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	<title>pligg - published -the housing bubble-</title>
	<link>http://www.housebubble.org</link>
	<description>Pligg Web 2.0 Content Management System</description>
	<pubDate>Wed, 31 Oct 2007 09:28:33 MDT</pubDate>
	<language>en</language>
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		<title><![CDATA[Outdoor Sauna.Infrared Outdoor Saunas]]></title>
		<link>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=Outdoor-SaunaInfrared-Outdoor-Saunas</link>
		<comments>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=Outdoor-SaunaInfrared-Outdoor-Saunas</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 31 Oct 2007 09:28:33 MDT</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>HOME-SPA</dc:creator>
		<category>the housing bubble</category>
		<guid>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=Outdoor-SaunaInfrared-Outdoor-Saunas</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Outdoor Saunas &nbsp;&#187;&nbsp;<a href='http://www.wccomfort.com/new-style-outdoor-infrared-saunas/'>original news</a>]]></description>
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		<title><![CDATA[The Coming "Bloodbath"]]></title>
		<link>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=Coming-Bloodbath</link>
		<comments>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=Coming-Bloodbath</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 20 Jun 2007 06:19:23 MDT</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>god</dc:creator>
		<category>the housing bubble</category>
		<guid>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=Coming-Bloodbath</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[``It's not just a housing recession anymore, it looks more and more like an economic recession,'' said Nouriel Roubini, a Clinton administration Treasury Department director and economic adviser who now runs Roubini Global Economics in New York. &nbsp;&#187;&nbsp;<a href='http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103'>original news</a>]]></description>
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		<title><![CDATA[A Crisis Looms in Mortgages]]></title>
		<link>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=Crisis-Looms-in-Mortgages</link>
		<comments>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=Crisis-Looms-in-Mortgages</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 10 Mar 2007 10:48:36 MST</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Asder</dc:creator>
		<category>the housing bubble</category>
		<guid>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=Crisis-Looms-in-Mortgages</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The New York Times reports that: &amp;quot;On March 1, a Wall Street analyst at Bear Stearns wrote a surprisingly upbeat report on a company that specializes in making mortgages to cash-poor homebuyers. The company, New Century Financial, had already disclosed that a growing number of borrowers were defaulting, and its stock, at around $15, had lost half its value in three weeks.What happened next seems all too familiar to investors who bought technology stocks in 2000 at the breathless urging of Wall Street analysts. Last week, New Century said it would stop making loans and needed emergency financing to survive. The stock collapsed to $3.21.The analyst's untimely call, coupled with a failure among other Wall Street institutions to identify problems in the home mortgage market, isn't the only familiar ring to investors who watched the technology stock bubble burst precisely seven years ago.Now, as then, Wall Street firms and entrepreneurs made fortunes issuing questionable securities, in this case pools of home loans taken out by risky borrowers. Now, as then, bullish stock and credit analysts for some of those same Wall Street firms, which profited in the underwriting and rating of those investments, lulled investors with upbeat pronouncements even as loan defaults ballooned. Now, as then, regulators stood by as the mania churned, fed by lax standards and anything-goes lending.Investment manias are nothing new, of course. But the demise of this one has been broadly viewed as troubling, as it involves the nation's $6.5 trillion mortgage securities market, which is larger even than the United States treasury market.Hanging in the balance is the nation's housing market, which has been a big driver of the economy. Fewer lenders means many potential homebuyers will find it more difficult to get credit, while hundreds of thousands of homes will go up for sale as borrowers default, further swamping a stalled market.&amp;quot;The regulators are trying to figure out how to work around it, but the Hill is going to be in for one big surprise,&amp;quot; said Josh Rosner, a managing director at Graham-Fisher &amp;amp; Company, an independent investment research firm in New York, and an expert on mortgage securities. &amp;quot;This is far more dramatic than what led to Sarbanes-Oxley,&amp;quot; he added, referring to the legislation that followed the WorldCom and Enron scandals, &amp;quot;both in conflicts and in terms of absolute economic impact.&amp;quot;While real estate prices were rising, the market for home loans operated like a well-oiled machine, providing ready money to borrowers and high returns to investors like pension funds, insurance companies, hedge funds and other institutions. Now this enormous and important machine is sputtering, and the effects are reverberating throughout Main Street, Wall Street and Washington.&amp;quot;http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/11/business/11mortgage.html?_r=1&amp;amp;hp&amp;amp;oref=slogin &nbsp;&#187;&nbsp;<a href='http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/11/business/11mortgage.html?_r=1'>original news</a>]]></description>
