Month: May, 2006

Housing demography: what, you’re leaving?

31 May, 2006 (09:52) | Uncategorized |

Any doubt that Massachusetts‘ population loss is tied to its high housing prices has been eliminated by a recent Boston Globe poll (statistically valid and professional done; full data here), which found why people left:
 

Why are you leaving? What’s your hurry?
 
73% of those surveyed said they live in a home that is bigger than their [...]

GSEs: balance-sheet turbocharging

30 May, 2006 (09:58) | GSEs |

[Third of three parts laying the groundwork for dissecting and interpreting the OFHEO's damning report on the Fannie Mae scandal.  Part 1 covers primary and secondary mortgage market; Part 2 the GSE earnings engine.] Now that we have a basic framework for assessing secondary mortgage market players, how might a GSE turbocharge its earnings?   

Alien not [...]

GSEs: the earnings engine

29 May, 2006 (10:48) | Essential posts, Primer Posts |

I’ve been carefully reading OFHEO’s excoriating report on the Fannie Mae scandal, and will be posting on it shortly — but before doing so, I need to set the intellectual and financial stage.
 
 
All the market’s a stage, the buyers and sellers on it merely players.
 
Because the OFHEO report was written for an audience knowledgeable [...]

Primary and secondary loan markets

28 May, 2006 (11:40) | Primer Posts |

Before I tackle explicating OFHEO’s damning report on the Fannie Mae scandal, and in the spirit of the one-room schoolhouse, here’s a primer on loan origination and the primary and secondary markets.
 
1.         The primary market: origination and placement
 
Origination is the process of making a new loan, but since the originator (often a mortgage broker) [...]

Do the neighborly thing: Part 2

26 May, 2006 (09:19) | Uncategorized |

[Continuing from Part 1.]
 
As we assess the arguments pro and con the proposed 184-apartment high-rise affordable property in Eckington, a changing Washington DC neighborhood, seeking to evaluate the merits, how about this argument?
 
For Adam Benzing, the biggest issue is the apartment building’s size. He has lived in the District for three years and bought a rowhouse [...]