Housing Doom Housing Bubble Blog

A nation that forgets its past is doomed to repeat it. - Churchill

May 3rd, 2007

DoomWatch: Fannie Files 2005 10-K - CFO Hand-off Sounds Good

Wednesday saw Fannie Mae file its 10-K financial statement for 2005. This was accompanied by a blizzard of information that will take a while to digest. The headline story was that CFO Bob Blakely would be replaced at the end of this year by Stephen Swad, who was CFO of AOL. Blakely and Swad make a pretty convincing case on the conference call that they know what they’re doing, and sound confident that Fannie will be a "timely filer" as of next March 15th. I think Rep Baker [8] is wrong to think the Blakely situation is comparable to yesterday’s announcement that Freddie COO McQuade was leaving.

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May 3rd, 2007

Phoenix Realtors- No More “Adjusting” Days-on-Market

Ah the wonderful and controversial world of "relisting."  In a BusinessWeek article by Peter Coy last January, he described how Everything Old is New Again:

"Everything Old Is New Again" isn’t just a song; it’s a real-estate sales strategy. When properties sit on the market too long and get stale, some agents yank them briefly, then put them back on the market. [Relisting] Depending on the jurisdiction, this gets them to pop up on the "hot sheets" of new listings that are seen by agents and, in some cases, by the buying public.

Relisting isn’t the only way to achieve a less-than-accurate days-on-market. [DOM]  At least in the Phoenix area, with a little "creative" data entry, realtors have been able to fool the MLS- not any more.  In an announcement this week from the Arizona Multiple Listing Service (ARMLS) it stated: [Hat tip M]

Days on market (CDOM and ADOM) continues to be the number one listing violation. Many Agents intentionally enter incorrect data to fool the days on market calculations so their listing will zero out the cumulative days on market. Some of these errors are unintentional, due to a typo; however, whether intentional or unintentional, a days on market violation can cost you a $200 fine per listing.

To help reduce the violations due to intentionally entering false data, the ARMLS Board of Directors has voted to introduce a days on market lockdown. This will occur on May 8, 2007. This means that all the fields used to calculate days on market will no longer be editable. What you enter when you add a new listing must be accurate as you cannot revise the address fields, lot number, map/grid codes or assessor’s number after you save the listing as active.

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