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		<title><![CDATA[Nation's Subprime Industry is in a State of "Full Meltdown"]]></title>
		<link>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=Nations-Subprime-Industry-is-in-State-Full-Meltdown</link>
		<comments>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=Nations-Subprime-Industry-is-in-State-Full-Meltdown</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 07 Mar 2007 11:56:27 MST</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>elliotw</dc:creator>
		<category>the housing bubble</category>
		<guid>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=Nations-Subprime-Industry-is-in-State-Full-Meltdown</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Boston Herald reports that the subprime industry is creating a perilous situation for the banking industry itself: &amp;quot;The nation's subprime lending industry is now in full &amp;quot;meltdown&amp;quot; and its woes are far from over, experts warned yesterday.    But economists differed on whether the industry's problems will spill over into the commercial-banking sector or harm the overall economy.    Dozens of smaller subprime companies are now out of business - and some of the larger ones, such as Fremont General and New Century, are teetering as foreclosures rise becausemany homeowners can't keep up with mortgage payments.    &amp;quot;It's a total meltdown,&amp;quot; said Ernest Napier, an analyst with Standard &amp;amp; Poor's. &amp;quot;Everyone had anticipated that the music would stop (on these type of high-risk mortgages). Well, it has.&amp;quot;    The result is calls for more regulations and tougher standards for higher-risk lending. Some major commercial banks are also planning to pull back from subprime lending, which provides high-interest mortgages to customers who have bad or less-than-stellar credit ratings.    A number of large banks have seen their stocks pounded in recent days, due to fears by investors that their direct or indirect subprime businesses will end up harming them, too.    &amp;quot;I think we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg,&amp;quot; said Lee Forker, president of Boston's New England Research and Management. &amp;quot;This is serious stuff. . . . It's not time to be putting your head in the sand.&amp;quot;&amp;quot; &nbsp;&#187;&nbsp;<a href='http://business.bostonherald.com/realestateNews/view.bg?articleid=186805'>original news</a>]]></description>
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		<title><![CDATA[US Housing Crash to Result in Second Great Depression]]></title>
		<link>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=US-Housing-Crash-to-Result-in-Second-Great-Depression</link>
		<comments>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=US-Housing-Crash-to-Result-in-Second-Great-Depression</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 06 Mar 2007 08:04:59 MST</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>elliotw</dc:creator>
		<category>the housing bubble</category>
		<guid>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=US-Housing-Crash-to-Result-in-Second-Great-Depression</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Market Oracle has a must-read, terrifying analysis on the current state of the US Housing meltdown: &amp;quot;This week's data on the sagging real estate market leaves no doubt that the housing bubble is quickly crashing to earth and that hard times are on the way. &amp;quot;The slump in home prices from the end of 2005 to the end of 2006 was the biggest year over year drop since the National Association of Realtors started keeping track in 1982.&amp;quot; (New York Times) The Commerce Dept announced that the construction of new homes fell in January by a whopping 14.3%. Prices fell in half of the nation's major markets and &amp;quot;existing home sales declined in 40 states&amp;quot;. Arizona, Florida, California, and Virginia have seen precipitous drops in sales.The Commerce Department also reported that &amp;quot;the number of vacant homes increased by 34% in 2006 to 2.1 million at the end of the year, nearly double the long-term vacancy rate.&amp;quot; (Marketwatch)...he bottom line is that inventories are up, sales are down, profits are eroding, and the building industry is facing a steady downturn well into the foreseeable future.The ripple effects of the housing crash will be felt throughout the overall economy; shrinking GDP, slowing consumer spending and putting more workers in the growing unemployment lines.Congress is now looking into the shabby lending practices that shoehorned millions of people into homes that they clearly cannot afford. But their efforts will have no affect on the loans that are already in place. $1 trillion in ARMs (Adjustable Rate Mortgages) are due to reset in 2007 which guarantees that millions of over-leveraged homeowners will default on their mortgages putting pressure on the banks and sending the economy into a tailspin. We are at the beginning of a major shake-up and there's going to be a lot more blood on the tracks before things settle down.The banks and mortgage lenders are scrambling for creative ways to keep people in their homes but the subprime market is already teetering and foreclosures are on the rise.There's no doubt now, that Fed chairman Alan Greenspan's plan to pump zillions of dollars into the system via &amp;quot;low interest rates&amp;quot; has created the biggest monster-bubble of all time and set the stage for a deep economic retrenchment. Greenspan's inflationary policies were designed to expand the &amp;quot;wealth gap&amp;quot; and create greater economic polarization between the classes. By the time the housing bubble deflates, millions of working class Americans will be left to pay off loans that are considerably higher than the current value of their home. This will inevitably create deeper societal divisions and, very likely, a permanent underclass of mortgage-slaves.