewhere.
TV...
Ryder truck rentals up 29%!
I cut this from another site
'I'm really counting my blessings that the two offers we DID make on houses last summer were $25k too low for the high flying sellers to even counter. If it wasn't so scary for what this will mean to the overall economy, I would feel like I won a $100k lottery.'
So since many of you didn't buy at all, and I bought way back in 98, are we that much wealthier than our show off friends? I feel we are. If you live in mommies basement and don't have a car payment and couldn't afford a house, you don't qualify. Those that could but didn't, I guess we won some sort of nontaxable looto....
Has anyone seen the trailer for this movie coming out about real estate agents. Perfect timing! Here is the link: http://www.apple.com/trailers/magnolia/closingescrow/trailer/
The movie is called Closing Escrow.
As far as a vote on a bailout, I vote twice:
I sold all mortgage bonds last winter, and will buy none any time soon.
I will vote against politicians that use tax dollars from my carefully invested dollars for a bailout.
Who cares about things like that?
http://tinyurl.com/2ufsbo
house payments falling again in texas.........
what?
this song might be appropriate...we might be looking in December back on September as a warm memory...enjoy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7nOkVz79Xw
p.s. - I met Jerry Orbach once. Really nice guy.
We stopped over the auction house in the neighboring county for the Tuesday night sale, had not been there in almost two years. I've known the guy and his wife for over thirty years so while catching up I asked, "How's business?” His answer: "Good and bad!"
The good part was that he was busy as hell. The bad part was twofold.
1. He is SO busy that he has to turn away customers, unheard of before! He told me that he has 6 complete households jammed into the barn and sheds out at his farm, with people calling everyday to get whole houses cleaned out on a couple days notice, which he just can't do! He tells me that the other auctioneers are in the county are in the same boat. "Deaths" I asked, "No, foreclosures" he replied!
Good grief, this isn't even a bubble area!
2. The auction house was jammed to the walls inside; with overflow outside, tons of nice quality stuff everywhere, but the attendance was maybe 30-40% of what it should have been. I couldn't believe how few people were there. And the prices, GOOD LORD, quality goods were going for next to nothing! What few people were there, WERE NOT parting with their money! Even my wife was starting to ask, "Why didn't you bid on that?" when a good item would come up. She knew I didn't need the item, but when the damn thing was going that dirt cheap compared to what I spent to get it new, it’s very hard to pass up getting another!
I can't wait to see how this plays out in the coming year with us just entering the slide. If you have got the money, it’s going to be great, AND CHEAP!
"Mitchell said...
"THEY PUT THEM UP, I TAKE THEM DOWN": "Here I am with 120 illegal ugly piece-of-trash signs I removed from telephone poles in Southeast Portland from May 13 to August 20 2007.""
Years ago, my father owned a vacant, grassy lot at an intersection around which grew up a large housing development. About once a month, I would drive over and remove all the various "For Sale" and homebuilder's advertisement signs that were illegally planted on daddy's property. Back then the signs were nice 3/4-inch steel angle iron and heavy sheet metal (steel or aluminum.) Great for bodywork, metalworking, hobbies, crafts, and all types of odd jobs and repairs.
God I miss the good ole days!
Telling the difference between the victims and the victimizers, the predators and the prey, and the fraudulent and the defrauded, is getting a lot harder when you have borrowers not required to make down payments able to lie about their incomes in order to buy a home the seller is overpricing in order to take an illegal kickback.
The lender is getting defrauded, but the lender is the one who offered the zero-down stated-income program, delegated the drawing up of the legal documents and the final disbursement of funds to a fee-for-service settlement agent, and didn't do enough due diligence on the appraisal to see the inflation of the value.
Legally, of course, there's a difference between lender as co-conspirator and lender as mark, utterly failing to exercise reasonable caution, but it's small comfort when the losses rack up.
http://www.portfolio.com/views/
blogs/market-movers/2007/09/04/
cash-out-refis--the-missing-actor
-in-the-subprime-drama
"#
#
People, there will be a housing bailout. Nobody cares that 70% of the country disapproves of a bailout. More people disapprove of the war in Iraq. Is Bush running to withdraw the troops? No. Bills passed by Congress and Bush are not a popularity contest. Bubble bloggers have ABSOLUTELY NO SAY in what will happen to the bailout. Most senators are old and probabaly do not even know what a blog is. Sen. Robert Byrd is 89 years old. Sen. Frank Lautenberg is 83 years old. I seriously doubt anyone past the age of 50 reads blogs, especially politicians.
