City of Minneapolis Fees Exacerbate Housing Woes It might be misplaced, but I always feel a twinge of sympathy whenever I see a broken-down car on the side of the road with a ticket on the windshield. Yes, the owner should have maintained their car, and no, they shouldn’t have abandoned it on the side...Read More
Market Firms Up . . . A Bit In his e-mail to realtors this week, the CEO of the local board of realtors notes a significant drop in the number of new listings: The signs are early and nascent, but there are some promising early indicators that the Twin Cities housing market is beginning to...Read More
Banks Now Holding — Not Selling — Mortgages They Originate Chefs that eat their own cooking tend to gain weight. So do banks.According to the Federal Reserve, total assets at U.S. commercial banks swelled to more than $11 trillion in early April, up from $10 trillion a year ago. Last month, the growth rate of...Read More
Does Identity of Lender Matter to Borrowers?In markets where housing has fallen the most — Miami, Las Vegas, San Diego, etc. — many borrowers who are “upside down” on their homes (they owe more than the home is worth) apparently are behaving differently this downturn than previous ones. A generation ago, beleaguered borrowers did whatever...Read More
Calling the Housing Market Bottom, ContinuedLegend has it that Joseph Kennedy (father of President John F., and the first SEC Commissioner) bailed out of the stock market just before the 1929 crash because of something his shoeshine told him. Specifically, the shoeshine had discovered stocks, and was blithely sharing his latest “can’t-miss” picks with Kennedy....Read More
Securitization Pipeline Still Clogged Buried in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal — the significant news always is — was a stunning tidbit about the state of the securitization market (insecuritization market?). According to the Journal, securitizations of home loans totaled $19 billion in March, compared with $218.6 billion in March 2007 (“The Bank Loan Haircut,” WSJ;...Read More
