Category — Economy
Fed: N.C., Region’s Economy Flattened in Late 2011
The Federal Reserve’s latest report on the country’s economic conditions paints a picture of an economic expansion during the final six weeks of 2011, primarily because of a boost in holiday sales. But for the Fed’s Richmond district that covers North Carolina, the news was somewhat tempered.
Commonly known as the “Beige Book,” the report released Jan. 11th notes economic activity ‘flattened or improved slightly’ in the district since the last report.
Man...
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January 12, 2012 No Comments
Wall Street’s New Watcher
-The Wall Street Journal Two weeks after moving into a skyscraper near Wall Street to start assembling a muscular new agency overseeing banks and insurers in New York, Benjamin M. Lawsky got a surprise during an introductory meeting with a midlevel manager: His power was even broader than he thought. The 41-year-old former federal prosecutor, who spent the last four years as Andrew Cuomo's confidant and adviser in the New York attorney general's office, learned that he had greater latitude to...
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October 3, 2011 No Comments
House Is Gone but Debt Lives On
-The Wall Street Journal LEHIGH ACRES, Fla.—Joseph Reilly lost his vacation home here last year when he was out of work and stopped paying his mortgage. The bank took the house and sold it. Mr. Reilly thought that was the end of it. In June, he learned otherwise. A phone call informed him of a court judgment against him for $192,576.71. It turned out that at a foreclosure sale, his former house fetched less than a quarter of what Mr. Reilly owed on it. His bank sued him for the rest. ...
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October 3, 2011 No Comments
Senate leaders announce bipartisan agreement to avert government shutdown
-The Washington Post Senate leaders agreed to a deal Monday evening that is almost certain to avert a federal government shutdown, a prospect that had unexpectedly arisen when congressional leaders deadlocked over disaster relief funding. After days of brinkmanship reminiscent of the budget battles that have consumed Washington this year, key senators clinched a compromise that would provide less money for disaster relief than Democrats sought but would also strip away spending cuts that Repu...
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September 27, 2011 No Comments
Fed bond-buying decision keeps mortgage rates at record lows
-Housingwire The Federal Reserve's plan to reinvest principal payments on some bonds into mortgage-backed securities is already contributing to the nation's record low mortgage interest rates, Bankrate said Thursday. Bankrate said the Federal Open Market Committee seems to be taking direct aim at mortgage rates by shifting $400 billion from short-term holdings into long-term government bonds. The program, which begins Oct. 3 and runs through June, will involve longer-term Treasury securities ...
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September 26, 2011 No Comments
What New Jumbo Mortgage Rules Mean for Expensive Zip Codes
-Yahoo! Finance On Oct. 1, the size of mortgages eligible for purchase by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will shrink. That isn't necessarily a big deal in most parts of the country; the new lower limit of $625,500 — down from today's $729,750 — still is big enough to cover most homes in almost all markets in the United States. Furthermore, mortgage bankers are stepping up with new money to cover those bigger loans, reports Mortgage Daily. "Programs here and there are popping up," say...
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September 26, 2011 No Comments
Why only small business can save America
-USA Today The bad news is all around us and never seems to end. If it's not Tea Party Republicans who somehow, shockingly seemed willing to allow the country to go into default before they would accept even the most basic of revenue increases, it's a president who seems unable to match his legislative ability to his previous soaring rhetoric, sharp mind and historic promise. And that's for starters. Unemployment remains far too high, hovering near 9%. The deficit is all too real and gettin...
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August 9, 2011 1 Comment
20 Percent Down For Home Purchase The New Standard, Again?
-The Real Estate Bloggers The housing market may be getting a little tighter in a couple of months. The bureaucrats working on enacting some of the provisions of the Dodd-Frank reforms have interpreted the loosely written laws to require homes that qualify for the best interest rates to have a minimum of a 20 percent down payment. That sound you just heard is agents across the country gulping in panic. The homes that have a 20 percent down payment will get the best interest rates, those buy...
