NEW CENTURY FINANCIAL (Sub-prime mortgage lender) DOWN 67% (9.20) today. That's really bad news unless you're a short-seller of stocks (yay! I just paid for my NFL Draft trip
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"When a certain $126,000 subprime loan on a $696,000 house on the West Coast failed to produce a single mortgage payment, alarm bells went off at Clayton Holdings, a company that monitors credit risk.
Closer scrutiny revealed other red flags. The borrower's previous rent payment had been $1,000, compared to the $4,482 she was supposed to be shelling out for both the primary loan and the $126,000 piggyback. And her stated income was $84,000 even though she was an hourly worker at Target."
I still wonder what the fuck possessed people to touch these.
Massive collaboration within the players of the whole industry...they sell mortgages into mortgage-backed securities and pension plans pick them up, thus removing risk from the mortgages companies, plus the agents take a share.
Oh, I understand the risk from the mortgage companies' perspective - selling the loans off their books made it easy for them to write, it just amazes me that they were able to find so many investors willing to take on so much risk for so little return.
It sounds almost like sitting on your back porch with a drink in your hand in a recliner while watching a grisly blues-brothers-esque 400 car accident in slow motion.
Does this mean that this is also a bad time to be looking for an apartment?
Rents are going up, generally. If you're looking to buy, i believe this is a reasonable time so long as you're planning on being in the place long enough to ride out any possible corrections. (Full disclosure - I'm in condo development, albeit with one of the very few companies that has continued to sell well in spite of the market.)
Unless you can put a Down Payment and get a 30 year fixed you can handle, I would be renting. Rents are still way below mortgage value.
N, I'd be interested to know how you guys feel about this contraction, since DC had one in the early 90s which shot down condo values 40%. You guys are just on the supply end, but isn't there getting to be a large oversupply with the estimated number of new units coming online, the new regulations that will obsentibly reduce the # of potential borrowers, and the increased number of units available due to foreclosure?
DC is about to introduce requirements for affordable housing that will most likely stop future new construction. There aren't *that* many foreclosed units that I've seen (there's one in our current building, but that guy was an investor who lied about his income, took an 8 month mortgage, and bought an expensive unit - not unlike the target worker
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Oh yeah, and apparently New Century's big movement today was in response to an SEC investigation. Sounds like there was some particularly egregious insider trading going on there.
Comments 14
I loved this article.
"When a certain $126,000 subprime loan on a $696,000 house on the West Coast failed to produce a single mortgage payment, alarm bells went off at Clayton Holdings, a company that monitors credit risk.
Closer scrutiny revealed other red flags. The borrower's previous rent payment had been $1,000, compared to the $4,482 she was supposed to be shelling out for both the primary loan and the $126,000 piggyback. And her stated income was $84,000 even though she was an hourly worker at Target."
I still wonder what the fuck possessed people to touch these.
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Does this mean that this is also a bad time to be looking for an apartment?
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N, I'd be interested to know how you guys feel about this contraction, since DC had one in the early 90s which shot down condo values 40%. You guys are just on the supply end, but isn't there getting to be a large oversupply with the estimated number of new units coming online, the new regulations that will obsentibly reduce the # of potential borrowers, and the increased number of units available due to foreclosure?
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