Archives: August 2007

In helping homeowners, Bush tries to strike a balance

Posted by: Peter Coy on August 31

I just wrote an online story about the plan that President Bush announced today to help homeowners who are in danger of losing their homes to foreclosure. Does the plan...

That settles it: Prices are falling. Wait, no, they're rising!

Posted by: Peter Coy on August 30

We seemed to have conclusive evidence of falling national home prices this week when the S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index came out. The index was down 3.2% in the...

Just Say No to Jumbo

Posted by: Maya Roney on August 30

Jumbo mortgages are facing higher rates and getting harder to obtain. What’s a luxury-home buyer to do? Timothy Speiss, a partner at wealth management firm Eisner LLP, has been advising...

What about us??? One woman's plea for help

Posted by: Peter Coy on August 30

This is the California home that Sheila Boer, single mother of five, fears she may soon lose. She wrote a letter to BusinessWeek's Dawn Kopecki after reading Dawn's online...

Fear and Redemption

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on August 30

Bill Gross, who lords over nearly $700 billion in bond assets as chief investment officer at Pimco, was early in calling out the excesses of the recent market, staying out...

Real Estate Is Not All Local

Posted by: Maya Roney on August 28

Yes, home prices can fall, and they do. U.S. home prices fell 3.2% in the second quarter of 2007 from the year-ago period, according to Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller home...

Rich Dad's Advice

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on August 28

Robert Kiyosaki says he called the housing bust as far back as two years ago. “I was saying get out,” he says. Kiyosaki became a very, very rich man thanks...

Does 2007 = 1929?

Posted by: Dean Foust on August 20

For those among you who subscribe to the notion that the housing downturn will lead to the next Great Depression, I pass along this video ......

Good read on changes in lending standards

Posted by: Dean Foust on August 20

If you're one of the few who are actually looking to buy a house, and are wondering how amid all the turmoil credit standards are changing, real-estate columnist Kenneth Harney...

Our "Washington DC Bubble" thread gets bigger, BIGGER...

Posted by: Dean Foust on August 20

I acknowledge up front that this blog posting will contribute absolutely nothing to the sum knowledge of the world. And I don't mean it to be as self-promotional as it...

Are we seeing first signs of a bottom in housing?

Posted by: Dean Foust on August 20

Calculated Risk is one of my favorite housing-related blogs, even if I don't know who really is the man behind the curtain (the anonymous author only describes himself as "a...

The Day the Subprime Died

Posted by: Dean Foust on August 19

There's a cute little diddy makes the rounds on the Internet, "The Day the Subprime Died," sung to the tune of Don McLean's 1971 hit "American Pie." The laments of...

Scenes from the bank runs of 1929

Posted by: Dean Foust on August 17

Want a sign of how Americans are growing panicked about the meltdown in the mortgage business? Scott Reckard and Annette Haddad of The Los Angeles Times provides an on-the-ground report...

Attend a trade show! Win a house!

Posted by: Dean Foust on August 17

I've gone to trade shows and conferences where the sponsors give you a goodie bag full of worthless tsochkes--key rings, beer huggies and T-shirts you'd only wash your car with....

Is the 2008 Election Over?

Posted by: Dean Foust on August 17

My BusinessWeek colleague Michael Mandel has an insightful post on his Economics Unbound blog yesterday on the political ramifications of the housing downturn, which I'm taking the liberty of "re-purposing"...

"Helicopter Ben" to the rescue

Posted by: Dean Foust on August 17

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke rides to the rescue this morning with a half-point cut in the discount rate. The discount rate is not to be confused with the Fed...

One more thing for homeowners and sellers in Fla to worry about...

Posted by: Dean Foust on August 16

Catchy name, though......

Will "Helicopter Ben" Bernanke Ride to the Rescue?

Posted by: Dean Foust on August 16

There’s growing sentiment on Wall Street that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will cut interest rates—if not now, certainly at the Fed’s scheduled September meeting—to stabilize the financial markets and...

Home Prices Improving. Maybe.