"
youre probably right. However, a bailout will do just as much damage as just letting the maket correct itself. However it will hurt EVERYONE rather than the idiot homebuyers.
Beige Book Show No Need for Rate Cuts
http://www.rightsideadvisors.com/
feed/commentary.aspx?Path=
/rsa/commentary/blog/
20070905_144939_msg.html
If weekly Mortgage Application is an indication of the state of housing economy then a comparison from Aug 2007 to Aug 2006 shows that Aug 2007 is an improvement over Aug 2006.
(Seasonally Adjusted)
Market Index
Year_2007____Year_2006
615.2________556.5
641.1________561.5
678.7________561.2
656.5________553.3
Purchase Index
Year_2007____Year_2006
424.0________375.9
441.5________382.2
464.9________385.9
447.4________388.9
Refinance Index
Year_2007____Year_2006
1729.6_______1609.2
1806.3_______1608.5
1929.6_______1587.5
1881.1_______1518.1
Conventional Index
Year_2007____Year_2006
890.5________826.7
932.0________833.5
987.9________833.3
958.5________821.2
Gov Index
Year_2007____Year_2006
156.1________106.0
156.0________108.0
163.2________107.6
152.9________106.8
Homeowner said:
People, there will be a housing bailout. Nobody cares that 70% of the country disapproves of a bailout.
It does not matter what Congress does. If they do pass a bail out, a good lawyer will be able to challange it in court and have the act declared unconstitutional (based on equal protection under the law) and therefore Null and void.
Mozilo: "Poor, poor me!"
I had Mozilo as my google talk picture to see if anyone of my friends wanted to chat about the housing bubble.
Two people asked me why I had a black man as my face on google. I explained that he was unnaturally tan, he effectively built the townhouse we are living in, and that his work is going to bankrupt millions of people that aren't us.
>>>Anonymous said...
Homeowner said:
People, there will be a housing bailout. Nobody cares that 70% of the country disapproves of a bailout.
It does not matter what Congress does. If they do pass a bail out, a good lawyer will be able to challange it in court and have the act declared unconstitutional (based on equal protection under the law) and therefore Null and void.
September 06, 2007 10:42 AM <<<
it doesn't matter what they do. this is window dressing. this is for you to see. the real problem is the damn derivatives. do you not see this? 700 trillion dollars worth and counting.....now tell me they can bail out on that problem and i have some ocean front property in arizona i can sell you....the problem is out of their hands and is not fixable......this is the way it was planned and this is the way it is going to happen. there is nothing the federal government nor the fed can do about it now.....it is out of their collective hands and they understand this and they are prepared for it........the question is.........
are you?????
>>> BoredReader said...
"Yes, the housing bubble burst, the crash is here, mortgages are melting down, and it's O-V-E-R. Now we just deal with the mess."
This perfectly sums up this thread and entire blog. It's full of exaggerations ("melting down"), assumptions ("housing bubble burst") and future predictions from someone other than God ("O-V-E-R").
You people remind me of the wishful thinkers who declare a football game "over" in the second quarter, only to find the lead changed hands 5 more times. You're also about as one sided in your opinions as the people you attack -- Angelo Mozilo, David Lereah...
I find the articles cited highly amusing, but the commentary is about as intelligent as clucking chickens. If you don't see the logical flaws in your discussions, then you ARE one of the chickens. Get a life!
September 05, 2007 6:10 PM <<<
the problem is not the housing crash...that is just one of the symptoms......the problem is the damn derivatives that are bought and sold off of the books.....these 'assets' are not on the books....
is this clear? do you get it? no one knows how much. no one knows who has them and how much they have? no one knows much of anything about it because no one wants to admit that this is a very large problem that cannot be solved. they do not want to admit that they are holding worthless pieces of paper that have a value that they themselves have arbitrarily set. now these pieces of paper are becoming worthless. and the money? the money is long gone. just like in the savings and loan fiasco...
except this time the government cannot come riding to the rescue. how much money do we have to print up in order to cover 700 trillion in bad derivatives?
