I have always been a proponent of listening to the people who have generally been right all along about the housing crisis, while ignoring those who are generally wrong year after year (NAR, Mark Zandi, etc.) I pay extra attention to Mike “Mish” Shedlock who recently suggested that the housing collapse is near it’s end. [...]

Lets get one thing straight… no matter what mortgage company you work with, banker, broker, direct lender all mortgage loan qualifying is the same. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and HUD have the same guidelines across the board, with small subtle differences from company to company. There is only one bond market and mortgage rates [...]

Today Dave Rosenberg echoed my thoughts on how 20-somethings aren’t getting married, don’t dream of owning a home, and… even if they did… they have to much college debt. From Zero Hedge: Could well be in student debt, where outstanding loans surged $117 billion last year to over $1 trillion. More than 80% of 18-24 [...]

By Andrew Jeffery I had an interesting conversation this morning about relative performance in different San Francisco neighborhoods during and after the housing bubble burst. Conventional wisdom would lead one to believe that SoMa, the fringier and “overdeveloped” part of San Francisco would have performed better than Nob Hill, which is much more established as [...]

Edward DeMarco is weighing the possibility of reducing the principal of hundreds of thousands of Fannie and Freddie mortgages. The decision hinges on just how many additional underwater borrowers would strategically default in order to possibly get their principal reduced. Social mood is hard to forecast. Demarco states: A key risk in principal forgiveness targeted [...]