mortgages

The central banks in Sweden and Germany are concerned about overheating economies as the European sovereign debt crisis has led to a net inflow of investment into their housing sectors. If one looks at European economic policy, these…

One could argue that home-buyers are ignoring higher rates, but that doesn't seem likely. Is this spike driven by capitulating buyers who had been waiting on the sidelines for mortgage rates to drop? That strategy had certainly worked in…

This is crazy. John Carney tells us that not only are homes now growing increasingly less affordable, but the psychology of the US housing market is changing to one of the fear of being priced out. Frankly, I can't believe we are here…

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…

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.

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.