fed

Housing Market Set For Double Dip?

by Charles Feldman | March 24, 2010

The opening graph from the Associated Press story is pretty damn scary–and, what’s worse, possibly true. “The recovery in the housing market is at risk of collapsing.” Well, that pretty much says it all, doesn’t it? Though I would argue that we haven’t really had much in the way of a recover to begin with! [...]

6 comments Read the full article →

Economy

Fed Lays Groundwork for Higher Rates with Unexpected Hike

by Ryan Hinricher | February 22, 2010

Maybe it was only symbolic move. On Thursday, the Federal Reserve hiked its lending rate for emergency bank loans known as the “Fed Discount Rate” from .5% to .75% in an off-cycle meeting. While this rate affects little in the day-to-day bank-to-consumer lending, the Fed could be prepping us all for changes in its easy [...]

1 comment Read the full article →

Mortgages & Lending

Fed Leaving Door Open to Extend Mortgage Backed Security Purchases

by Ryan Hinricher | February 8, 2010

I’ve been curious lately about the end of the Mortgage Backed Security (MBS) purchases by the Federal Reserve in March. The Fed is planning to end the program in less than 60 days on March 31st. Currently they stand at about 94% having purchased 1.17 trillion of the 1.25 trillion allocated to purchase these securities. [...]

6 comments Read the full article →

Economy

Real Estate Thought Leaders at Inman Connect, Comment on Economy

by Ryan Hinricher | January 17, 2010

I was fortunate enough to attend the Inman Connect real estate conference over the last week in New York. Although I attended in San Francisco last summer, this year was different for particularly one reason. The mood was optimistic. The last 12 months has been hard on many of us in the real estate business [...]

13 comments Read the full article →

Mortgages & Lending

Come New Year, The Ball May Drop, But Mortgage Rates May Rise

by Charles Feldman | December 17, 2009

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! But while many of you will have your eyes glued to your flat screens watching a 1080p image of a large, light encrusted ball drop at Times Square, others will be paying closer attention to mortgage rates which many think will go [...]

1 comment Read the full article →

Commentary

Will The Feds Nationalize Bank of America?

by Rob K. Blake | February 7, 2009

There is a plethora of speculations buzzing around Wall Street with the central theme being Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) our nation’s largest bank…and biggest “cleaner upper” of the financial crises buying both Merrill Lynch and Countrywide Home Loans before they collapse…is going to get “taken over” by the government. Oh my God! The sky [...]

4 comments Read the full article →

Economy

Paulson Seeks Congressional Authority To Spend $700B

by Rob K. Blake | September 21, 2008

Hank Paulson is not done asking for more authority to “rescue” us from the mortgage crisis. In his first round of legislative begging, he got Congress to pass The Housing Economic Recovery Act of 2008 which gave him the right to take over Fannie and Freddie putting taxpayers on the hook for their greed and [...]

1 comment Read the full article →

Credit

BREAKING: Fed Rescues AIG with $85 Billion Loan (bailout) for 80% Ownership Stake

by Joshua Dorkin | September 16, 2008

The snowball that is the US and Global Financial Crisis continued to get larger Tuesday as American International Group (AIG), the nation’s largest insurer came close to collapse. Over the weekend, the Fed failed to provide a $40 Billion bridge loan that the company’s leadership had been pressing for, but late Monday night, the Fed [...]

5 comments Read the full article →

Economy

Greenspan Gives Guidance on Housing Market

by Rob K. Blake | August 16, 2008

Alan Greenspan, the controversial former Fed Chairman, in an interview by the Wall Street Journal’s David Wessel gave us a few pearls of wisdom to ponder about the state of the housing market. He starts out with a prediction calling for a stabilized market by summer of 2009. Greenspan admits depending on the size of [...]

6 comments Read the full article →

Economy

FEDS BAIL OUT FANNIE AND FREDDIE; EMERGENCY MEASURES TAKEN

by Charles Feldman | July 13, 2008

In a clear sign the federal government is far more concerned about the financial health of mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac than its public comments indicated as late as Friday, the U.S. government Sunday night announced what some are calling a “massive aid” package to the two shareholder owned and run companies [...]

6 comments Read the full article →

Foreclosures

Feds Come Out Of Coma; Say Mortgage Crisis Worse Than They Thought

by Charles Feldman | July 9, 2008

It’s like one of those TV shows where after an entire season in which everything goes wrong for the star, he finally awakes to find it was all just a bad dream–everything was just fine! Only, in this case, what we have are government officials who have been saying repeatedly that the economy is not [...]

10 comments Read the full article →

Credit

Fed Rate Cut – The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

by Richard Warren | March 18, 2008

There is a law in physics that says: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The same is true is a rate cut by the Federal Reserve. Many people get excited when the Federal Reserve cuts a key interest rate. They somehow see this as a magic bullet that is going to [...]

3 comments Read the full article →

Commentary

Are They Serious? Fed Takes Mortgage Debt as Collateral, Bear Stearns Gets Bailout, and President Bush is Confident in the Economy!

by Joshua Dorkin | March 14, 2008

This week has been an extremely volatile one in the world of real estate and the economy. We’ve seen Gold at $1,000 an ounce, a collapsing dollar, oil skyrocketing, an much more. Of everything that has happened, probably the most shocking is what came out of the Fed this week . . . According to [...]

14 comments Read the full article →

Economy

Thinking of Refinancing? Consider holding out for Rate Drop

by Joshua Dorkin | October 1, 2007

A manufacturing report came out today that was weaker than expected, raising renewed talk that the Fed might cut rates later this month1. What does this mean for you? As rates have come down recently, now is a good time to look at doing a refi. If you can afford to wait, and signals continue [...]

9 comments Read the full article →

Housing

Housing Crisis Quote of the Day from Alan Greenspan

by Joshua Dorkin | September 21, 2007

Alan Greenspan revealed more about his thoughts on the Housing Crisis in Vienna, Austria today: “So far, prices have dropped only slightly. But it was enough to cause alarm around the world,” he said. “Prices are going to fall much lower yet.” “There is no doubt about the fact that low interest rates for long-term [...]

9 comments Read the full article →

← Previous Entries