Last October, Mitt Romney declared that the housing market must “run its course” and reach its bottom. Although I find little inspiration from any presidential candidate, Romney’s statement was spot on. We need to let the market for housing find its natural bottom and stop supporting it with inefficient and expensive government programs. Although they may have helped slow […]

The optimism surrounding the European financial crisis has almost disappeared. Many European bureaucrats, central bankers, and politicians had been claiming for months that everything was fine and that the situation was being managed by “experts”. Of course, this was not true. Even in France and Germany, manufacturing output is falling. It seems certain that the Eurozone recession

It is important to take a step back as our global and national economies continue to struggle with headwinds. Are we experiencing real growth or are we in full recession? I believe we can easily eliminate the first option. Payroll reports, unemployment, exports, manufacturing, etc. We are in a weak spot with few bright spots to cheer us up. Although

Meredith Whitney, a banking analyst, predicted that there would be a wave of municipal defaults in December 2010. This could amount to hundreds of billions of US dollars. Meredith Whitney’s prediction of imminent problems was not realized, and municipal bonds were repurchased in 2011. Although there were some bankruptcy filings over the last month, none of them

My children, as most children, would eat as much ice cream as possible when they were young. Even though they didn’t understand the consequences of eating ice cream, they knew it tasted good. They would later feel sick and have no energy after the sugar high wears off. They knew that eating ice cream made them happy.

This article doesn’t directly address real estate, mortgage loans, or buyers of mortgage notes. However, the overall economic environment and state regulations have a significant impact on all these areas. To inform the readers about what’s happening in California, and the direction we are going down, I have provided the following information. Californians were bombarded with

This space was where I argued that real estate would suffer in the medium-term due to a number of factors. This trend will impact homebuyers, mortgage buyers and investors as well as banks and other financial institutions that have an interest in real estate. I’m a mortgage buyer and we need to be careful that our mortgage

Richard Vedder wrote the article below, which appeared in Wall Street Journal last Wednesday. Although it doesn’t directly affect mortgage buyers, or the ownership of real property notes it offers an interesting commentary on government handouts. Reprinted with permission. The American economy grew by 3.5% per year from the mid-17th century through the late 20th. Since then, this growth rate

Another day brings another flood of headlines about the amazing housing market. In some markets, home values rose nearly 20% in 2012 compared with the previous year. Inventory is low and foreclosures are down. Flippers are rushing to beat competitors for nearly every type of house. The future looks bright for real estate investors and mortgage buyers,

According to the S&P/CaseShiller index, property values rose 6.8% between December 2011 and December 2012. This was not surprising to anyone. Phoenix was the leader of this group, with 19 of 20 cities seeing value increases. This resulted in Phoenix gaining 23% during that 12-month period. The trend has been welcomed by note buyers and real estate investors. Economists and