Last week when Bill Virgin snuck an uncomfortable Seattle real estate truth into a sports opinion column, I was surprised. Today, when I read a P-I editorial titled ‘Easy credit driving housing prices?‘ I just about fell out of my seat. Deep in the Commerce Department’s report are even more troubling concerns: The personal savings…
Majority Of New WA Mortgages "Nontraditional"
A perceptive reader pointed out a post at Calculated Risk that pointed to a 29-page report by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (pdf). The interesting piece of information is contained on page 25, in Chart 4, reproduced below. Click to enlarge And here’s the money quote from the write-up: Nontraditional loan products can be appropriate…
"Stated Income" Loans = Liar Loans?
And Paul Moulo has this from National Mortgage News: “According to a new report by the Mortgage Asset Research Institute, “stated-income loans” deserve their nickname of the “liar’s loan.” MARI says that almost 60% of the stated-income amounts are exaggerated by more than 50%.” Is this for real? Does this suggest that nearly 60% of…
Blog Format Notes
A few notes about some style changes I’m making to Seattle Bubble. The most noticable change is that there is now a more obvious differentiation between posts written by myself and those written by Seattle Bubble team member S Crow. As you can see, posts submitted by S Crow will have a dark blue dashed…
"I’ve never seen a ‘soft-landing’ in 53 yrs"
From the Wall Street Journal: “‘I’ve never seen a soft-landing in 53 years, so we have a ways to go before this levels out,’ Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo said on a Tuesday conference call. ‘I have to prepare the company for the worst that can happen.’” Of course, we all learned that Washington Mutual announced…