Friday, February 11, 2011

Freedom Wins! Housing Loses!

Congratulations Egypt!


It's amazing what you can accomplish if you want it bad enough.  Hopefully, all governments of the world will take notice of this amazing event.

The message?:  If you abuse "We The People" you will be taken down.  If a brutal dictator like Mubarak can go then anyone can! 

The market looks like crap today BTW.  The fall of Mubarak should have sparked quite a rally.  We have seen nothing of the sort.

On the news front the PIIGS are back:

"LONDON (MarketWatch) — Proving that the euro zone’s sovereign-debt crisis is yet to be vanquished, yields on Portuguese government bonds continued to climb to levels viewed as unsustainable on Thursday, prompting the European Central Bank to intervene.


Yields on the 10-year bonds soared to a euro-era high of more than 7.6% at one point Thursday morning, according to strategists. The European Central Bank later intervened to buy Portuguese bonds, several analysts said, after staying out of the markets amid relative calm in recent weeks."

The Bottom Line

The PIIGS issues and their massive losses have been hidden versus being solved.  The same thing is happening over here.  Keep "printing and praying" guys.  Everything is just fine...NOT!

Fannie/Freddie

Geithner came out and discussed a new plan that will wind down Fannie and Freddie.  It's too bad the plan is about 3 years late and lacked detail.

It is also way too drawn out.  They say it will take 5-7 years to wind these two worthless entities down.  This pretty much guarantees that the housing crisis will be stretched out for a decade as the government slowly gets out of the mortgage market.

The reality here is when they do get out than no one will be doing loans.  Think about it:   What bank is going to take on the risk of doing a mortgage without a guarantee from the government?

I wouldn't be lending if I was a bank.  Who in the hell wants to lend people money for loans on houses that are still grossly over priced?  On top of that who is left to qualify to buy with unenployment nearing 20%?

Also, note that the new requirements will demand that you have 10% down when the government leaves the market.  Good luck with that one! How many borrowers have that?  You probably just took out 70% of the buying pool with the 10% rule.

Don't get me wrong, it's a good idea.  In fact, it should be 20% down like it was in the old days.  This is called sound lending!

All I can say is good luck to the housing market as the government slowly backs out.  You think things are bad now?  Wait until the only lenders left are a bunch of insolvent banks that will only do prime loans with 10-20% down.

Housing is DOOMED with a capital D.

9 comments:

ManHands said...

Jeff, I logged on to see if anon had answered my question about case shiller, and I was a little troubled to see that you had deleted it.

IIRC, all he did was point out what you said in the past, and compare it to what really happened. There was no profanity or anything, just a recounting of the facts, and as such, I dont understand why you would delete it?

IMO, once you decide to run a blog, you have to have thick skin as you open yourself up to the world for criticism and you surely get some things wrong (as we all do).

Also, I think its VERY important that civil criticism is allowed as it keeps us accountable, and allows us to learn from our mistakes, and (hopefully) not make them again, by adjusting our expectations for the future accordingly.

And besides, I too saw that info on fannie & freddie. Very Interesting, & certainly not (IMO) good for the market. Thus, you should feel emboldened to allow criticism and then hold HIM accountable should his predictions fail!

Do you not agree?

EconomicDisconnect said...

I don't think the Egypt thing is going to work out all that well. As with most things now, it is viewed as a huge positive but wait a while. Early democracy or revolution is always ugly.

I still keep laughing to myself when I think of rates goign to "normal" and mortgages at 7% and somehow this will make home prices go up??? Better be a hell on fire recovery with 10 million new jobs in a year for that to happen.

Jeff said...

Man

He has been warned about his behaviour several times. His comments are repetitive and add nothing to the conversation.

It's become a distraction and it will not be tolerated.

I have patience to a point. Don't know what to tell you.

Herb said...

I'm not sure trading a dictator for a military junta is really a step in the right direction.

Getting rid of Fannie & Freddie seems like a great idea, but its just not ever going to happen. I predict they will be replaced by a government agency with different acronyms.

Jeff said...

Herb and Get

Yeah you guys are right when it comes to Egypt.

We saw a little bump today as Mubarak resigned but many questions remain.

Anonymous said...

"He has been warned about his behaviour several times. His comments are repetitive and add nothing to the conversation."

Sure they do. They allow others to judge the veracity of your statements.

And in any event, you also deleted my response to Man about my views on the bottom. How was this (which had nothing to do with you) objectionable?

EconomicDisconnect said...

Wife surprised me with Ruths Chris reservations tonight! Love that place. My lady rocks.

How is your weekend going?

Jeff said...

"Sure they do. They allow others to judge the veracity of your statements."

So you are saying my readers aren't intelligent enough to make their own conclusions when it comes to my posts?

You really are a pompous ass. You think they need your Sunday morning quarterbacking in order to make the right conclusions?

Your comments are useless. I have been bearish on housing for months and it has done nothing but TANK month after month.

Yet you say I have no clue when it comes to predictions.

You have an OBVIOUS AGENDA. I don't know if you are in mortgages, housing, or Commercial ot what.

I really don't give a fuck to be honest.

Keep commenting. It will only motivate me to relentlessly destroy housing in my posts. It's an easy target.

My shit gets picked up at many places and is followed my many realtors.

Also know that your posts will also be taken down and reported to Google.

Keep it up.

Jeff said...

Get

Love Ruth Christ.

Hope you had a great steak.

I love their creamed spinach.