Mon, Apr 30 2012, 10:43 AM
Friday was
not a good day for five very weak banks as, through various methods, the FDIC
closed them. (Twenty two have closed in 2012.) In all but o...
Mon, Apr 23 2012, 10:15 AM
In this business,
you can never have too much Dodd Frank, can you? The House Financial Services
Committee has unveiled the Dodd-Frank
Burden Trac...
Wed, Apr 18 2012, 10:01 AM
The Architecture Billings Index (ABI) a forward looking index of construction activity, finished March in positive territory for the fifth consecuti...
Tue, Apr 17 2012, 11:02 AM
Remember
QRM? Not only is it not on the front
burner, but it may have been put back in the Tupperware container. QM , however, is very much alive...
Tue, Apr 17 2012, 10:44 AM
The U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) reported this morning that permits for privately owned housing construct...
Mon, Apr 16 2012, 10:16 AM
As has been indicated in reports from the Joint Center on Housing and the National Association of Home Builders, home remodeling is emerging as a br...
Mon, Apr 2 2012, 12:30 PM
Besides wind surfers, sailors, wind farmers, and odd people who chase tornadoes, there aren't many people who like the wind. But this map of wind in t...
Mon, Apr 2 2012, 1:34 PM
Construction spending during February was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $808.9 billion, 1.1 percent below the revised January estimate of $...
Wed, Mar 21 2012, 10:39 AM
Yesterday
the commentary discussed rotary phones and mobile phone banking . And last week
the Federal Reserve Board launched its Twitter channel, @...
Tue, Mar 20 2012, 10:09 AM
In the old
days, when rotary dial telephones roamed the earth, and it took more time to
dial a 8 or 9 or 0 than it did a 1 or 2 or 3, area codes wer...
Tue, Mar 20 2012, 9:59 AM
There was some good news in the New
Residential Construction Report Housing released by the Census Bureau and the
Department of Housing and Urban De...
Tue, Mar 20 2012, 8:10 AM
Bond markets are slightly stronger after one of the least traumatic overnight sessions in recent memory, both in terms of volume and volatility. Chin...
Mon, Mar 19 2012, 10:27 AM
In this
environment, not only are many mortgage lenders making good returns, but the
Treasury is as well. The Treasury Department may announce today...
Mon, Mar 19 2012, 1:30 PM
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Market
Index (HMI) held steady in March, consolidating five straight months of...
Thu, Mar 1 2012, 12:11 PM
The Census Bureau said this morning that
construction spending in the U.S. dipped slightly in January but was well above
outlays a year earlier. ...
Wed, Feb 29 2012, 4:33 PM
The original formulators of the S&P/Case-Shiller
Housing Price Indices held a press conference on Tuesday to discuss the state
of the housing marke...
Mon, Feb 27 2012, 9:07 AM
When
asked, most people would not want to know the exact date of their death. But an
idea of how an insurance company gauges and calculates your lif...
Wed, Feb 22 2012, 3:40 PM
In the February Economic Outlook from
Freddie Mac's Office of the Chief Economist is projecting a slow, steady path
to recovery as the economy, it...
Fri, Feb 17 2012, 10:57 AM
Yes, Wells
Fargo's CEO's was on CNBC this morning talking about the mortgage markets. Investor
news is rarely "headline grabbing," but also this mor...
Thu, Feb 16 2012, 10:03 AM
Citizens
of the U.S. have well-documented accents, but do you ever wonder what
linguistics majors do when they graduate?
At certain
phases ...
Thu, Feb 16 2012, 1:01 PM
Statistics on building permits and
housing starts increased slightly in January according to the U.S. Census
Bureau and the U.S. Department of H...
Wed, Feb 15 2012, 12:40 PM
The results from the monthly National
Association of Home Builders NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) rose
in February for the fifth conse...
Mon, Feb 13 2012, 9:47 AM
Sometimes,
at 4AM PST, my cat disdainfully watches CNBC while I work on the finishing
touches in the daily commentary. Cats spend an inordinate amou...
Tue, Jan 31 2012, 9:52 AM
Do you
think it takes a long time to have a loan purchased by Wells or MetLife? Try
running the world's longest lab
experiment , begun in the 19...
Tue, Jan 31 2012, 2:58 PM
Home prices continued to fall in November according to the
S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices released this morning. Both the 10-City and the 20-Ci...
Wed, Jan 25 2012, 11:16 AM
Pending home sales fell off of the
19-month high reached in November according to figures released on Wednesday by
the National Association of Real...
