Helping Good Investors Make Better Decisions
Just heard the news – Fannie Mae will suspend foreclosures and evictions from 26 November until 09 January, 2009. Here’s the opening salvo from their press release this afternoon –
In order to support the streamlined modification program announced on November 11, 2008, Fannie Mae (NYSE:FNM) today issued a notice to its loan servicing organizations and […]
The Census Bureau’s release of October Housing Start and Permitting data has invoked some heavy breathing this morning by the media and some economically oriented pundits. See the data release here.
The SAAR rate for total housing starts came in at 791,000 for October, the lowest reported level since the CB began tracking the data in […]
The debate over helping homeowners who now are faced with a mortgage that exceeds the value of their homes is gaining a broader audience; the issue is fraught with many different potential landmines for homeowners, lenders, credit markets, and the economy.
Among our team we have a very wide range of opinions on the matter, and […]
Hat tip to Mike for these most interesting graphs that were posted over at the TradersNarrative site on Thursday. The graph of Price to Rent Ratio and Price to Income Ratio for several countries around the globe over the past 17 or so years is an eye opener.
(Sorry we’re a bit late today – working […]
It’s encouraging to see another voice calling the discussion being kicked around by politicos and some economists to have “the government somehow stabilize home prices” a fool’s errand.
Barry Ritholtz has a post up dealing with the issue here; there’s no really new thinking presented by BR though he comes down on the correct side on this issue.
Home […]
Over the past few days we’ve seen and heard multiple references to Paul Krugman’s NYT op-ed from 2005 in which he used the terms “the Zoned Zone” and the “Flatland”. This article keeps popping up when folks are discussing the latest round of Case-Shiller data.
In this piece Krugman presciently noted some trends that later blossomed […]
Ah – one of our favorite days of the month around the office every month – Case-Shiller data day. It’s time once again for the breathless media to crow about what a disaster the nation’s single family market is – once again making the oft-repeated error of assuming that as the CSI data goes, so […]
Yesterday the Census Bureau released their data on new home sales; no doubt you’ve heard the news cycle by now lamenting that new home sales are perhaps the worst since the Census Bureau starting keeping records in this category since 1963.
2008 is certainly turning out to be the worst new home sales year in a […]
The NAR has released today their report on existing homes sales for September 2008; this marks the first year-over-year monthly increase since November 2005. The NAR proffers some of their usual spin, and two points are note-worthy here. First, the credit market’s fall woes won’t have impacted sales closing in September as much as the credit […]
Finally, how one might use the Housing Affordability Index data depends upon a variety of factors.
A multifamily investor would perhaps be most interested in investing in markets that have a very poor (or low) Housing Affordability Index – signifying that single family property prices are too high for many families and first time home buyers […]
What about the usefulness and potential weaknesses in the Housing Affordability data?
The savvy investor understands that Housing Affordability Index values are general indicators of housing prices relative to local incomes; however, the Housing Affordability Index is not as statistically sound as one might be led to believe.
Perhaps the greatest weakness in the Housing Affordability Index […]
While most systems deriving Housing Affordability Index use very similar methodology, let’s look at the National Association of Realtors’ definitions and assumptions utilized in calculation of the Housing Affordability. Why theirs? For better or for worse, the NAR’s data is the HAI information that you’ll see quoted and cited most often.
[Yes, we respect the NAR […]
Here’s the second part in our series on the Housing Affordability Index; and yes, we know (as stated right off the bat yesterday) that while the concept of housing affordability is a good one, the current measures are far from perfect. (Please don’t email and tell us that again today.)
As stated yesterday, the concept of […]
We’ve been saying for some time, and are in the process of becoming much more assertive in our commentary – that focusing primarily on the price of homes is the wrong approach in looking toward recovering in housing (and subsequently in housing induced credit and financial markets).
Barry Ritholtz today comments on another aspect of the “home […]
Today’s Case-Shiller post is the last installment in our brief series on the Case-Shiller Home Price Indices.
Finally, one of the most significant errors we see related to the index is an error in interpretation – that being the inference that as the Case-Shiller goes, so goes the nation’s entire housing market. Emerging market investors who […]
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