&amp;quot;Full article at: http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article383.html &nbsp;&#187;&nbsp;<a href='http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article383.html'>original news</a>]]></description>
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		<title><![CDATA[Off the Charts:  US House Pain is Just Starting]]></title>
		<link>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=Off-Charts-US-House-Pain-is-Just-Starting</link>
		<comments>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=Off-Charts-US-House-Pain-is-Just-Starting</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 05 Mar 2007 09:21:33 MST</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>chippy</dc:creator>
		<category>the housing bubble</category>
		<guid>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=Off-Charts-US-House-Pain-is-Just-Starting</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The International Herald Tribune tells it like it is in this statistical look at just how bad the US housing bubble is going to get: &amp;quot;In the autumn of 2005, the biggest boom in home prices in the United States was in Phoenix. People stood in line just to get on lists to buy new homes. It was possible to make lots of money selling a place on a list well before the house was actually built.At the peak of momentum in that market, according to the Standard &amp;amp; Poor's/Case-Shiller home prices index, house prices in Phoenix rose 49 percent in one 12-month period.That was then. When S&amp;amp;P issued its final 2006 price numbers this week, it reported that Phoenix home prices rose just 0.3 percent in 2006. And it said that home prices peaked in June and fell 2.6 percent in the final six months of the year.Home prices are notoriously difficult to compare. Every house is different from every other, in location if not in construction. The government compiles national averages, but it is hard to determine what they mean, since regional differences are huge.The S&amp;amp;P indexes, which now cover 20 regions of the United States, try to deal with that by recording all sales in an area, and then comparing the price to the same price that house fetched the last time it changed hands. They include only single-family homes, not condominium or cooperative apartments, which can distort the picture in areas where such apartments form a major part of the housing market....Home sales are falling, which is bad news for builders, but for those who already own homes the really important issue is price. So far, prices are not very far below peak levels in most markets, but continued weakness could change that, and create pain for those who must sell, or who need to refinance their mortgages.&amp;quot; &nbsp;&#187;&nbsp;<a href='http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/02/business/wbmarket03.php'>original news</a>]]></description>
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		<title><![CDATA[Exurbs Hit Hardest in Housing Crash]]></title>
		<link>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=Exurbs-Hit-Hardest-in-Housing-Crash</link>
		<comments>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=Exurbs-Hit-Hardest-in-Housing-Crash</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 07 Feb 2007 07:10:42 MST</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Asder</dc:creator>
		<category>the housing bubble</category>
		<guid>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=Exurbs-Hit-Hardest-in-Housing-Crash</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[CNN Money Reports that the distant suburbs of cities are the areas being hardest hit: &amp;quot;While the U.S. housing downturn has depressed once-thriving real estate markets around the nation, far-flung suburbs of major cities have suffered the most abrupt market correction.Home construction in these distant exurbs has slowed and prices and sales have fallen more than those of close-in suburban neighbors since a five-year U.S. housing boom ended in the summer of 2005.Average home prices in Loudon County, Virginia, 35 miles outside of Washington, D.C., fell roughly 11 percent in 2006, according to the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors. By contrast, Virginia's Arlington County, which hugs the nation's capital, saw a price decline of only about 2 percent.&amp;quot;It's been hard for sellers to comprehend, and I'm usually the bearer of bad news,&amp;quot; said Mike Wagner, a real estate broker who works in Loudon. &amp;quot;The news is: Your home is worth $100,000 less than it was a year and a half ago.