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August 4, 2011 No Comments
As housing prices drop, closing costs are rising
-MSNBC Nationwide, the average origination and title fees on a $200,000 purchase mortgage totaled $4,070, according to Bankrate's annual survey of closing costs. That's an 8.8 percent jump compared to 2010 when the average closing costs totaled $3,741. For the second year in a row, the states with the highest closing costs are New York, where costs average $6,183; Texas at $4,944; followed by Utah with $4,906. Next was California, where average closing costs in San Francisco totaled $4,832. N...
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July 22, 2011 No Comments
Only 49% of homeowners surveyed say home worth more than mortgage
-Housingwire For the second month in a row, less than half of the nation's homeowners think their home is worth more than the amount they still owe on their mortgage. While that’s up from June’s all-time low of 45%, it is just the third time this finding has fallen below 50% since late 2008, according to pollster Rasmussen Reports, which conducted a national telephone survey of homeowners. Upper-income homeowners are more confident in their home value than those who earn less, and inves...
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July 22, 2011 No Comments
Conflicts in federal programs leave underwater homeowners adrift
-Housingwire Government programs aimed at refinancing mortgages for homeowners in negative equity are plagued with disappointing results, long-shot legislation and growing conflicts among regulatory agencies. As of May, 2.1 million mortgages sat somewhere in the foreclosure process, according to Lender Processing Services. Of those delinquent home loans, 80% were in negative equity, meaning the borrower owed more on the mortgage than the property is worth. Of the seriously delinquent loans th...
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July 20, 2011 No Comments
Europe’s pain is U.S. homeowners’ gain
-MSNBC The threat of a debt default by Greece and other European countries has created financial turmoil for investors, banks and government officials. It’s also provided a boon to U.S. homeowners. Long-term mortgage rates have been drifting to their lowest levels of the year, sparking a new wave in mortgage refinancing activities, industry experts say. The reason? Despite the anxiety over debt talk brinksmanship in Washington, investors have been flocking to dollar-based investments incl...
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July 20, 2011 No Comments
More Americans to exit homeownership
-Housingwire Political deadlock mixed with terrible housing market conditions will eventually turn America into a society of renters, according to the latest Housing Market Insights report from Morgan Stanley (MS: 21.58 +2.86%). High rates of mortgage delinquency, foreclosures and liquidations are turning homeowners into renters, analysts at the investment banking giant said, lowering homeownership rates and increasing demand for rentals. And it appears even federal institutions are giving ...
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July 20, 2011 No Comments
Fed’s Massive Stimulus Had Little Impact: Greenspan
-CNBC The Federal Reserve's massive stimulus program had little impact on the U.S. economy besides weakening the dollar and helping U.S. exports, Federal Reserve Governor Alan Greenspan told CNBC Thursday. In a blunt critique of his successor, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, Greenspan said the $2 trillion in quantitative easing over the past two years had done little to loosen credit and boost the economy. "There is no evidence that huge inflow of money into the system basically worked,&quo...
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July 13, 2011 No Comments
Fed’s new money policy: ‘Wait and see’
-MSNBC After pumping more than a trillion dollars into the financial system, forcing interest to near zero and buying back hundreds of billions of dollars of bad mortgage bonds, the Federal Reserve has adopted a new monetary policy. Call it "wait and see." Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke was on Capitol Hill Wednesday testifying on the central bank's latest strategies for getting the economy back on a stronger footing. The hearing comes a day after minutes of the Fed's latest Open Market...
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July 13, 2011 No Comments
With $600K, you can get a room in NYC – or a mansion in Des Moines
-The Daily Forget Beverly Hills or Manhattan. If you really want to live the high life, try … Des Moines, Iowa? Based on the buying power of its residents, the Corn Belt capital was recently named the richest metropolitan area in the country by U.S. News and World Report. For the same annual salary that would have you living like a pauper in pricey Manhattan, in Des Moines you can enjoy a veritable life of luxury. The study used a cost of living index that takes into account prices of such ...
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July 12, 2011 No Comments
Why Real Estate May Be The Buying Opportunity of the Decade
-Moneyland No one knows what the economy or the stock market will do over the next six months. But when your time horizon is 20 years, the outlook is actually a lot clearer. And right now, all the trends are lining up to make real estate a fantastic long-term buy. Of course, if you look at recent real estate statistics, the picture is a total catastrophe. Home prices are down by a third, and the decline recently exceeded that of the Great Depression. Across the country, 2 million homes are in...
