Housing

Jamie Dimon tells it like it is. When asked by CNBC's Erin Burnett's how business is going, Dimon replied "terrible." Here's how Reuters describes his comments: "November itself has been a terrible trading month ... (and) December so far is…

FT Alphaville is reporting that Martinsa Fadesa, the bankrupt Spanish property developer, has seen the value of its drop 30% this year alone. Spain has largely slipped from view as the credit crisis has reached global dimensions. However,…

Marshall here. Slowly but surely, the Treasury is beginning to move more aggressively on providing help to homeowners, as opposed to bankers. This makes sense: A financial meltdown and housing deflation cannot be cured simply by pumping…

Quite a punchy speech from the Fed Chairman, especially the conclusion, which suggests big support ahead for housing: In this regard, reducing the number of preventable foreclosures would not only help families stay in their homes, it…

Marshall here, as Ed is busy sunning himself in the Bahamas, whilst I am stuck in snowy Denver! It sounds as if JMP Securities has also read the California report that I discussed recently. This is the first outside source that I have…

The Treasury Department is considering a plan to halt the slide in home prices that would lower mortgage rates using Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The plan could reduce rates for newly issued loans to as low as 4.5%. Slowly, but surely, the…

Below is a chart of variable rate loan applications as per cent of total. This can be looked at from a contrary opinion point of view, that is people are afraid of variable rate loans after they got burned on the upside in the last…

I don’t understand the lack of imagination in DC. All the politicians have to do is tell the banks to lower their variable rate mortgage loans on the books to 4% right now, today or else and it is like $600-$750 billion of stimulus. With…

Today the Nationwide released their monthly UK-wide figures on house prices and the numbers were better. House prices fell 0.4% in the last month, bringing the annual fall to 13.9%, down from 14.6% in October. Nevertheless, this is the…

The S&P/Case-Shiller® Home Price Indices were released yesterday. Unfortunately, I was away all day and could not post. The indices showed a further decline in home prices in the United States through September 2008 (the data most…