Category Archives: housing

Do Covered Bonds Have a Government Guarantee?

Steve Waldman reckons he’s worked out what the problem is with covered bonds: A covered bond offered by Citi or Bank of America would only default if a titan collapsed. Investors might reasonably believe that would not be permitted to … Continue reading

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House Prices: Bad, but Abating

Wow, those house prices are looking dreadful, aren’t they. Check out the headline on the front page of nytimes.com: "Home Price Index Down 15.8% in May" is the story. And the official press release from Case-Shiller is also very alarming: … Continue reading

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Is Your Bank Your Mortgage Lender?

Anthony Bianco on Ken Lewis: As lending volume exploded, the issue of whether B of A should jump back into the subprime game sparked fierce internal debate. Customers by the millions were going elsewhere for mortgages and taking their banking … Continue reading

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Angelo Mozilo’s VIPs

Dan Golden’s full 5,500-word cover story on the VIP loans given by Countrywide to "Friends of Angelo" is now online. He leads with the most damning of the cases: that of Richard Aldrich, a California state appeals court judge. Aldrich … Continue reading

Posted in housing, Politics | 1 Comment

To Walk Away or Not?

I got an email this morning from a reader who will, for obvious reasons, remain anonymous: Let me give you a brief history and see if you have some advice from me. I am a physician who bought an investment … Continue reading

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Plan B: Nationalization

Amazingly, the Paulson statement seems to have worked! Stock indices are in not-down territory, the dollar is up, Fannie’s up 10% in early trade, and even Freddie’s up 27 cents. Even if the stocks are trading wholly on option value, … Continue reading

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Parsing Paulson: The Fannie and Freddie Bailout

Hank Paulson is a tough guy. He’s no pushover: just look at that phone call to Jamie Dimon, telling him that anything over $2 a share was altogether far too much money to pay for Bear Stearns. So what are … Continue reading

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Saving Fannie and Freddie

The WSJ’s front page this morning features an important-sounding 1,500-word article on contingency plans for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, recapitulating Katie Benner’s article in Fortune yesterday. What would the government do if the companies ran into trouble? What could … Continue reading

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Manhattan Housing Datapoint of the Day

My latest column at Spectator Business is up online: New York, one would think, is being hit by a double whammy: monster job losses on Wall Street, combined with the deepest nationwide housing recession since the Great Depression. Given that … Continue reading

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Housing Market Paradox of the Day

UK house sales: down 50%, year-on-year. UK house prices: up 1.8%, with London prices up 6.9%. SAR: "Please explain". Not easy. Call it the upside of seller denial. In a down market, some homes will be sold even if nobody … Continue reading

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Countrywide: California Piles On

Well, that didn’t take long. California attorney general Jerry Brown (yes, that Jerry Brown) has now joined Illinois in deciding to sue Countrywide. Brown’s rhetorical powers have not deserted him: “Countrywide exploited the American dream of homeownership and then sold … Continue reading

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Illinois-Countrywide: Potentially Devastating

I’m a huge fan of Tanta, but I think she’s either being far too dismissive of Illinois attorney general Lisa Madigan’s lawsuit against Countrywide, or else she’s being faux-naive. This case is a very big deal for Angelo Mozilo, for … Continue reading

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No-Money-Down Mortgages: Still Not Dead

Nick Timiraos has an important front-page WSJ article today on the reappearance of no-money-down mortgages. At 1,500 words, it’s far too long – Robert Thomson clearly has a ways yet to go before he achieves the Murdoch dream of short … Continue reading

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Can a $100 Million Home be an Investment?

Donald Trump’s Palm Beach mansion has been sold for $100 million to "little-known Russian fertilizer billionaire, Dmitry Rybolovlev": "This acquisition is simply an investment in real estate by one of the companies in which I have an interest," Mr. Rybolovlev … Continue reading

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House Price Implosion Datapoints of the Day

Courtesy Michelle Leder: City State Original listing price Current price Drop Coral Gables Florida $663,000 $305,900 54% Orlando Florida $294,000 $89,000 70% Palm Beach Gardens Florida $619,000 $242,000 61% Sarasota Florida $755,000 $184,000 76% Antelope California $1,290,000 $213,000 83% Oh, … Continue reading

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Lies, Damn Lies, and Median House Prices

A commenter named "Unsympathetic" makes a good point in my blog entry on Berkeley vs Oakland house prices. Yes, median Berkeley house prices are rising. But it’s entirely possible for that to happen even if every single house in Berkeley … Continue reading

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Chart of the Day: Oakland vs Berkeley Housing

Mike Simonsen shows us what’s been happening over the past year to house prices in Oakland and Berkeley: He puts forward a number of theories why this might be the case, but I think there’s one overarching reason: Berkeley, like … Continue reading

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WaMu’s Atrocious Mortgage Servicing

You know that if you’re running into problems with your mortgage you should contact your servicer, right? Well, best hope your servicer isn’t WaMu. Over the past six months I have been disconnected more times than I can count while … Continue reading

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A New Housing ETF From Robert Shiller

Up until now, Robert Shiller has been spectacularly unsuccessful in (a) finding ways for investors to short the housing market, and (b) designing ETFs. So, naturally, he’s now trying to do both at once! Matthew Hougan explains the idea – … Continue reading

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Countrywide VIPs: In the Senate and Beyond

Portfolio’s Daniel Golden has a potentially explosive story today: the Friends of Angelo, who received discounted VIP Countrywide loans, included a lot of very senior politicians, not just former Obama advisor James Johnson. Among them: Chris Dodd, Kent Conrad, Alphonso … Continue reading

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Want a Cheaper Mortgage? Talk to People!

Harvard’s Cassi Pittman has written a heartbreaking paper detailing the results of a series of interviews with black homebuyers in Atlanta. It turns out that if you want to know whether someone’s likely to have taken out an unsuitable or … Continue reading

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Marking to Last Year’s Market, Charity Ball Edition

In the very first issue of Portfolio, last year, Tom Wolfe reported on the annual charity ball held by the Robin Hood foundation. After listing the excesses of the auction (ten "power meals" for $650,000; a "five-day “Surf and Sun” … Continue reading

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David Leonhardt Buys a House

Many congratulations to David Leonhardt, who has just bought a house in Washington. Leonhardt is the person behind the NYT’s truly wonderful rent vs buy calculator, which should be the first stop of call on the internet for anybody thinking … Continue reading

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Commercial Real Estate Datapoint of the Day

In April last year, the New York Observer declared the GM Building to be "the most valuable building in the world," and quoted Scott Latham of Cushman & Wakefield as saying it was worth more than $4 billion. Today, the … Continue reading

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Mark-to-Model Datapoint of the Day

The gimlet-eyed SAR found this gem in a Bloomberg story from Friday: Potential homeowners approved by [Fannie Mae’s] automated computer program will be able to borrow up to 97 percent of the value of the property, the company said… The … Continue reading

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