Today we’ll try and unravel the twisted logic of Realty Times’ Blanche Evans and Lawrence Yun of the National Association of Realtors.  According to Evans: This latest report should put the notion to bed that the housing boom was largely driven by speculators. The National Association of Realtors annual Investment and Vacation Home Buyers Survey finds that investors and second home buyers snapped up one third of the homes sold in 2007. While the volume of sales is down along with home sales in general, the market share of investors and second-home or vacation home buyers is 33 percent, close…
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From Reuters last Friday: PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – Authorities in Philadelphia will suspend foreclosure sales of homes whose owners have fallen behind on adjustable-rate subprime loan payments — potential relief for tens of thousands of struggling debtors. Sheriff John Green said on Friday he would halt sales of foreclosed properties in April and would seek a court order extending a moratorium for an unspecified period. The response from this Philadelphian "People will stop paying their mortgages, because they know they will not be foreclosed on."  

"We paid too much, and now we need help!" This time the cry isn’t from "bamboozled" subprime borrowers, but from developers who bid too much for state land purchases: At least three developers who purchased land in northeast Phoenix’s Desert Ridge area when times were good are seeking relief from the terms of their purchase from the Arizona State Land Department. The first, Meritage Homes, bought a 288-acre parcel between 56th and 64th streets for $92.2million in July 2005. It was reported in December that the company was attempting to change its payments, but no agreement has been reached. The…
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Power Ranch is a nice master-planned community on the far east side of Gilbert, AZ.  The largest homes in Power Ranch were built by Toll Brothers in "The Enclave", the largest model being "The Terraza."  Not everyone in the Enclave has been happy with their home, but it’s a very nice neighborhood. The market slowed as Toll was finishing this neighborhood, and I believe it was late 2006 when Mr. Twist and I spoke with the agent who had listed Toll’s last inventory home.  It was a Terraza with an unfinished pool and carpet on every square inch of floor-…
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I  (along with many others) believe that the housing crisis was brought on, in large part, by poor policies and planning on the part of Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve.  So who does the Treasury Department feel is best qualified to take over crisis management?  You guessed it– the Fed: WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Treasury Department will propose on Monday that the Federal Reserve be given sweeping new powers that would make it chief regulator with authority to take actions to ensure market stability. The proposals say a "market stability regulator" is needed and the Fed best fits…
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It’s Friday, and with all the talk of recession, we have to ask ourselves if the job market will come to this: [Thanks L!]  

The following ad was in M’s junk mail yesterday: Note this is a "Realtor communication" – not intended for general consumption.  Coincidentally once more ARMLS reiterated their policy on listings yesterday- no talking about bonuses: **************************************************************************   Inappropriate Language in MLS Listings Policy   Therefore, all inappropriate language, as reviewed and deemed to be inappropriate by the Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service, is immediately banned from inclusion in all listings on the MLS.      d.      Any monetary value items potentially given to the buyer’s agent, which may appear to steer a prospective buyer’s agent to show his or her…
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A friend forwarded me a copy of a report "The Bell Curve of Doom?  – The Case – Shiller Price Index."  I thought the following paragraph from this report did a great job of putting price declines in perspective: According to the Case-Shiller Composite 20 (metro areas) index, the price of an existing home peaked in July 2006. From the July 2006 peak through January 2008, the price of a representative home has fallen 12.5%. To put this in perspective, if someone had purchased an existing home in July 2006 for $1 million with a downpayment of $125 thousand (12.5%…
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It’s spring in Phoenix- that time of year when we celebrate an "improvement" in the housing market, whether the market is showing real improvement or not.  According to Catherine Reagor in the Arizona Republic yesterday:  [Hat tip CC!] Existing-home sales climbed unexpectedly in February, as home buyers took advantage of low interest rates, falling home prices and foreclosure bargains. The uptick in resales ended multiple-month losing streaks both nationally and in metro Phoenix and is prompting speculation that the housing market is close to hitting bottom.   If you want to see how close a market is to the "bottom"…
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There are times when foreclosures make sense.  It can get an underwater borrower out of a difficult economic situation;  it can readjust the market price of a property  so that it can be purchased by someone who can afford it.  I have to question the sense of this scenario though: In western New York, the city of Buffalo filed a lawsuit on Feb. 21 against 36 lenders — including big names like JPMorgan Chase and Countrywide Financial Countrywide Corp who were involved in 57 foreclosures that led to properties being abandoned and ultimately demolished by authorities. The struggling Rust Belt…
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The National Association of Realtors released their numbers for February Existing Home Sales yesterday, but any correlation between the NAR’s analysis and the data is purely coincidental.  According to Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the NAR: WASHINGTON, March 24, 2008 – Sales of existing homes increased in February and remain within a fairly stable range, according to the National Association of Realtors®.  Existing-home sales – including single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops – rose 2.9 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate (1) of 5.03 million units in February from a pace of 4.89 million in January, but remain 23.8 percent…
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From Yahoo Finance this morning:  [Thanks L!] Bear’s stock has popped to $10, now that the Fed has caved and Bear and JP Morgan have announced a new, higher-priced deal. What does this mean? Among other things, it means tha all that jawboning from Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson last week about how the government wasn’t bailing out Bear Stearns was a bunch of hooey. The Fed and the Treasury Department gave Bear and JP Morgan shareholders a $30 billion gift from taxpayers. And the moment Bear Stearns realized that all the crap on its balance sheet had been transformed into…
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Many thanks to "Rational Expectations"  who sent us the following image and explanation: The mood on Wall Street seems akin to that on the USS Abraham Lincoln soon after the invasion of Iraq.  My abilities  with graphics packages are not very good, but perhaps you will see the irony.  Mission accomplished!!   I hope Doomers enjoy this one as much as I did.  We’ll see how long the euphoria lasts.

There were three interesting articles recently on Bloomberg, all speculating on MBS purchases by the Federal Reserve. First there’s the case for "Maybe they will" today: Forget lower interest rates. For the Federal Reserve to keep the financial markets from imploding it needs to buy troubled mortgage bonds from banks and securities firms, say the world’s biggest Treasury investors. The only tool left may be for the Fed to help facilitate a Resolution Trust Corp.-type agency that would buy bonds backed by home loans, said Bill Gross, manager of the world’s biggest bond fund at Pacific Investment Management Co. While…
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To all of our posters, readers, and contributors: A blessed and happy Easter.