Housing Doom Housing Bubble Blog

Originally posted at "Bill Maloni’s GSE Blog" on Wednesday August 15, 2007.

—————————-

Karl Rove soon will be gone, but you almost could hear him pulling “W’s” strings last week, when the President told a press conference questioner that the Administration didn’t support granting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac portfolio investment cap flexibility.

President Bush did not say it this way, but under Karl’s tutelage and the President’s renowned syntax, he easily could have said:

"My Administration–the George W. Bush administration—and I say ‘no’ to Frannie Mae and to Freddie Mae, too. America needs good, strong American homes and American houses, too. I know I own a house, so do my parents. I was born in a house, a good strong American house, with veterans nearby. Heck, I almost was a veteran. But, we cannot permit any company, who is not up to order and who does not have its own home in line, to move on up. So, it’s ‘no, no, and no, ’until such time as we see the need to say ‘yes’ to America, to American house markets and to our American GESs, I mean the GS…!"

It Is Not Over!

Read the rest of this entry »

Doom’s favourite retired Fannie Mae lobbyist is back today in fine form, and will have up a post in a few moments. Bill Maloni comes out swinging at OFHEO head Jim Lockhart, Karl Rove, even the President. Indeed nobody standing in the way of immediate GSE portfolio cap relief is safe from Bill’s trenchant commentary.

Various sectors of the mortgage market have been vise-tight in recent days, but some signs of loosening may be on the horizon. Reuters reports [1] that Freddie will now back more Alt-A loans, but Calculated Risk blogger Tanta looks closely at this story [2] and concludes that perhaps there is slightly less than meets the eye.

Meanwhile over in the Jumbo sector, reputed best-in-class lender Thornberg is struggling.[3] Speaking on CNBC, their COO Larry Goldstone makes a strong case [4] for the company surviving the present crisis. In the first video he admits under some pressure from the hosts that should Fannie and Freddie temporarily be allowed into the prime Jumbo market it might be of some assistance, but he’s adamant that Thornberg does not want the big GSEs to compete in Jumbo space.

And finally, according to latest reports,[5] Fannie Mae is tentatively due to submit their 10-K to the SEC later today. It’s hard to imagine them dropping their 2006 financial report into the middle of this maelstrom, but then CFO Blakely seems to be one gutsy guy. Everyone, hold onto your hats — it looks like it’s going to be a wild ride to the other side of this liquidity glitch.

Read the rest of this entry »