&amp;quot;And it's not just prices that have suffered.The average Loudon County home sold in December spent 101 days on the market, according to the Realtor group. In Arlington, the average was 72 days.Wagner and other local real estate agents say the area's soft market is a hangover, in part, from a building spree and a buying binge among investors priced out of other areas.The same holds true for California, where exurban housing markets have softened more than those close to urban centers.Home prices in Los Angeles rose a relatively modest 5.8 percent in December from a year earlier, while sales were down 14.5 percent, the California Association of Realtors said.Riverside and San Bernardino counties, which are on the eastern edge of Los Angeles' suburban frontier, saw a more modest 3.9 percent increase in prices, while sales volume plummeted 40.6 percent. High Desert, about 80 miles from downtown Los Angeles, saw just a 1.3 percent increase in sales price and a 39 percent drop in the number of sales.Some observers blame the sales stall in the Los Angeles area on home builders who for years gobbled up available land in exurban tracts and overbuilt. Areas closer to the city are already built out and have not faced a big injection of new homes, said Leslie Appleton, an economist with the California Association of Realtors.Now, real estate agents in the exurbs trying to sell a glut of new homes, along with the inventory of previously owned houses.&amp;quot;There is intense competition in the inland areas of the state between the existing stock and new homes,&amp;quot; said Appleton. &amp;quot;The absorption of this new product is going to take some time.&amp;quot;And while new buyers are needed to sop up the housing stock, many investor-owners are losing their properties through bankruptcy, said Jesse Ramirez, a real estate agent in Riverside. &nbsp;&#187;&nbsp;<a href='http://money.cnn.com/2007/02/06/real_estate/exurbs_housing.reut/index.htm?cnn=yes'>original news</a>]]></description>
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		<title><![CDATA[Vacancy Rates:  "Housing may be poised for another downturn"]]></title>
		<link>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=Vacancy-Rates-Housing-may-be-poised-another-downturn</link>
		<comments>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=Vacancy-Rates-Housing-may-be-poised-another-downturn</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 05 Feb 2007 13:05:45 MST</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>elliotw</dc:creator>
		<category>the housing bubble</category>
		<guid>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=Vacancy-Rates-Housing-may-be-poised-another-downturn</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Reuters is reporting on a new statistic which spells trouble for housing prices: &amp;quot;A glut of vacant homes suggests that the U.S. housing market has not yet stabilized and may be poised for another downturn, Merrill Lynch said in a research note released on Monday.&amp;quot;Now that oil prices and mortgage rates have stopped falling, we will be back lamenting the downturn in the housing market and its spreading effects on the economy in the second quarter, much as we were in the summer and fall 2006,&amp;quot; Merrill Lynch economist David Rosenberg wrote.&amp;quot;Looking at the inventory backlog and still-stretched affordability levels, this story is far from over.&amp;quot;...That suggests a glut of almost 1 million homes sitting vacant, which will likely pressure selling prices for an extended period, Rosenberg said....&amp;quot;By itself, this would point to a fairly enormous supply overhang and little prospect of a bottom any time soon,&amp;quot; Hatzius wrote in a research note.&amp;quot; &nbsp;&#187;&nbsp;<a href='http://today.reuters.com/news/articlebusiness.aspx?type=ousiv'>original news</a>]]></description>
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		<title><![CDATA["There's Going to be Blood in the Streets"]]></title>
		<link>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=Theres-Going-to-be-Blood-in-Streets-1</link>
		<comments>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=Theres-Going-to-be-Blood-in-Streets-1</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 05 Feb 2007 03:37:35 MST</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>chippy</dc:creator>
		<category>the housing bubble</category>
		<guid>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=Theres-Going-to-be-Blood-in-Streets-1</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The North County Times has this grim news from the current state of the California real estate collapse: &amp;quot;In his 37 years in the mortgage business, Bert Morrison has never seen anything like it. The owner of Quality Funding Group in Rancho Bernardo said that scores of customers have come to his office wanting out of their adjustable-rate mortgages, called ARMs, and into a loan with more stable payments, such as a fixed-rate mortgage.Adjustable mortgages have interest rates that adjust periodically with current rates, so that monthly mortgage payments can rise and fall. They became increasingly popular in the early part of the decade, when interest rates were at record lows.Borrowers who took out adjustables before interest rates began to climb in mid-2004 are now feeling the squeeze.Consider a hypothetical North County home buyer, Karl, who purchased a $550,000 home in 2004, with 10 percent down and a $500,000 adjustable-rate mortgage. With an initial interest rate of 4 percent, his monthly payment was $2,387. But as rates marched upward, his mortgage