I'm surprised that no one has posted about the Massive Countrywide layoffs yesterday. Maybe it's on another thread on there, if so I apologize for the duplicate.
http://www.thetruthaboutmortgage.com/major-layoffs-reported-at-countrywide/
@rcochran
I thought I had ran you out of town with the rest of the iliterate renter forgots. How's it feel like to sit on that threadbare smelling sofa in your 1BR rental shit-hole while Blowfly is relaxing by the pool in the comfort of his own luxury home sweet home? All of you moron renters and HP imbeciles gather round 'cause Mr. Sweet Deek is back in town. There ain't no crash and it ain't no joke 'cause I'm gonna leave all of you jackass renters in the smoke.
I DID rent, I own now, dumbass.
For your info, I run very profitable and fully automatic (computerized) operations in the world's largest and most liquid financial market - FOREX.
There is nothing, nothing AT ALL, you or anyone else on this silly blog can tell me about making money out of money.
I have to laugh at the renters AND the homeowners -- punters and poseurs all -- on this blog.
Ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaaa!!!
I DID rent, I own now, dumbass.
For your info, I run very profitable and fully automatic (computerized) operations in the world's largest and most liquid financial market - FOREX.
Forex? You can't even spell right. XXXX (4X) is a beer from Queensland. Maybe you had one or two too many? Apparently you are a senior citizen that has purchased an imbecile computer program "Currency Trading For Dummies". I guess that's what you gotta do when your realtwhore income has dried up. Also, I did not know that you could own in an assisted living community. So keep on laughing moron.
Kieth:
Not sure if u caught it or made the link, but I guess that the stock and home markets are now set to tank drastically cause, u know, they lowered the price on Iphones. Where ya at DOPES.
Construction unemployment. No problem!
http://tinyurl.com/2c2kjn
I like the comments about how nobody will influence the coming bailout.
A VERY SIMILAR argument as to how NOBODY will influence ANYTHING about our government. A more cynical person might think our system has seen it's day. ;)
I am back vacation was great much better than working any day.
Here comes the mark to market.Hovnanian Enterprises Inc
To try to boost sales, the company is offering a nationwide three-day sale beginning Sept. 14. Hovnanian will offer deep discounts in each of its 449 communities.
http://tinyurl.com/2udo27
Man that is going to hurt when they reset the price for everyone. It is only a week away! I am not sure they will be able to mark to market the price. If they do not sell any houses what is the price then?
This whole thing reminds me of a bar I would go to during college. The way the scam worked was everyone paid $20 to get in and beer was free until someone went to the bathroom and then the free beer ended for everyone. You also could not come back in after you had left. It was rather a wild scene as they passed out pitchers rather than beer mugs it was just much easier on the poor bartenders. It was funny at the end people would be begging other not to go to the bathroom. Then it would reach a tiping point and then there would be a mad rush to hit the head. Good times.
.
Oh S.O.B., I think I just lost my ASS in Gold..........No, Wait, I scored!
Got Gold?
TRUE STORY - The Former Owner Of One Of Long Island New York's Biggest Sub Prime Mortgage Bank Is Selling Off Season Tickets To The Mets, Yankees and US Tennis Open et al because - the guy is broke! (a couple of benz's and rolexs too I guess)
Gold is stabbing above $700 per ounce again.
IN YER FACE to all you imbeciles who said gold would drop below $500 before it saw $700 again.
You are economically ignorant punters, poseurs and morons.
Where are these bozos now?
The 4,000 jobs cut in August are from both private and government employers. The government actually cut 28,000 jobs, while all private employers added 24,000.
But.... I thought..... DC was different!
Ohio foreclosures, late mortgage payments worst in U.S.
from the Plain Dealer:
"More than one in four Ohio borrowers with subprime (high rate) loans is delinquent or in foreclosure. Ohio's 28 percent rate compares with a U.S. rate of 20 percent.
About one in 12 Ohio borrowers with an adjustable-rate prime mortgage is delinquent or in foreclosure. Ohio's 8.2 percent rate compares to a U.S. rate of 5 percent.
