Housing

We've had a great deal of movement in the NAR US Housing Affordability Index recently. The index is meant to measure homebuyers' ability to finance house purchases and given some recent events, it's worth taking a look at what the index is…

Something highly unusual is happening in the mortgage market however. Recently jumbo mortgage rates have been lower than conforming rates. This is one of those market dislocations that most would have never thought possible. Yet here we…

Yesterday, we learned that the Case-Shiller Housing Index is up 12.1% through June. In response, Robert Shiller said "housing is a market with momentum" and he believes that the momentum is up. Let's remember that the Case-Shiller Index is…

Osborne's behaviour both angers and frightens me. He is playing brinkmanship with the UK economy to achieve political ends. Nothing he does makes much sense from an economic point of view - which is why the flagship Help to Buy scheme has…

Fred Sheehan provides a compilation of articles and quotes suggesting that the solution to the mortgage problems in the United States bears a striking resemblance to the policies which led to those mortgage problems in the first place.

Economists and the markets have been cheering the jump in housing prices and improving construction statistics. But for many Americans rising demand and higher house prices bring more bad news.

I thought this chart was a good one. It shows how quickly house prices have recovered in a number of markets. WHile DC and LA are the areas where the Case-Shiller index is at its highest, over the last year, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Phoenix and…

This note comes via New Economic Perspectives in response to Bill Black's article The housing appraisers warned us about the crisis but we didn’t listen that appeared here.

The appraisers’ petition began in 2000 and was public. When the regulators and prosecutors did nothing in response to the appraisers’ warning the appraisers delivered it to government officials to ensure that no one could say they were not…

Banks appear not to have heard the old Wall Street saying, “A position is a trade that didn’t work out.” I suspect they are going to be long their REO for a more protracted period than they anticipate. Stay tuned.