"Stuck with bulging inventories of homes, builders might offer packages of special financing, price concessions, lower down payments and perhaps application guarantees.
If you'd love to purchase a new house but you're sitting on the fence, what exactly would it take to get you to buy? Mortgage rates lower than today's 5% range? Smaller down payments? Below-market value pricing? Special amenity packages? Or a big tax credit?
" (2009-2-1)
February 4, 2009
What would it take to get home buyers off the fence?
Vondie Curtis-Hall drops price of Hollywood Hills house to $2,295,000
"HOT PROPERTY
You've seen his face all over TV for years, now won't you please go see the man's house? Actor Vondie Curtis-Hall and his wife, Kasi Lemmons , just dropped the price on their Hollywood Hills home by 21% -- from $2,899,000 to $2,295,000.
" (2009-1-31)
February 1, 2009
What will it to take to get you to buy a house?
"If you'd love to purchase a new house but you're sitting on the fence, what exactly would it take to get you to buy? Mortgage rates lower than 5 percent? Smaller down payments? Below-market value pricing? Special amenity packages? Or a big tax credit? What's...
" (2009-2-1)
Beck can't get rid of Malibu mansion
"Perpetually touring performer Beck has lowered the price on his Malibu beach house a smidgen to pique interest. Old price: $2,399,000. New price: $2,345,000. Hey, we did say a smidgen. It's his second home, and his schedule hasn't allowed much use of it. The...
" (2009-2-1)
The home you save could be your own
"A growing number of American homeowners in foreclosure are representing themselves as what are called pro se – a Latin phrase meaning “for oneself” -- litigants in court proceedings. Msnbc.com's Mike Stuckey explains why." (2009-1-28)
Fed moves to help distressed homeowners
"With home foreclosures spiking, the Federal Reserve is taking steps to try to keep some distressed borrowers in their homes." (2009-1-28)
Home prices drop by record pace in Nov.
"Home prices plunged a record 18.2 percent in November from a year earlier as the country’s housing market remains in the throes of a deep recession." (2009-1-27)
Fight building over judges redoing mortgages
"Most congressional Democrats say the quickest way to save homeowners like Troy Butler of Saginaw, Mich., is to let them declare bankruptcy and allow judges to dictate new mortgage terms." (2009-1-26)
Wild-animal spirits
"Why is finance so unstable?WHEN people look back on a bubble, they tend to blame the mess on crookery, greed and the collective insanity of others. What else but madness could explain all those overpriced Dutch tulips? With hindsight, today’s mortgage disaster seems ridiculously simple. Wasn’t it the fault of barely legal mortgage underwriting, overpaid investment bankers and the intoxication of easy credit? Yet there is an element of the madhouse in that explanation too. Cupidity, fraud and delusion were obviously part of the great bust. But if they are the chief causes of bubbles—which have repeatedly plagued Western finance since its origins in the Italian Renaissance—you have to suppose that civilisation is beset by naivety and manic depression.In fact, observes Abhijit Banerjee, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a little irrationality goes a long way. When reasonable, self-interested people trade with each other, optimism tends to breed optimism—until it subsides into corrosive pessimism. In the words of Willem Buiter, of the London School of Economics, “finance is a scary, inherently unstable, essential activity.” ..." (2009-1-22)
Foreclosures increased 81 percent last year
"More than 2.3 million American homeowners faced foreclosure proceedings last year, an 81 percent increase from 2007, with the worst yet to come." (2009-1-15)
Congress takes up foreclosure relief plans
"Congress and the Obama administration are working on a variety of measures to try to slow the pace of home foreclosures. But the problem has been stubbornly resistant to quick fixes." (2009-1-14)
Bankruptcy system takes on the mortgage mess
"Aiming to keep overextended borrowers in their homes, judges and trustees in the federal bankruptcy court system have helped set up a service intended to speed the modification of troubled mortgages." (2009-1-14)
Fannie Mae won’t evict renters in foreclosures
"Mortgage finance company Fannie Mae said Tuesday it has adopted a policy allowing renters to remain in their homes even if their landlord enters foreclosure." (2009-1-14)
Citi agrees to let judges alter mortgages
"A trio of Democratic senators say they have reached a deal with Citigroup Inc. on a plan to let bankruptcy judges alter home loans in an effort to prevent foreclosures." (2009-1-9)
Foreclosure suspensions extended through Jan.
"Mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will extend the suspension of foreclosure sales and evictions from single-family homes through the end of January." (2009-1-8)
Manhattan luxury housing feeling the pinch
"In what seemed like a New York-minute, prices of luxury homes in Manhattan are suddenly falling." (2009-1-6)
Green building stalls amid lower prices
"Homebuilders slapped on solar panels and added other eco-friendly enhancements as energy prices soared earlier this year, hoping greener homes would lure reluctant buyers." (2008-12-28)
Advice for renters if landlord faces foreclosure
"You're paying your bills, but your landlord isn't. This is becoming an all too familiar scenario for thousands of renters who have become the unintended victims of foreclosures." (2008-12-26)
Home prices plunge as sales slow sharply
"Sales of new and existing homes plummeted in November, as buyers stayed out of the market amid the growing financial crisis and deepening recession." (2008-12-23)
Mortgage re-defaults up; no sign of slowing
"The rate of home mortgage borrowers defaulting after their loans are modified is rising and shows no signs of leveling off, U.S. banking regulators said on Monday." (2008-12-22)
Economics focus: Banks need more capital
"In a guest article, Alan Greenspan says banks will need much thicker capital cushions than they had before the bustGLOBAL financial intermediation is broken. That intricate and interdependent system directing the world’s saving into productive capital investment was severely weakened in August 2007. The disclosure that highly leveraged financial institutions were holding toxic securitised American subprime mortgages shocked market participants. For a year, banks struggled to respond to investor demands for larger capital cushions. But the effort fell short and in the wake of the Lehman Brothers default on September 15th 2008, the system cracked. Banks, fearful of their own solvency, all but stopped lending. Issuance of corporate bonds, commercial paper and a wide variety of other financial products largely ceased. Credit-financed economic activity was brought to a virtual standstill. The world faced a major financial crisis.For decades, holders of the liabilities of banks in the United States had felt secure with the protection of a modest equity-capital cushion, allowing banks to lend freely. As recently as the summer of 2006, with average book capital at 10%, a federal agency noted that “more than 99% of all insured institutions met or exceeded the requirements of the highest regulatory capital standards.” ..." (2008-12-18)
Economics focus: The teetotallers' hangover
"High saving and low private-sector debt have not shielded Germany and Japan from recession PAUL KRUGMAN, the winner of this year’s Nobel prize in economics, put his finger on something in the 1990s when he identified, and then ridiculed, the notion that a slump is a “necessary punishment” for the excesses of the boom that went before it. The popular idea of recession as purgative—the hangover following an ill-judged binge—has a strong and enduring emotional appeal. It allows distressed consumers in America and Britain, countries with a shared weakness for untrammelled spending and reckless borrowing, to make sense of the unfolding crisis. Recession, they reason, must be a penance for past profligacy. However, such logic is of little use in Germany and Japan, two big and rich countries that did not succumb to the boom’s vices, but are nevertheless facing nasty recessions. Each avoided the credit expansion, consumer frenzy, house-price bubbles and trade deficits indulged in by many of their peers. Both went into the downturn less burdened by private-sector debt and with hefty current-account surpluses (see left-hand chart). Yet prudence has not spared them: both economies contracted in the second and third quarters, and seem set for a further retreat in the current one. The OECD forecasts that Japan’s economy will grow by just 0.5% this year, and will shrink by 0.1% in 2009. It thinks GDP in Germany will fall by 0.8% next year. ..." (2008-12-4)
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