January is almost over and we’re well into the new year. Did you make a resolution to improve your credit or reduce your debt this year? If you’re…
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“Historically, median home prices and median incomes have always shared a close relationship. From the mid-1970s to 2001, the historical ratio of median housing value vs. median household income was consistently between 2.6 and 3.0.” — A decent metric for home prices. Another one is rents. They use rents to calculate housing’s contribution to inflation, but they don’t use it to calculate housing’s true value?
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‘Homebuilder and mortgage banker NVR Inc. said Tuesday fourth-quarter earnings fell 50 percent, as sales fell and more homeowners backed out of contracts amid tighter lending standards.’
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Like everyone else, I get a fair amount of spam from net branch companies. I don’t like it, but I opt out and hope that they stop sending. Sometimes they do, sometimes not, and sometimes they don’t have an opt-out option (this is illegal as defined by CAN-SPAM guidelines: www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/canspam.shtm ). I think net branches […]
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‘UBS AG, Europe’s largest bank by assets, had a record loss after raising fourth-quarter writedowns on assets infected by U.S. subprime mortgages to $14 billion.’
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‘The stimulus package shuffling through congress is estimated to increase the national deficit by $100 billon. Currently the national deficit is at an all time high of over $9 trillion and the balance of trade deficit of $765 billion in 2006 continues to expand as Americans buy more and produce less.’
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The massive downgrade would threaten a broad swath of the world’s finance industry, S&P said, ranging from Wall Street’s trading desks to regional banks to local credit unions. … The 238-page list of bonds considered for downgrade includes transactions involving virtually all the major investment banks, including Citigroup Inc., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Bear Stearns Cos., and Merrill Lynch & Co. The bonds considered for downgrade represent nearly half the bonds of that kind sold between January 2006 and June 2007, S&P said. As we’ve said, this is a matter of “when”, not “if”. And looks like “when” is “now”.
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“They still compete, they still like to win, but I think they realize the tone of that competition, for business reasons as much as legal reasons, was well-served by being modified”
Analysts are seeing little reason for concern over a federal judge’s decision to keep Microsoft Corp.’s competitive business practices under court scrutiny for an additional two years. via Canadian Business Magazine
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I was just spoke to a representative at a major lead aggregator whom many of you work with that will be left unnamed (we spoke off the record) and he mentioned that they are significantly slashing their payouts for affiliates that generate leads for them. Coincidentally, I just saw this article at Leadcritic.com and […]
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