…gears, and just for fun consider this recent huff from the land of Cockney rhyming slang: Economist (12/28 ’11): Lexington — “Ron Paul’s big moment” … Even if he wins in quirky Iowa, Ron Paul will never be America’s president. But his coming this far tells you something about the mood of Republican voters. A substantial number like a man who wants to abolish the Federal Reserve, introduce a new currency to compete with the dollar, eliminate five departments of the federal government within a year, pull out of the United Nations and close all America’s foreign bases, which he…
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Bank in 2008, Bank of America purchased the ailing Countrywide Financial.  This acquisition has turned out to be poisoned pill for BofA, in spite of former CEO Ken Lewis’ optimistic comment at the time of the purchase: “Countrywide presents a rare opportunity for Bank of America to add what we believe is the best domestic mortgage platform at an attractive price and to affirm our position as the nation’s premier lender to consumers,” Lewis said in a statement. MSNBC said at the time: It also places Lewis in the position of a market savior. By buying Countrywide, he’s keeping the…
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The National Association of Realtors (NAR)  has released their pending home sales number, and indicates that pending sales are at an 19month high.  Pending home sales measures how many homes the NAR will be closing in the near future.  They did, however, admit earlier this month that they had “miscalculated” home sales for the past few years.  It does make one wonder if they can count pendings any better than they can count sales.  Chief economist for the NAR, Lawrence Yun, did admit that there might be one factor throwing off the accuracy of pending home sales:  [Thanks L!] The…
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More Americans are trading in their mortgage for a lease.  For some, the change is mandatory, as foreclosure or financial circumstances force them to sell or walk away.  Others would like a mortgage, but just can’t seem to qualify. Then there’s the crowd that is finding the “dream of homeownership” just a little too risky for their taste.  Whatever their reasons though, homeownership rates are dropping as rental rates rise: With U.S. unemployment at a lofty 8.6%, home foreclosures rising and property prices under pressure, more and more Americans have given up the dream of owning, opting instead to rent,…
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The Fed’s own holdings of MBS resumed its fall, dropping $6.352 billion after the extraordinary rise in the previous week. The December 8th Reuters report1 was, as usual, based on the weekly update from the NY Fed’s H.4.1 table site,2 however they are apparently either suppressing that particular information, or have gone fast asleep. Here is Doom’s updated CSV version3 of the agencies and treasuries foreign central bank holdings data set. Treasuries slumped a further $11.754 billion. Agencies surged $10.235 billion, neutralizing most of the treasuries dump.  You’ll notice from the above chart that this is something of a trend-buster. …
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The Fed’s own holdings of MBS which have been consistently dropping, if at a decelerating rate, ever since they peaked in mid-July 2010 suddenly surged up $31.026 billion last week. If Doom is reading the tea leaves on this one correctly the anomaly suggests there are some counterparty institutions who really want to hide some of their exposure to agencies from the calendar year end reports … BL / BW (12/6 ’11): “Fed Uses ‘Dollar Rolls’ in Mortgage-Bond Program Shift” With dollar rolls, an investor seeking to borrow money enters into contracts to sell mortgage securities in any month and…
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It’s a holiday weekend, so I don’t feel guilty indulging in a little off-topic humor.  I was forwarded this photo by a friend: Apparently Santa should have registered with Air Traffic Control.

In the wake of “Occupy Wall Street” we are seeing another movement– Reoccupy Foreclosures.  I wasn’t completely comfortable with this case though.  One woman says she was targeted by predatory lenders to take out loans against her childhood home.  She found herself in foreclosure.  It doesn’t appear that she was forced, just temped.  That raises the question, is “The devil made me do it,” a reasonable defense? (Thanks L!)

I had to take a break from vacation to post on this one.  This story is too vindicating to pass up.  As we always suspected, the National Association of Realtors has been releasing less than accurate data. (Hat tip to L and Mike C!) L has been warning us for years about the data from the National Association of Realtors. They have not released their methodology, so it was difficult to call them on it.  After CoreLogic discovered from its own studies, however, that the NAR’s numbers could be off by as much as 20%, [Picky, picky, right?] the NAR…
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No Doomers, I haven’t given up on Doom.  Family and holiday obligation though, have me stretched really thin this month.  I’ll post when I can, but don’t look for regular activity until after the first of the year. All the best, Twist

The Fed’s own holdings of MBS were unchanged with the foreign central banks continuing their mild selling trend of agencies, but they lurched from a huge buy to a significant sell-off in Treasury Debt. For all the wild fluctuations, the foreign central bank holdings of treasuries now stand at just about where they were in early August. 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. Treasuries from Sep ’08 chart Treasures from…
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If you stop paying your mortgage, chances are, you’ve got nearly two years before you’re forced to find other lodgings.  With an average of 631 days in limbo, the “shadow inventory” has reached new heights: Increasingly in some states, foreclosure is like a Roach Motel: Houses come in, but they don’t get out. This has led to an egregious statistic in the new issue of Mortgage Monitor, a report from data-tracker LPS Applied Analytics, which shows that the average loan in foreclosure has been delinquent for 631 days. That’s nearly 21 months, a new record. Much of the lag has…
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The Fed’s own holdings of MBS plunged $14.548 billion with the foreign central banks subtracting about 1/10th that much, while the cenbanks gyrated back into a huge buy of treasuries, erasing the bulk of last week’s dump, the third largest ever. Trend? Has anyone got a trend? Last week’s Reuters report1 was (this week’s will be placed there when available), 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 sailed up $18.135 billion, reversing about 85…
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