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July 12, 2011 1 Comment
Think where you live is pricey? Try Tokyo or Sydney
-Life Inc. Americans may complain about the cost of living, but life is actually getting a bit cheaper here compared with the rest of the world, a new study finds. None of the world's 40 most expensive cities are in the United States, with the top spots dominated by cities in Japan, Australia and western Europe, according to a semi-annual report by the Economist Intelligence Unit. Los Angeles, which somehow ranks as the most expensive U.S. city, is No. 41 on the global list, down from No. 24 ...
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July 11, 2011 No Comments
Cities Unaffected by a Bad Economy
-Yahoo! Finance The U.S. unemployment rate crept back up to 9% last week, but some cities are feeling the pain far worse than others. Roughly 112 metro areas in the U.S. are still dealing with 10% unemployment or greater. That's down from 166 at the same time last year, but tell that to folks in El Centro, Calif., where nearly one in every four people is unemployed. The Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario area in California is still dealing with nearly 14% unemployment, while the 13.3% unemploym...
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July 6, 2011 No Comments
Berkshire’s Charles Munger: Housing Bubble Caused By ‘Megalomania, Insanity, And Evil’
-Huffington Post Charles Munger, the always-quotable vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, wasn’t mincing words on Friday. “The bubble in America was caused by some combination of megalomania, insanity and evil in, I would say, investment banking, mortgage banking,”Munger said at a conference in Pasadena. In assigning responsibility for the housing bubble that precipitated the financial-sector collapse of 2008, and ushered in a period of prolonged economic contraction, Munger also took...
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July 5, 2011 No Comments
Banks stand to benefit from higher interest rates: S&P
-Housingwire Investors may fret rising interest rates when the government tightens its monetary policies, but Standard & Poor's said higher rates should help the nation's banks. "Financial institutions are exposed to interest-rate risk because of mismatches in the maturity structure and re-pricing terms of their assets and liabilities," S&P said. "Despite marketplace concerns, we believe interest-rate risk is unlikely to be a problem for most of the U.S. financial ins...
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June 27, 2011 No Comments
The Post-Foreclosure Wait
-New York Times Mortgage troubles won’t necessarily shut you out of the housing market forever. As the economy and real estate market continue to struggle, millions of Americans have lost their homes through foreclosure, short sale (when a property is sold for less than is owed) or a deed in lieu of foreclosure (when the bank takes ownership without foreclosure). Even if you think you never want to own a home again, clean credit is important. Bad credit can make it more expensive to rent. ...
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June 27, 2011 No Comments
Bernanke says home price stabilization necessary to woo buyers
-Housingwire Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said home price stabilization and a faster foreclosure process are needed to restore confidence in housing, unleashing a recovery in the sector. He also said the central bank expects the unemployment rate to slip to 8.6% by the latter part of 2011 and decrease to 7.5% by 2013. High unemployment continues to weigh down the economy and remains a significant contributor to the stalled housing recovery, Bernanke said Wednesday in the Fed's seco...
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June 22, 2011 No Comments
Dollar Weakens as Stocks Advance Before Federal Reserve Meeting
-Bloomberg The dollar fell against the majority of its most-traded counterparts as stocks and commodities rose, reducing demand for a refuge as the Federal Reserve begins a two-day policy meeting. The greenback weakened to the lowest versus the euro in almost a week. The shared currency rose as European leaders said a Greek default can be avoided amid speculation Prime Minister George Papandreou will win a confidence vote today. China’s yuan traded at almost a 17-year high on speculation po...
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June 21, 2011 No Comments
Fed Holds Economy Hostage
-GoldSeek The Fed is holding the US economy hostage. And it’s time for a prisoner snatch. It was 32 years ago that President Reagan freed the hostages from Iran. He did within hours of his inauguration what Jimmy Carter had failed to do in 444 days--he freed 52 US embassy employees taken hostage and imprisoned by Iran’s Islamic theocracy. It is not that President Carter did not try to free the hostages held in the Tehran prison since November 4, 1979. One valiant rescue attempt ended in...
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June 21, 2011 1 Comment
