After the expected spike in existing home sales last month, I quoted legendary basketball coach John Wooden: "Never mistake activity for achievement." It is worth repeating this month. First, it is important to remember that existing home sales...

In 2008, 2,877 different multifamily lenders provided a total of more than $88 billion in new financing for apartment buildings with five or more units, according to an annual report from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). The 2008 dollar volume represents a 40 percent decline from 2007 levels. ...

Areas where real estate was the main economic driver are now losing population.

As you probably could have guessed, I'm not going to jump on the bandwagon and say that the housing market is all fine and dandy now that we've seen two months of big jumps in existing home sales.

Paul Solman: Has the administration done enough on loan modification? On helping the homeowner? Sheila Bair: Well, I think they’re doing what they can do. They are looking, as we are now, as to whether more relief needs to be provided for folks who are...

From the Chicago Fed: The Chicago Fed National Activity Index was –1.08 in October, down very slightly from –1.01 in September. ... The index’s three-month moving average, CFNAI-MA3, decreased to –0.91 in October from –0.67 in September, declining for...

Mortgages lagged for most of last week, putting a bit of a damper on their recent run. The Fannie 30-year Current Coupon spread widened out by 5 basis points on the week, even though the sector had a good day on Friday (as shown in Chart 3 below). Most coupons had a very bad week, with Fannie 4.0s lagging the 5-year by almost ½ point. The 15-year current coupon appeared to widen substantially, but this represents a bit of a distortion; since Dwarf 4.0s (trading over 102) are the lowest liquid coupon, the current coupon yield has to be extrapolated from higher coupon prices, rather than interpolated from discount and premium coupons. (On a duration-neutral basis, they generally underperformed Treasuries in line with their 30-year counterparts.) The widening may reflect the recognition that the Fed is winding down its agency MBS purchase program, having “only” net purchases of $16 billion last week and $29.5 billion for the last two weeks....

As we all know by now, government spending and the Fed’s liquidity programs have to the economy. Some would argue that these government programs are simply and masking over the real problems in the system. According to , these programs are having an especially...

Tom Lindmark submits: points to an interesting but short article at Bloomberg by in which she postulates that once the Fed withdraws its support for the mortgage backed securities market, mortgage rates will move up and the banks will be faced with more...

Here is another way to look at existing homes sales: Monthly, Not Seasonally Adjusted (NSA): This graph shows NSA monthly existing home sales for 2005 through 2009. For the fifth consecutive month, sales were higher in 2009 than in 2008. And for the second...

Fascinating visualization of unemployment in the United States as it progresses over time, from January 2007 to Present. The animation is monthly by counties: > click for animation > Hat tip !

Did you know that, with the real estate downturn, the median loan amount decreased 4% in 2008?

Charles Evans , President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, said the Federal Reserve’s target federal funds rate could remain near zero into late 2010 or longer because the job market is so weak and inflation is running below his longer-run objective...

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard wants the Federal Reserve to continue to buy mortgage-backed securities beyond the current end-March 2010 cut-off date to give policy makers more flexibility as they seek to shepherd the economy...

From the WSJ Real Time Economics: (ht (Bob_in_MA) “I have advocated to keep the asset purchase program open but at a very low level, and wait and see what happens, and as information comes in about the economy we can adjust that program while the federal...

Kenneth Harney at the SF Chronicle lists a few possible changes: . Harney lists four possible changes: Higher down payments. The current downpayment requirement is 3.5%, and Harney mentions proposals for an increase to 5% or more. This will probably not...

From Carolyn Said at the San Francisco Chronicle: Landmark skyscrapers, signature hotels and upscale retailers glitter in the San Francisco skyline and enhance its cachet. But with commercial real estate slumping, they soon may subtract badly needed cash...

From Lew Sichelman at the LA Times: (ht Ann) Most of the LA Times article is based on the paper by Guiso, Sapienza and Zingales that I in June: (pdf) Sichelman adds some comments from real estate agents on the ethics of strategic defaults: Nellie Arrington...

Meredith Whitney expressed concern about what will happen when the Fed buying GSE MBS by the end of the first quarter 2010. From Bloomberg: The Federal Reserve has begun slowing purchases in the $5 trillion market for so-called agency mortgage-backed...

Here is some national data on home buyer financing in October. This is from a survey by Campbell Communications (excerpted with permission) released today. Source: October Trends in Existing Home Sales, a presentation from Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance...