President Obama just concluded his speech in Mesa, Arizona, and announced another leg in the stool of attempting to curtail the housing crisis. Here are the salient points of the plan.

Read the rest of this article »

Two weeks ago Don attended the Tenant in Common Association (TICA) 3 day conference in Las Vegas. This conference was focused on the TIC industry, which is generally comprised of investors who do IRS tax deferred 1031 exchanges into large, institutional grade commercial properties. General forum sessions consisted of economists attempting to read the “tea leaves” of our economy, credit crunch issues, volatility in the financial markets, and the like. Read the rest of this article »

I got back from a 3 day conference (Tenant in Common Association) in Las Vegas this week and everything seemed to revolve around the 900 pound gorilla in the room – Wall Street’s meltdown. Read the rest of this article »

We’ve gone from a 3 page bill to a 110 page bill (defeated) to the Senate’s 451 page bill (passed). Hmmm…

If you thought our political process was all about helping “Wall Street” or “Main Street” or the “homeowner”, think again! The first and overarching priority is to keep your job. Read the rest of this article »

Driving around town today, I was listening on XM radio to the live House hearing on the proposed $700 billion bailout bill before Congress. Panel members were given 5 minutes to quiz either Treasury Secretary Paulson or Fed Chairman Bernanke. But each panel member used the bulk of the time to express their opinions, and when they finally got around to asking Paulson or Bernanke a question, there was no time left to answer the question! Read the rest of this article »

The $700 billion bailout – what are the ramifications for:

• A potential home buyer or investor – either waiting for the market “bottom”, or simply wanting to buy a home.
• A homeowner who’s “underwater” and struggling to make the mortgage payments.
• A homeowner who’s stopped making payments and is on the cusp of going into foreclosure.
• A homeowner already in foreclosure.

Leslie and I have been talking all weekend, trying to anticipate what might happen in each of these scenarios, and to see if Congress, Wall Street and the Administration might create unintended consequences. Read the rest of this article »

Leslie and I are trying to get a handle on the dizzying flow of news coming out of Washington and Wall Street this weekend.  As the late Senator Everett Dirksen famously once said, “A Billion Here, A Billion There, Pretty Soon You’re Talking Real Money”. Read the rest of this article »

…the big jump in home sales compared to a year ago for southland counties. I’ve told many people that when the general media starts to shift focus from all the negative real estate news we’ve seen over the past year and starts talking about “Is this a good time to buy?” type news, that maybe the market will be on the upswing. So what’s going on? Read the rest of this article »

At the beginning of this year there was great hand wringing over the sub-prime mess and the havoc it was (and still is) creating. Pundits have called our current financial crisis the biggest crisis since the Great Depression. There was great demand for Congress to “do something”, thus Congress kicked into gear (for example, limits were temporarily raised on FHA loans to make them available to high priced places like California).

But some ideas being floated around Congress are generating intense philosophical debate, namely the concept of “moral hazard”. Moral hazard is an insurance term, used to describe how people possibly may behave under certain circumstances. Read the rest of this article »

Coming back to the office just now, I was listening to the business report KNX1070 has everyday at 1 p.m. They interview expert market analysts on latest stock market trends, and all things business.

Ron Kilgore interviewed a John Augustine from Cincinnati who mentioned the big write down Wachovia Bank announced ($4.4 billion of bad loans), plus their raise of $7 billion of new capital. He stated that the big Wall Street investment banks have already taken their heavy “hits” in write downs and that banks (like Wachovia) will probably also have to do so. The thought is to write off all the bad stuff now and clear the decks as it were.

But now the interesting part. IF we entered a recession in late 2007 (only know with hindsight) and IF we are about half way through this recession (historically), then Wall Street is starting to think about the future and the stock market has already discounted the sub-prime mess, credit crunch, etc. Maybe this summer will see us starting to see light at the end of the tunnel?

Who knows? But once the general media starts these conversations, it tends to be self fulfilling.

But I found it interesting that the media and some analysts are starting to look ahead now and get out of the doom and gloom we’ve been hearing for so long.