Posted by: Maya Roney on August 15

Home prices are still seeing double-digit increases in 97 of 149 U.S. markets, according to the National Association of Realtors. But don’t get too excited, for even these numbers may...

Bad brokers?

Posted by: Dean Foust on August 15

This housing boom was different in many ways, starting with how the actual mortgage loans were made. Time was you went to Jimmy Stewart and the local Building and Loan...

Merrill raises specter of Countrywide bankruptcy

Posted by: Dean Foust on August 15

Yahoo! FinanceQuote for CFC/ Want to know how bad it's getting out there. This bad: Shares of Countrywide Financial fell yet again today--the fifth straight down day for the...

California Sunsets

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on August 15

It’s one of the things that has intrigued me the most about this real estate slump, how home sales volumes can crash but prices stay up. Doesn’t this fly in...

Look to your left, then right. One of you is foreclosed.

Posted by: Dean Foust on August 14

I vividly remember during freshmen orientation at the University of North Carolina a few years ago (ahem, 28 to be exact) that the chancellor played the little game where he...

Keeping Things in Perspective, Part II

Posted by: Dean Foust on August 14

I've been chided by readers of this blog for a posting I made late last week, using some statistics to make the case that subprime loans are a much...

Roll Tide, I guess

Posted by: Dean Foust on August 14

It never ceases to amaze me how when the nation is asked to respond to a natural disaster, and Congress is called upon to produce public funds to assist in...

From the Golden State to Guatemala

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on August 13

The Los Angeles Times had a poignant feature over the weekend showing the impact of the mortgage meltdown on all sorts of related businesspeople, from the 27 year old loan...

Keeping things in perspective

Posted by: Dean Foust on August 10

Amid all the hand-wringing over the sub-prime meltdown, and the stock market volatility, seems like this is a good time for a reality check. And it comes courtesy of Jerry...

That Won't Play In Motown

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on August 10

Cerberus Capital Management, the big hedge fund named after the mythical three-headed beast that guards the gates of Hell, generated a lot of headlines earlier this week when it picked...

Selling Real Houses With Imaginary Ones

Posted by: Maya Roney on August 07

Too lazy to go home hunting? Hate people? Like computers? You’re in luck— a $3.1 million home in Mercer Island, Wash. is now available for showing in the virtual world....

Homeowners Get Angry, Web-Savvy

Posted by: Maya Roney on August 07

Have you noticed? It’s blame-the-builders week on BusinessWeek.com! Magazine editor Mara Der Hovanesian wrote a great cover story on home builders’ pushy lending practices, and another article on shoddy construction....

Is This Financial Armageddon?

Posted by: Dean Foust on August 07

Is the subprime meltdown creating a Financial Armageddon? If you're Jim Cramer--the blustery former hedge fund manager who now is an entertainer commentator on CNBC--you think so. This video...

Nostalgic for the Housing Boom? Move to Latvia

Posted by: Peter Coy on August 07

Latvia seems to be the new Las Vegas, except without the gambling and the neon, and with lots more people who play hockey and speak Latvian. Exceeding even the Vegas...

Bonfire of the Builders

Posted by: Dean Foust on August 07

I'd be remiss if I didn't point readers of this blog to a package of stories that appears in this week's print edition of BusinessWeek (the text of which is...

Yet Another Housing Victim

Posted by: Chris Palmeri on August 07

Even if you don't have a "toxic" mortgage or any plans to sell to your home, rising interest rates and the slowdown in housing prices could still pinch your pocketbook....

Do We Have a Credit Crunch? Or Not?

Posted by: Peter Coy on August 06

My colleague Roben Farzad was traveling recently and heard complaints from people that it's suddenly getting much harder to land a prime mortgage. Undoubtedly true. It's harder now than it...

Move Over, Dean, and Make Way for A More Plausible Suspect in the Housing Bubble

Posted by: Peter Coy on August 02

Dear Dean, While we journalists are often suspected of causing the housing bubble and bust, I just don't see how a bunch of scribblers and talkers could have such influence....