A whopping 37 percent of Ohio borrowers with an adjustable-rate subprime mortgage are delinquent or in foreclosure. That compares with a U.S. rate of 25 percent."
http://tinyurl.com/27286l
We're number 1! BWA HA HA! Take that, Detroit!
I need some advice. I inherited 6 kilogram gold bars from my father RIP. I think that gold is going to go down big time in the next 3 months after having such a run up. I want to invest in something more tangible. I heard that in Florida the market has bottomed out and you can buy condos at very cheap prices. Does anyone have any tips into which buildings to invest?
David Crisp (aka Casey Serin South) update
IMB halted!
IndyMac halted!
ruh-roh
The New York Stock Exchange on Friday halted trading in shares of the ninth-largest U.S. mortgage lender IndyMac Bancorp Inc
On Nightline last night, Jeff Lewis a flipper from the Bravo show called "flipping Out" who calls himself "spoiled" says -
'The Market Will Come Back'
"I think in the last eight years, we've been riding the wave. And we've been making money hand over fist and it's changed," he said. "And I will have to tighten up the budgets and I will have to stick to my numbers and people are not going to be making the kind of money they were before. Because if I'm taking a pay cut … they will have to as well. And if they won't, I'm going to have to hire new people."
Lewis said that even in an uncertain market, it's still a great time to buy real estate. "So long as you are holding it long term, and I don't even mean 20 years. Three, five, seven years I think is fine. I think that the market will come back."
Uhmmm, thats why he's going to find out soon RE doesnt always go up, especially when lending standards have tightened...
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=3566840&page=1
This article describes the impact of the mortgage crisis on car sales in San Diego, as well as nationally. Worth a read. Here's a tease:
Wholesaler Kaul says that the shrinkage in the auto industry means less business for him. Not long ago, he says, he was selling 300 to 400 wholesale cars each month to local dealerships, he said. These days, his sales are down to 30 or 40 per month.
Like Welch, he lays part of the blame on the real esate market.
“Some people say the collapse in real estate market will be isolated or contained,” he said. “But we're in for a real awakening and facing the reality of the insidiousness of debt. People were using equity in their homes to pay for a new Hummer or down payment on an SUV. It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out.”
I need some advice. I inherited 6 kilogram gold bars from my father RIP. I think that gold is going to go down big time in the next 3 months after having such a run up. I want to invest in something more tangible. I heard that in Florida the market has bottomed out and you can buy condos at very cheap prices. Does anyone have any tips into which buildings to invest?
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HAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAH ;;;;WIPES TEARS;;;;;
HAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA
ps, sorry your Dad passed, though.
I need some advice. I inherited 6 kilogram gold bars from my father RIP. I think that gold is going to go down big time in the next 3 months after having such a run up. I want to invest in something more tangible. I heard that in Florida the market has bottomed out and you can buy condos at very cheap prices. Does anyone have any tips into which buildings to invest?
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Ha ha! Very funny!
I think you know the answer.
U.S. employers eliminated 4,000 jobs in August, compared with a revised increase of 68,000 the previous month, the Labor Department said.
So we lost 4000 jobs this month but data show we had an increase of 68,000.
The way these job numbers get counted it probably going to get revised upward next month.
Everyone knows that for the past 6 months the job report came in low and quietly got revised upward.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/
news?pid=20601087&sid=
aSykiTIka1gE&refer=home
The government actually cut 28,000 jobs, while all private employers added 24,000.
The government who over hired in the past 5 years are laying off.
That nothing to get over excited about.
http://www.mercurynews.com/
breakingnews/ci_6827871
Change in Average Hourly Earnings
is higher then average according to BLS for the month of August.
http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/
SurveyOutputServlet?data_tool=
latest_numbers&series_id=
CES0500000008&output_view=net_1mth
US Dollar down again
Last trade 79.923 Change -0.536 (-0.67%)
http://quotes.ino.com/
chart/?s=NYBOT_DX
Looks like Speculators and Hedge Funds are using the US job report to take profit again.
USD to JPY 113.40 ¥
http://finance.yahoo.com/
q/bc?s=USDJPY=X&t=1d
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