Thu, Jan 19 2012, 11:11 AM
Basketball
fans know that all-stars Patrick Ewing, Charles Barkley, Dominique Wilkins,
Elgin Baylor, Reggie Miller, Pete Maravich, Karl Malone, and ...
Thu, Jan 19 2012, 10:58 AM
Building permits and housing starts in
December were both below levels reported in November 'according to data
released this morning by the Departme...
Wed, Jan 18 2012, 11:29 AM
Home builder confidence rose in January
for the fourth consecutive month as builders saw more buyer traffic and
anticipated higher sales. The Nati...
Tue, Jan 17 2012, 9:48 AM
The
Federal Budget and National Debt numbers are so large that it's often difficult
to get a grasp of just exactly how much money is being discussed...
Wed, Jan 4 2012, 10:17 AM
Any ship
can be a minesweeper - once. But not "once in a while." This note
reached me: "Rob, every once in a while you'll mention 'AOT' like everyon...
Tue, Jan 3 2012, 11:10 AM
The U.S.
Census Bureau projected the Jan. 1, 2012, total United States population at
312,780,968. This would represent an increase of 2,250,129, or ...
Wed, Dec 21 2011, 11:17 AM
If you
have a few minutes, and want to learn more about our economy ("One recent
survey found that one out of every three Americans would not be abl...
Tue, Dec 20 2011, 10:38 AM
I f you
have trouble finding something for that special person who has everything, how
about a new chia pet.
The old
saying, "Give a man a...
Tue, Dec 20 2011, 10:15 AM
Building permits issued in November were
up 5.7 percent from the number issued in October according to joint data
released this morning by the U....
Tue, Dec 20 2011, 8:29 AM
Bond markets are slightly weaker overnight following a fairly uneventful European session. 10yr yields rose roughly 5bps to 1.85 and S&P futures adde...
Mon, Dec 19 2011, 10:59 AM
If you
have a few seconds, go to Google and do a search on "Let it snow."
There's even a "defrost" button.
I am sure that many originators wish...
Mon, Dec 19 2011, 10:03 AM
Homebuilders are more optimistic than they've been about single-family home sales in a year and a half according to a report released today by the Na...
Thu, Dec 1 2011, 11:06 AM
Sometimes
in the financial markets there is just too much going on to comprehend. For
example, yesterday the Fed (the U.S. Central Bank), in conjun...
Mon, Nov 21 2011, 4:31 PM
Freddie Mac's November Economic Outlook
holds some good news for the economy as a whole, but the housing picture
remains relatively bleak. Thir...
Fri, Nov 18 2011, 1:28 PM
Fannie Mae's November Economics and
Mortgage Market Analysis released this morning cites the depressed sentiments
from the Conference Board consume...
Thu, Nov 17 2011, 11:44 AM
Building permits were issued at a
seasonally adjusted annual rate of 653,000 in October, 10.9 percent above the downwardly
revised (from 594,000) S...
Thu, Nov 17 2011, 11:01 AM
One week
until Thanksgiving - time flies. What's in a name? Plenty. For example, the
name of the Athletic Director at the University of Texas is DeL...
Mon, Nov 14 2011, 10:10 AM
Let's say
that you have a warehouse line with Bank
of America , or anyone else for that matter. You come into work and either
the line is frozen, ...
Wed, Nov 2 2011, 11:31 AM
Following
the tragic death of the Human Cannonball at the Springfield Autumn Fair, a
spokesman said "We'll struggle to get another man of the same
...
Tue, Nov 1 2011, 10:59 AM
Seven
billion is a lot of people. I guess that's about how many of us there are in
the world: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-15391515 .
(And no, ...
Thu, Oct 20 2011, 12:05 PM
Here is a
notable take on Realtors, for better or worse, titled " Five Rules to
Remember When Dealing with Real Estate Agents " .
Have you
comm...
Wed, Oct 19 2011, 10:31 AM
Men have
always wanted a manual for women. (I am sure somehow, that just like the
manuals for cell phones and cameras, we'd flip through and look fo...
Wed, Oct 19 2011, 8:47 AM
U.S. markets were little moved overnight as investors digest earnings, await new inflation and housing data, and examine possible outcomes for Europe'...
Wed, Oct 19 2011, 1:33 PM
Privately-owned housing starts in
September rose 15.0 percent above starts in August to a seasonally adjusted annual
rate of 658,000 units. Accordi...
