The New York Times has an article about the woes at the FHA which has enough omissions of relevant history so as to render it misleading at points. Mind you, the main message of the story is sound, namely, that the FHA, long a mainstay of lower-income housing, is suffering increasing losses, because it has […]
Read more...There has been a peculiar disconnect between the “the crisis is over, on with the recovery” drumbeat of news, and the sobering reality that a good deal of credit bubble overhang still remains to be dealt with. One of the biggest areas is commercial real estate. Various experts, including Apollo Management’s Leon Black warned of […]
Read more...The Wall Street Journal provides a short update on the weak conditions in the apartment rental market. Vacancies have just hit a 23 year high, and experts expect them to increase. The story, however, is largely silent on the implications for the housing market are concerned. Some have argued that the housing market is stabilizing, […]
Read more...The media seems curiously indifferent to the continued and deserved anger of the public regarding bank bailouts. Of course, the fundamental problem is that we were sold a bill of goods. The money was clearly going to fill existing black holes in financial firms’ balance sheets. That would have been a legitimate use of taxpayer […]
Read more...The following is a submission by reader Kalpa who writes Financial News Express. While traveling this past weekend, I picked up a real estate booklet in the charming middle-of-the-U.S.A. town which I found myself in. Most interesting was the inside cover page note to prospective home buyers: First–time homebuyers who would otherwise qualify for the […]
Read more...Reader Scott pointed out this BankImplode story, “Exclusive – Wells Fargo’s Commercial Portfolio is a ticking time bomb.” I can’t verify it, but it sounded plausible and contained some juicy details: Wachovia, which Wells purchased last fall as it teetered on the brink of collapse, was so desperate to increase revenue in the last few […]
Read more...Let’s see, Leon Black of Apollo Management, which is a very savvy real estate player, warned of a coming “black hole” in commercial real estate six months ago. US bank regulators seem to be taking warnings of his sort seriously only now. The Fed is poking its nose into the portfolios of some banks, oddly […]
Read more...By Thomas Adams, at Paykin Krieg and Adams, LLP Denial Was Rampant in the Buildup to the Financial Crisis. Arguments that Lehman Should Have Been Bailed Out Show that Denial Continues Today While this week marks the first anniversary of the shocking collapse of Lehman Brothers, it is also the second anniversary of the events […]
Read more...The New York Times has a story tonight, “Judges’ Frustration Grows With Mortgage Servicers,” which narrowly speaking, is not bad, but illustrates a frustrating propensity of the budget and time constrained MSM to fail to dig into the meaty issues behind its articles. The piece is yet another sighting in the Servicers Behaving Badly saga. […]
Read more...Fitch released an analysis that shows that mortgage cure rates, meaning the proportion of borrowers who manage to get current once they fall behind, have tanked. From the Wall Street Journal: The report from Fitch Ratings Ltd., a credit-rating firm, focuses on a plunge in the “cure rate” for mortgages that were packaged into securities. […]
Read more...I don’t believe in market calls, and trying to time turns is a perilous game. But most savvy people I know have been skeptical of this rally, beyond the initial strong bounce off the bottom. It has not had the characteristics of a bull market. Volumes have been underwhelming, no new leadership group has emerged, […]
Read more...Frank Veneroso was kind enough to write as a result of seeing a guest post “Debtor’s Revolt?” by his colleague Marshall Auerback. Veneroso also provided his latest newsletter and gave us permission to post it. It it pretty long (12 pages), I extracted the executive summary and other key bits. Be sure to read the […]
Read more...The Treasury Department seems to be a wits’ end on several front. The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Geithner said bad words to banking regulators to try to bring them to heel. A few weeks ago, Geithner also had a chat with bank executives about their failure to do much in the way of […]
Read more...A new dynamic appears to be emerging on the housing front. Heretofore, foreclosures were strongly correlated with where the mania had been most acute. California, Florida, and Arizona in particular showed dramatic declines in prices. But now as those markets have corrected to a considerable degree, foreclosure activity is now starting to be a function […]
Read more...We’ve been told that one of the reasons China is allegedly faring less badly than might be expected, given than big creditors tend to take it on the chin worse in global crises than debtors, who can simply default, is that its economy was actually more reliant on domestic capital spending than exports as a […]
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