interest rate has risen to 6 percent, or $2,998 per month, an increase of 25 percent.Karl, unfortunately, is not alone.The popularity of adjustable-rate mortgages has increased dramatically. In 2001, ARMs represented about 12 percent of all mortgages, according to national mortgage buyer Freddie Mac. But in 2004, the figure had risen to 33 percent. Last year, it dropped to 28 percent.In California, borrowers flocked to them. In 2005, roughly 60 percent of all the mortgages taken out in the state were ARMs, according to research from First American Real Estate Solutions, a real estate research company.That means that millions of homeowners are facing increased monthly mortgage payments.As much as $1.5 trillion in adjustable-rate loans nationwide could &amp;quot;reset,&amp;quot; or readjust, this year, according to the Mortgage Brokers Association in Washington, D.C. Of that figure, the association said as much as $800 billion will reset into higher payments. Other borrowers could sell or refinance.In San Diego County, borrowers took out 173,033 adjustable-rate loans worth more than $75 billion to buy or refinance their homes between 2004 and mid-2006, according to Christopher Cagan, director of research and analytics for First American Real Estate.Cagan's research has led him to paint a dire picture. Of the above loans, he said, 66,726 are at a risk of resetting to a monthly mortgage payment that the borrower can't afford. And almost half, or 30,209 loans, are at risk of default and foreclosure, costing lenders more than $5 billion.&amp;quot;A default occurs when a borrower falls behind in payments. A foreclosure is when the lender takes the property back from a borrower who has defaulted.&amp;quot;It takes months for people to get in trouble,&amp;quot; Cagan said. &amp;quot;It takes months or years for them to lose the house.&amp;quot;There's no telling how many borrowers will default. However, Morrison, from Quality Funding Group, said that the situation will likely get much worse before it gets better.&amp;quot;There is going to be a lot of blood in the streets,&amp;quot; he said. &amp;quot;You ain't seen nothing yet.&amp;quot; &nbsp;&#187;&nbsp;<a href='http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/02/04/business/news/14_08_092_3_07.txt'>original news</a>]]></description>
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		<title><![CDATA["There's a Monster Beneath the Surface of Financial Markets"]]></title>
		<link>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=Theres-Monster-Beneath-Surface-Financial-Markets</link>
		<comments>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=Theres-Monster-Beneath-Surface-Financial-Markets</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 01 Feb 2007 10:03:32 MST</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>elliotw</dc:creator>
		<category>the housing bubble</category>
		<guid>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=Theres-Monster-Beneath-Surface-Financial-Markets</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Bloomberg reports that tightening lending standards may contribute to the collapse of the housing markets: &amp;quot; ``As the Fed tries to tighten credit standards, some borrowers who planned to roll over a mortgage into a better product are going to get caught in the corridor and may end up in default,'' said Joseph Stiglitz, the 2001 Nobel laureate in economics who teaches at Columbia University in New York.Sub-prime mortgages, home loans with rates at least 2 or 3 percentage points above the safest, so-called prime loans, are given to people with poor or limited credit histories, or high debt burdens relative to their incomes. Such loans made up about a fifth of all new mortgages last year, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association in Washington.The pool of money available to borrowers like Jones who don't have the highest, or prime, credit ratings is shrinking as investors in mortgage-backed securities shy away from riskier sub-prime loans. More restrictive lending standards makes it more difficult for people to purchase houses, said Angelo Mozilo, chairman and chief executive officer of Calabasas, California- based Countrywide Financial Corp., the U.S.'s largest mortgage lender.`Chain Reaction'``If you get too restrictive on that, it could have a material effect not only on people's lives, but it's a chain reaction,'' Mozilo said in a Dec. 5 interview. ``If people can't buy the used home, then the people who are in that home can't buy a new one.''U.S. foreclosures begun on sub-prime adjustable-rate mortgages, or ARMs, rose to a four-year high of 2.19 percent in the third quarter as borrowers struggled to pay mortgage bills while interest rates increased, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported. During the five-year boom in housing prices, homeowners who fell behind on mortgage payments could sell their homes and pay off their loans or get better refinancing terms based on the higher value of their property. ... `Monster Beneath'Underwriting standards for sub-prime loans have been too low for at least a year, resulting in loans being issued to borrowers who have little chance of paying them back, Shaughnessy said. That will hurt the insurance companies, pension funds and asset- management firms that are holding some of the U.S.'s $6 trillion of mortgage-backed securities in their portfolios, he said.