Saturday
“Initial homebuyer tax credit numbers are in“:
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released its report on how many homebuyers took advantage of the credit so far, and how much it cost us:
1 million buyers have claimed $7.3 billion of the repayable, $7500 tax credit for first-time buyers.
The homebuyer tax credit is getting its second wind…or should I say third wind? The homebuyer tax credit has been back in the news ever since HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan failed to give a reporter a straight answer when asked whether the administration was considering a third tax credit.
Yet while the tax credit may be in the news again, the general consensus — coming from sources as diverse as writers to home builders and realtors — is saying it shouldn’t come back: Read the rest of this entry »
Each post that we wrote this week highlights a different problem that is holding back this country’s housing market: low rates aren’t enough, today’s mortgage market is mostly made up of the haves and the have nots, lowering home prices won’t create a more stable market and yesterday’s post discussed how the American dream of homeownership doesn’t have to turn into a nightmare. Each one of those posts identified something different that’s going wrong with housing.
But what good is identifying a problem if you can’t think of a way to fix it?
The bursting of the housing bubble and the continued drag it has placed on our overall economy has caused many of us to debate, or at least question, where we stand on the American dream and its relation to homeownership.
Late last year we wrote a post titled, “Is renting the new American dream?” A few months back we wrote about how “…the American dream of home ownership turned into a nightmare of debt and foreclosure” (a quote from David Wessel of the Wall Street Journal). Each of those posts questioned the old ideal that, as Americans, homeownership is something we all should strive for and is a gauge of our overall success. Maybe most of us are better as as renters as opposed to owners.
When asked whether Washington would consider instituting another homebuyer tax credit, HUD secretary Shaun Donovan responded saying, “I think it’s too early to say after one month of numbers whether the tax credit will be revived or not. All I can tell you is that we are watching very carefully.” Donovan’s comments have created a whirlwind of speculation that the government will once again step in and distort an already-unbalanced housing market.
Striking a balance
It seems that now more than ever, the mortgage and housing markets are made up of the haves and have nots. While the opportunities to recast and pay down debt are plentiful for one audience (the haves), the options for the other audience (the have nots) are few and far between.
According to new data released from CoreLogic, the number of borrowers who are refinancing to shorter-term mortgages is increasing: Read the rest of this entry »
Economically speaking, things aren’t feeling all that different now from when we were mired in the recession. Last week’s disappointing GDP report of 1.6% (2nd quarter 2010) was the exact same reading we saw one year ago.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke addressed the country’s disappointing economic growth at the annual Economic Symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The chairman expressed both optimism for the coming year and that the Fed still has tools it can employ to ward off deflation or even a double-dip recession.
Saturday
“As if getting a mortgage wasn’t hard enough“:
We all know that lenders today are incorporating much stricter standards for mortgage borrowers, but I have never heard of anything like this before:
When Linda Falcão applied for a mortgage from Wells Fargo, she didn’t realize she would be required to write the type of essay that’s more commonly included with a college application…
We all know that lenders today are incorporating much stricter standards for mortgage borrowers, but I have never heard of anything like this before:
When Linda Falcão applied for a mortgage from Wells Fargo, she didn’t realize she would be required to write the type of essay that’s more commonly included with a college application.
On Wednesday of this week, Peter Miller — financial expert, nationally-syndicated columnist and long-time friend of HSH — wrote a piece for the Huffington Post titled “Obama Mortgage Modification Plan — 100 Times Better Than Bush.”
Miller compares the number of permanent loan mods made through President Obama’s home affordable modification program (HAMP) against the number of borrowers who successfully refinanced through President Bush’s Hope for Homeowners program (H4H).
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