Month: February, 2005

Diversifying tenure options: rental and beyond

28 February, 2005 (12:12) | Uncategorized |

Paraphrasing the Sphinx, what creature sleeps with larger people in the morning, with friends during the day, with smaller people in the afternoon and often alone at night?
 
 
“How much of a down payment do you want?”
 
Old friends and Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies colleagues Nic Retsinas (an AHI Affiliate) and Bill Apgar (also both [...]

Public housing: pressure rising, crush depth?

27 February, 2005 (10:43) | Uncategorized |

Via the ever-handy Knowledgeplex comes this Wilmington Star News story about how the broad-based budget cutting is bringing public housing under severe funding pressure:
 
After months of negotiations, the panel of 27 [public housing officials] agreed to a plan that was expected to increase daily operating subsidies by some $ 700 million in the first year, [...]

Portrait of the activist as a young condo owner

26 February, 2005 (12:05) | Uncategorized |

While the Supreme Court mulls the potential landmark urban redevelopment eminent domain case, Kelo v. New London, on which I posted a couple of days back, and while I slave away on a forthcoming major post about eminent domain equitable principles, today’s New York < ?xml:namespace prefix ="" st1 />Times (subscription may be required) profiles [...]

More bad news for Fannie Mae

25 February, 2005 (01:55) | Uncategorized |

They haven’t got to the bottom of the accounting/ reporting questions:
 
Fannie Mae said yesterday that its federal regulator has raised new accounting and internal control questions that could further damage the mortgage finance company’s financial results and capital position.
 
In a lengthy release that also described company plans to slash its congressional lobbying budget and [...]

First, you sue

24 February, 2005 (09:52) | Uncategorized |

Sure as the sun rises, the Wall Street Journal’s article on GSE ‘hidden’ loan fees has now stimulated litigation.
 
Have the two biggest providers of American home mortgage money charged consumers and lenders billions of dollars in artificially inflated loan fees since 2001? Have you been paying more than you should on your mortgage as a [...]