This week’s Reuters report1 is, as usual, based on the weekly update from the NY Fed’s H.4.1 table site,2 but, unusually, Reuters’ weather reporter takes the rather mild erosion in these numbers as cause for panic over the debt ceiling debate … NEW YORK, July 28 (Reuters) – Foreign central banks pared their U.S. Treasuries and agency debt holdings in advance of the Aug. 2 deadline when the U.S. government is expected to run out of cash … If Washington fails to raise the statutory $14.3 trillion debt ceiling by next Tuesday, it will likely cause the United States to…
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We’ve been watching the debt ceiling talks and wondering how this will all play out.  Whatever the final outcome, it is likely to affect interest rates, investor confidence and the general health of the economy, all of which can impact the housing market. It’s been frustrating not to have more information on the plans and negotiations going on in Washington.  I did, however, find this informative clip and comment from Jane Wells of CNBC: They don’t seem to be making much headway in Congress with this whole debt thingy. Rep. John Boehner says there’s “no deal” being negotiated behind closed…
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The Fed’s own holdings of MBS settled down by $4.671 billion and foreign central banks lurched back into a buying mood, taking on a bit more last week than they dumped the previous week. And speaking of FedMBS, which is the green line in twist’s main busy chart below, doomers should have a close look at twist’s post from earlier today. You can see that the FRBNY is having one heck of a time divesting itself of those legacy bonds from the bubble era, and and its present honour of being America’s third largest (and only large solvent) housing GSE….
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Houses, houses, everywhere.  Abundant supply and tight credit should mean falling prices, but Uncle Sam wants to protect the value of its housing inventory. Nationally, home prices in May were 7.4% lower than a year earlier, but after excluding distressed sales, prices fell just 0.4%, according to CoreLogic Inc. Foreclosures and other distressed sales now account for about 30% of homes sold each month and sales from government-related entities make up about one third of that number. “Adding more stock simply increases that overhang. If that can be avoided, it should be,” says Jared Bernstein, an economist who left the…
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Hat tip to our new friends at Ohio Fraudclosure for this story. [They have recently been added to our blogroll.] We’ve seen folks selling the contents of their home down to the air handlers and copper pipes, but this couple has a different plan.  Robert and Ana Somerton, after two years of fighting a losing battle for a loan modification, decided to give away the pieces of their house and bulldoze it rather than let Bank of America have it.  According to Ohio Fraudclosure: [T]he only reason their story came out…was in trying to give away the contents of their…
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I do believe that Internet Bubble 2.0 has just experienced its New Coke moment Last Thursday Google broke my second gmail account.  Hat tip to Gizmodo for … “How To Keep On Logging Into Multiple Google Accounts” Guess what? There’s a better way. And it’s super easy. You just need to enable multiple accounts. I found “easy” a bit tedious. You click on the tiny “options” wheel in the upper right, which brings up the “Preferences” window. Click on the link titled “Google Account Settings” near the upper right of this. This brings you to the “Account Settings” page; the…
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The Fed’s own holdings of MBS were again unchanged and foreign central banks turned back to selling off US obligations, dumping over $1 billion / day over the previous week. This week’s Reuters report1 is, as usual, based on the weekly update from the NY Fed’s H.4.1 table site,2. Here is Doom’s updated CSV version3 of the agencies and treasuries foreign central bank holdings data set. Treasury Debt holdings have now advanced $96.931 billion above their 11/17 ’10 level, but the small positive contribution from agencies still places the combined advance at just over $100 billion. Treasury Debt dipped $5.147…
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We’ve been talking about foreclosure-stripping for years around here– that practice of homeowners in foreclosure removing everything that’s not nailed down and selling it, as well most of the stuff that IS nailed down.  While mortgage contracts generally spell out that this is not allowed, the practice has been widespread, and homeowners have little fear of prosecution. In 2010 a Palm Beach home was stripped bare and arrests were made.  As the public defender said in this case: [T]here is a foreclosure action pending, but the final order has not gone through. We would be arguing no probable cause for…
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Gary Shilling is an economic analyst who often comments on housing.  While I agree with Shilling on many points, I differ a bit with him here: [Thanks L!] President of A. Gary Shilling & Co. and author of the Age of Deleveraging says another recession is brewing — no matter what action the Fed takes. “Economic growth here and abroad is slipping, making a 2012 recession a distinct possibility,” he writes in his July newsletter. And, “when you have slow growth it doesn’t take much of a shock to throw you in negative territory.” Shilling says the shock to trigger…
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The average homeowner probably doesn’t pay much attention to the “robo-signing” scandal, unless they find themselves in foreclosure. Reuters had a very informative interview with bankruptcy attorney Linda Tirelli, who discusses what happens in foreclosure and what you should do if you suspect that your mortgage documents might have been falsified. It has been the hope of some that if they discover that they’ve been “robo-signed”, a judge will cancel their note and give them the house.  This is unlikely.  However, when documents have been shown to be falsified, it has resulted in sanctions against lenders and loan modifications.  If…
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Warren Buffett has been nicknamed the “Oracle of Omaha” for his ability to predict and profit from long range economic trends.  His most recent forecast?  The economy will get better after housing gets better:  [Thanks L!] The chairman and CEO of the conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said he thinks people will be surprised how quickly employment improves once the excess houses are bought and normal levels of construction resume. “We will come back big-time on employment when residential construction comes back,” Buffett said. Buffett thinks this is liable to happen quickly.  There is strong evidence however, that the Oracle may…
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The Fed’s own holdings of MBS was unchanged and foreign central banks turned around and bought back most of the US obligations they dumped the last time. This week’s Reuters report1 is, as usual, based on the weekly update from the NY Fed’s H.4.1 table site,2. Here is Doom’s updated CSV version3 of the agencies and treasuries foreign central bank holdings data set. Treasury Debt holdings have now advanced $102.078 billion above their 11/17 ’10 level, nudging above the $100B point just in time to avoid the appearance of a definitive top Treasury Debt surged $14.124 billion, erasing all but…
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We’ve been hearing for years that the dramatic rise in home prices in Canada did not mean that the housing market was “bubbly”.  Now there’s evidence to the contrary: Canada’s housing market may have peaked after prices soared in the second quarter, according to a survey by real estate giant Royal LePage. “In many of Canada’s regional markets, we saw house prices appreciate at a significantly faster rate than wages and salaries, and this trend cannot continue indefinitely,” observed Phil Soper, president and chief executive, Royal LePage Real Estate Services. Soper may not exactly say “pop”, but this sounds close…
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The Fed’s own holdings of MBS dropped again this week by a modest $5.473 billion. Tyler’s got some thoughts on their difficult task of escaping from their uncomfortable role as a Freddie-sized housing GSE (look at the remarkable asymmetry to the right developing in our green FedMBS line in the chart below) … ZeroHedge (6/30 ’11): “Fed Halts Sales Of Toxic AIG Sludge Upon Realization Any Balance Sheet Unwind Crashes The Market” Three weeks ago, when discussing the failed (yes, failed) Maiden Lane 2 auction by the New York Fed, we said: ‘Something quite disturbing happened during today’s latest attempt…
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When Ken Lewis expressed his confidence in his due-diligence team when they bought Countrywide Mortgage back in 2008, he wasn’t the only one: “Buying Countrywide was a gutty move,” said Donald Hodges of Hodges Capital Management in Dallas, which oversaw $1.1 billion including 39,000 Bank of America shares as of Sept. 30. “The whole concern about housing and the economy has been greatly exaggerated.” We here at Doom had a different opinion and said that the deal came straight from the Braver or dumber than I am Department. Now Bank of America has realized what was obvious to a couple…
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