A curious report this morning from the U.S. Dept. of Commerce: New homes sales fell 0.6% in June from the month before. Why curious? Because all the numbers in the game changed.   Read More

While everyone busies themselves today parsing the existing homes data from the National Association of Realtors: sales down 2.6 percent in June, inventories spiking up again to an 11.1 month supply, and prices falling 6.1 percent, I need to focus on something that wasn’t in the table of this particular report.    Read More

In a vote of no confidence in the housing market, President Bush this morning revoked his threat to veto the housing rescue bill, which is making its way to a vote on the House floor today.    Read More

First I have to apologize. I honestly thought this was something of a stunt. I got a press release from the Neighborhood Assistance Coalition of America (NACA) last week about a 5 day event they would be holding in DC to help troubled borrowers restructure their loans.   Read More

Early on, sellers were offering a flat screen with a sale, maybe even a one-year car lease. A month ago I started hearing about builders giving away gas cards if you come for a look. Now one developer is offering a smart-car with the sale, just to ease your fears of buying a home too far from public transportation.    Read More

Raising capital is obviously the necessary move here, if they can, because if they can’t, then they’ll have to take the government up on its offer of cash, and that would come out of yours and my pockets.    Read More

Call it an infusion of capital into the Florida real estate market, and, more precisely, into Donald Trump’s pocket. A Russian fertilizer mogul offers $95 million for Trump’s Palm Beach estate and the Donald says, “Da,” even though it’s a tad below his original asking price of $125 million.    Read More

FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said it herself: It has been an “uphill battle” to restore confidence among investors and regular folks who stash their paychecks in their local banks. She may as well have added home builders to that mix.    Read More

So Fannie and Freddie come back from the brink, Indy goes under, warnings of more bank failures hit the newswires, and homeowners are of course left to wonder, how does all this affect my ability to get a loan today and at what rate?    Read More

We all know the mortgage market has tightened up like a 1950s girdle lately, but all the experts keep saying, if you have good credit and money to put down, you’ll do just fine. Well that’s not entirely what I’m hearing.   Read More