From Cramer’s "Stop Trading" yesterday.  Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae are “technically insolvent – and everybody knows it”.

Floyd Norris of the New York Times accuses Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson of "whistling past the graveyard"- and he has a point: It is natural for a government official to look for signs things are getting better. So we should not be surprised that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson yesterday pointed to the few signs there are of improvement in the housing market. I’ve done my share of looking for signs of such improvement. At some point there has to be a bottom, but it is not easy to find evidence that the housing market is improving. One statistic he cited…
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While "all real estate is local", some problems are popping up all over.  In spite of its reputation as one of the nation’s "better" housing markets, foreclosures are reaching new heights in Austin, TX: In more evidence that the national housing troubles are hitting Central Texas, one of every 133 homes in Travis County was posted for foreclosure in the first six months of the year — compared with one in 265 homes in 2001. The same trend prevailed in Williamson County, where one of every 95 homes was posted for foreclosure this year, compared with one in every 225…
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Thanks to Jared for telling us about a glitch at the Realtor.com website- On my recent trip to the Realtor.com website I thought I’d check out their "Why use a realtor?" link.   The 4th paragraph from the bottom advertises their "Code of Ethics".  I love the fact that when you click the link it says "404 Not Found". I had to check it out.  Here’s the "Why use a realtor?" page, paragraph four: And here’s what you get when you click on the Code of Ethics: [Above link not live] This confirms what we suspected.  While we know many real…
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