I’m in Las Vegas today, and anxious to get out and see the housing market.  I’ll be at my computer less than usual while I get out to see the "real world". Since I’ll be out and about, we’d especially appreciate any news, links or comments you might have.  Please be courteous of other posters- Igor can only do so much.    Thanks! T

From CNBC this morning: Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Senate agreed Tuesday to draft a housing rescue bill that could deliver billions of dollars to homeowners facing foreclosure and help steer the economy away from a deep recession. Democratic leaders want the federal government to pay for more mortgage counselors, rehab projects for empty homes and tax breaks for borrowers stuck in unaffordable loans. Perhaps the most controversial provision of their plan would let bankruptcy judges erase some mortgage debt. Lawmakers and policy-makers on all sides agree that the country is facing a tough economic crisis led by a…
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Many thanks, as always, to M for pulling the numbers from ARMLS for our March preview.  Do remember that agents have a couple of days to add sales in, so this number may be slightly lower than the number ARMLS releases at the middle of the month:  ARMLS is reporting home sales of 3445 in February, so month-to-month March saw a lot more activity, but this is typical for the season.  This is the worst March since March 2001[the earliest data available to me] when 5704 homes sold. There was one big surprise this month- there was a marked increase…
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In January 2007,  Doom received information that a  mortgage office had shut down- and that the contents were being sold at auction.  Files remained in the cabinets and the hard drives were not wiped.  Mortgage files contain a great deal of personal information, and with the large number of lenders that have gone under, the disposition of these files is a serious concern, and the potential for identity theft is huge. I was perusing Broker Outpost last night, [a bulletin board for mortgage brokers] and ran across this comment: A company across the street is throwing away full loan files…with…
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Wait a minute, weren’t the subprime writedowns supposed to be over?  Just two weeks ago Businessweek was reporting: Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services believes that the bulk of the writedowns of subprime securities may be behind the banks and brokers that have already announced their results for full-year 2007. There may be some additional marks to market as market indicators have shown deterioration in the first quarter. However, when we dissect the percentage of writedowns taken against various types of exposures, in our opinion the magnitude of some writedowns is greater than any reasonable estimate of ultimate losses. Then this…
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