``There's a monster beneath the surface of the financial markets,'' Shaughnessy said. ``No one knows when or where the credit crisis is going to rear its ugly head.''Typical sub-prime loans have rates that are below the levels they will adjust to even if the Fed doesn't raise rates. The ability of the so-called teaser rate to rise quickly causes some consumer protection groups to call the loans ``exploding ARMs.'' ..The percentage of borrowers as of September who had fallen at least two months behind on sub-prime mortgages taken out last year was the highest ever, twice the average, according to data compiled by Zurich-based UBS AG. Credit-rating companies Standard &amp;amp; Poor's, Moody's Investors Service and Fitch Ratings have grown more skeptical about how the riskier loans will perform.&amp;quot; &nbsp;&#187;&nbsp;<a href='http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&amp;sid=aNoc4LFUSOKw&amp;refer=us'>original news</a>]]></description>
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		<title><![CDATA[Weakening Demand for Home Loans]]></title>
		<link>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=Weakening-Demand-Home-Loans-1</link>
		<comments>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=Weakening-Demand-Home-Loans-1</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 30 Jan 2007 14:06:02 MST</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>god</dc:creator>
		<category>the housing bubble</category>
		<guid>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=Weakening-Demand-Home-Loans-1</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Wall Street Journal is reporting on the weakining demand for home loans which is hurting major mortage lenders and forcing massive layoffs: &amp;quot;Countrywide Financial Corp. said fourth-quarter net income fell 3% on slower loan volumes, and management at the largest U.S. mortgage lender expects to see continued profit pressure this year.The entire mortgage industry is feeling the pinch from slowing home sales, intensifying competition, rising delinquencies, and a persistent &amp;quot;inverted yield curve&amp;quot; -- in which short-term interest rates are higher than long-term ones, shrinking lenders' profit margins. Many large mortgage lenders, including those owned by banks such as Washington Mutual Inc. and the independent ones such as IndyMac Bancorp, recently also offered downbeat forecasts for 2007.The outlook from Countrywide likely will trigger more concerns about the financial health of the nation's homeowners, as many investors and analysts look to the Calabasas, Calif., company as the benchmark for the home-loan industry. Countrywide is &amp;quot;preparing for increased borrower delinquencies and continued credit deterioration,&amp;quot; Chairman and Chief Executive Angelo R. Mozilo said. Meanwhile, reiterating a statement he made in the third quarter, Mozilo said that &amp;quot;2007 will likely be the trough year of the current housing cycle and that 2008 should represent the beginning of upward trends associated with the next cycle.&amp;quot;...Countrywide officials said in October that the company would cut 2,500 jobs as part of its effort to realize annual cost savings of about $500 million. Weakening demand for home loans already has pushed many lenders, including Washington Mutual, to cut costs. Expenses increased 12% to $1.77 billion in the fourth quarter. &nbsp;&#187;&nbsp;<a href='http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117016917990792358.html?mod=googlenews_wsj'>original news</a>]]></description>
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		<title><![CDATA[Realtors: "Now may be a great time to buy "]]></title>
		<link>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=Realtors-Now-may-be-great-time-to-buy-</link>
		<comments>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=Realtors-Now-may-be-great-time-to-buy-</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 22 Jan 2007 22:16:00 MST</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>popo</dc:creator>
		<category>the housing bubble</category>
		<guid>http://www.housebubble.org/story.php?title=Realtors-Now-may-be-great-time-to-buy-</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Santa Maria Times reports: &amp;quot;For people thinking about buying a home on the Central Coast, now through March may offer the best opportunity of the year for favorable mortgage rates and home prices.The 2007 mortgage industry forecast by the California Association of Mortgage Brokers projects interest rates will stay within 1 percent of the current low levels through the year.That, coupled with traditionally low demand for homes during the winter months and prices that have fallen or leveled off, could mean buyers are likely to find the best deals now, according to the association.Results from the association's fifth annual survey show 36 percent of the members believe interest rates will rise by less than 1 percent, while 29 percent believe they'll stay the same and 26 percent say they'll fall by less than 1 point.&amp;quot;My thought is that's true,&amp;quot; said Mike Hahlbeck, president of the association's North Central Coast Chapter, which has about 50 members from Santa Barbara to Paso Robles.&amp;quot;The interest rates seem pretty stable right now, and I don't see any economic factors that are likely to change that,&amp;quot; he said.&amp;quot; &nbsp;&#187;&nbsp;<a href='http://www.santamariatimes.com/articles/2007/01/20/news/featurednews/news01.txt'>original news</a>]]></description>
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