Economics

Mortgage interest rates plunge on debt deal news

Mortgages

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From one of my favorite loan officers, Gary Ogami at Pinnacle Peak Lending, Inc. comes the news that mortgage interest rates just hit year-long lows: …rates are now at the year’s lows, and are only slightly above the all-time lows we saw almost one year ago. The passage of a debt ceiling and deficit reduction [...]

2 August 2011 Read the full article →

Income and Wealth Distribution in the United States

Op Ed

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These numbers are staggering, and I’ve now seen them in 2 different sources. The Wealth-Income Pyramid, from zerohedge.com: “The key to understanding “recession” and “recovery”:  The Wealth Pyramid The top 20% are prospering and spending money; the bottom 80% are not, but thanks to vast wealth disparity, the top slice of households can keep consumer [...]

12 April 2011 Read the full article →

The Fed’s 10-Year Projections

Op Ed

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It’s easy to make projections; it’s a bit more difficult to make accurate projections.  And far more projections are made than accurate projections.  So why do we listen so intently to the experts’ opinions, giving ourselves an emotional roller coaster, when they’re probably no more likely to be right than you or me? Let’s take [...]

8 April 2011 Read the full article →

Are Property Taxes a Perpetual Liability?

Op Ed

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I thought this was interesting.. Economist Mish Shedlock published an email correspondence with a reader, where they discuss the concept of property taxes being similar to a mortgage you can never pay off. Imagine the perpetual loan, a loan that no matter what you do, you can never pay off. To help conceptualize the idea, [...]

1 April 2011 Read the full article →

Charting 2010

In The News

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The Calculated Risk Blog published a post using a number of charts to show & tell the economy’s story of 2010. Keeping in mind these are from a national view, and that Arizona’s numbers will be different, I still thought a few of them were worth sharing, especially since they tell a story of being [...]

26 January 2011 Read the full article →

Bank of America posts earnings loss

In The News

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Bank of America just posted a big loss. Bank of America, among many other things the #2 residential mortgage lender and #1 servicer, reported a second straight quarterly loss, driven by write-downs in the value of its mortgage business. The bank lost $1.57 billion, or 16 cents a share, compared with a loss of $5.2 [...]

23 January 2011 Read the full article →

W.P. Carey on 2011

Market Analysis & Stats

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Elliott Pollack writes for the W.P. Carey (Arizona State University’s School of Business) blog: (highlights below, emphasis mine) The national recession has been over for almost 18 months now. Are you having a good time yet? Normally one would expect a very vibrant recovery from such a steep recession. The fact is that this recovery [...]

19 January 2011 Read the full article →

Not paying your mortgage? Don’t worry, banks making money off you anyhow.

Investors

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Clients always ask me, “WHY are banks so SLOW in agreeing to short sales??” There’s a ton of reasons; almost none of them make sense. But for about 2-3 years I’ve been adding this opinion to my list of reasons banks are slow to OK short sales. Mind you, this is my opinion. I have [...]

14 January 2011 Read the full article →

US home prices hit new lows. Not Phoenix.

In The News

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The mainstream media are at it again. Chris and I have written about mainstream media and their panicky screamy headlines more times than I can count. Today the media are at it again. The Washington Post ran a screaming headline this morning: “U.S. Home Prices Drop 1.3% from September to October”. They were almost gleeful [...]

28 December 2010 Read the full article →

Fannie Mae: 2010 sucked, 2011 better

In The News

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Per Fannie Mae, the fourth quarter of 2010 will not wind up being a memorable time for housing sales. Fannie projects that existing home sales will increase slightly, but that new home sales will drop significantly. Fannie’s number crunchers say we should expect 2010 housing sales to be down 7% from last year, and with [...]

23 December 2010 Read the full article →

Local builder posts 4th quarter loss

In The News

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Local home builder K. Hovnanian reported its 4th quarter income, which showed a smaller loss than 1 year ago, but came in lower than analysts expected. “K. Hov” is still building homes across the Valley. In the far West Valley K.Hov homes in the community of Verrado start at $149,900. They’re building substantially the same [...]

22 December 2010 Read the full article →

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