$300 Billion and the Housing Market
By Charles TurnerThe combined net worth of the six richest individuals in the world is $310B (forbes.com). On Friday, the senate passes a bill that would put $300B towards rescuing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and supporting mortgagees who in over their heads (and can document it).
President Bush is likely to sign the bill into law within days. After the law kicks in on Oct. 1, thousands of at-risk borrowers will be able to refinance their unaffordable old mortgages into new low-cost fixed-rate loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). (cnn.com)
The CNN story outlines who is eligible, how it works and what it cost.
President Bush is likely to sign the bill into law within days. After the law kicks in on Oct. 1, thousands of at-risk borrowers will be able to refinance their unaffordable old mortgages into new low-cost fixed-rate loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA).
Freddie Mac put this video out in December. It is also available in Spanish.
Tomorrow: Case-Shiller’s latest report should come out.
My prediction for PDX in the upcoming Case-Schiller….0.4% increase…..and we’re annualizing the very worst vintage of mortgage right now, mid 2006, the real cowboy stuff. Also, note to Squeezed, how do you like my BAC pick now baby! Ive been averaging in for weeks and I just sold that 80% move.
My understanding of the bill is the support to Fannie and Freddie is unlimited. It allows we the people (of course I mean the ex Wall Street CEOs) without authorization from congress to purchase shares as many share from them as we (they) like. Another part of the bill added to the national debt limit an amount of almost 1 trillion dollars. Have we surpassed 10T on our debt limit yet?
Let’s see, what other things are shoved in there, oh the destruction of the OFHEO which oversees Fannie and Freddie. The FHFB, toast.
Let’s just call the newly created office the “Federal Office of Debt Issuance”.
Wait, found it in the bill. Section 3083:
Subsection (b) of section 3101 of title 31, United States Code, is amended by striking out the dollar limitation contained in such subsection and inserting in lieu thereof $10,615,000,000,000.
Zowie!
It won’t do a thing to bring back the hysteria of 2005. Housing everywhere will continue to drop for years and years. This little bailout is like watering a dead plant.
You real estate shills are grabbing at straws. Your paradigm that housing is some magical “investment” is crumbling. It was always an illusion. That 300K fixer upper will end up costing you 1 million after all is said and done.
Capitalism has ruined real estate. It isn’t even a rational purchase anymore. It’s like buying a car. Fun to have but not a wise use of one’s funds.
naysayer,
Largely agree except that it was RE that ruined RE. When NAHB came up with the insane idea of creating a $10,000 Tax Credit for new home buyers the only response the Center For Tax Policy had was; “How is it possible to bend over backwards for real estate then we already have?”
No cap gains, write off property tax against Fed. return, Mort. Int. Ded. ( mortgage int. deduction for SECOND home! ) and…? NAR is/was a powerful lobby machine. They got everything they asked for and then some. There had to be a ceiling to it, and… we finally found it! Now if we can just find the bottom?
I thought the bailout was only for those who had the old bait n switch pulled on ‘em, the ones who were lied to or misled by the lender. This was not supposed to be for the speculators, those that expected RE to only go up,up, and up. Those that knew dang well what they were getting into, ie, the ARM’s, the IO’s, the option ARMs, not those that expected to sell in a few years after their piece of RE increased in value another 50%…come on now, what the $%&#
And now we are gonna break another record=the budget deficit. What’s this country coming to?!?!
Looks like Mr. Thrifty’s prediction came up about 5.6% short. Portland dropped 5.2%.
Guess again, Mr Thrifty, prelim C-S numbers out and none of the top 20 cities are positive. In fact LV and Miami show huge drops! Is the end ever gonna be in sight?
We did rise 0.4% from last month. Remember, the mantra, it is about month-over-month now since the year-over-year doesn’t look so hot. Take a look at the RMLS summary on the Market Action reports.
The 10% to $7,500 “tax credit” is a no interest loan… to be paid back over 15 years.
How about y’all just give me my props for framing that month over month early for you….your 0.4% weatlthier than you were last month…go buy yourself a latte to celebrate.
your(sic) 0.4% weatlthier(sic) than you were last month
Are you serious or just trying to give an example of the wealth effect that has screwed up this country?
How much is your home worth? Well, it all depends where you live.
The real estate market is still shaking. New data suggests that home prices have hit a new record low. In every new study that comes out, homeowners from Miami, to Las Vegas, Phoenix and Los Angeles, have seen their home value go lower every time.
Is that disappointing? Of course it is.
Should we sell? Is not a good time.
Should we stick to it? Yes, if you can.
Have we hit bottom? Nobody knows.
Banks are facing their worst foreclosure crisis.
Don’t take me wrong, it’s good if you are in the market to buy a home for yourself or if you are an investor, but if you are not, and you own a home, most likely the value of your property is down at least 15 %.
Why do banks care if you are loosing your home? By having to sell repossessed homes, banks have to literally slash their prices down. It gets very costly for them, after all, they have to pay property taxes, maintenance costs, and whatever utilities that need to be paid, all of this expenses for a house that it’s just sitting there, vacant, and the bank is getting nothing in return.
The latest study by the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index of 20 cities, revealed the news that for 22 consecutive months home prices dropped. Only from April to May, 2009 the decline was of 0.9 %
“How about y’all just give me my props for framing that month over month early for you….your 0.4% weatlthier than you were last month…go buy yourself a latte to celebrate.”
You never mentioned month over month in the first post.
Frankly predicting that wasn’t hard, at least for those of us that can read a chart. It’s a seasonal bump. We’re still down more Year over Year than last month, and I predict it will accelerate once the summer wraps up and the sellers freak out that their darling homes haven’t sold.
Full charts are on my blog now for those interested. Sounds like NW Hoyt is keeping Charles jumping.
It was obvious I meant month over month…I mean I don’t have to spoon feed you do I?
Enjoy your sour grapes.
And yes I was being sarcastic when I said your 0.4% wealthier than you were last month.