Monthly Archives: October 2005

The personal savings rate for September was released at 8:30am this morning. Personal Income and Outlays Savings rate was again negative, for the fourth month in a row, at -0.4%. The August savings rate was revised downward from somewhere around … Continue reading →

I thought I’d start everyone off this week with a good laugh. There is a condo for sale on Valley Road in Montclair, near the Montclair State campus, that you just won’t believe. Now, I’m sure most everyone is familiar … Continue reading →

There have been an extrodinary number of price reductions this past week, well over 900 dated 9/22 to 9/29. If I waited until the end of day today, there will have been well over 1000 price reductions in Northern NJ … Continue reading →

A few days ago, I posted up a piece titled “Debunking another real estate puff piece”. It was a pretty harsh criticism of a piece by Warren Boroson, especially critical of those he quoted. I sent an email to Mr. … Continue reading →

The Ascention of Bernanke Into the Clouds Very good article on Bernanke and on inflation targeting for those who are interested in economic policy. Bernanke will most certainly play a central role in how the housing bubble will play out, … Continue reading →

New Home Sales data is in. New Residential Sales The New Home Sales indicator is typically viewed as a more real time indicator of the housing market, due to the fact that new sales are logged when contracts are signed, … Continue reading →

Mortgage Rates up again this week. Weekly Home Mortgage Rates I’m starting to sound like a broken record. This weeks jump was rather impressive, up to 6.24% (national average). With bond yields jumping high in the past few days, and … Continue reading →

All quiet on the Northern front. Increases in the active listings have slowed a bit from last months off-the-charts pace, but are still on the upswing. I haven’t gotten a chance to plow through the data to determine the exact … Continue reading →

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) has been meeting this week in rain drenched Florida. We’re starting to see some news feeds from the meeting, two interesting articles earlier this evening. Group: Mortgage Lending to Fall in 2006 Mortgage lending in … Continue reading →

Existing home sales are in.. The spin doctors are busy spinning, but the numbers really are bittersweet, Existing Home Sales did not drop as expected but stayed on par with last months adjusted numbers. Sales are still very strong. Keep … Continue reading →

Who is Tom Barrack you say? You haven’t heard? Tom is arguably the worlds most successful real estate investor. So why should you care? Because Tom’s had it with the U.S. real estate market, and he’s cashing out. I’m Tom … Continue reading →

It’s often helpful to see changes plotted over time in order to understand market trends and movement, and even more importantly, it provides a reference by which to gauge the current market environment. Local market researcher & economist James Hough … Continue reading →

Came across an RE puff piece in the Daily Record, thought it might be fun to post up some counterpoint.. Housing bubble hasn’t burst in Morris Apparently, there is no bubble at all, so just shut down your browsers, pick … Continue reading →

This weekend I though I would introduce something new to the blog, It is a new weekly column I’m calling “Price Reduced!”. What I’d like to do is to go through the price reductions over the past week and pick … Continue reading →

Many of you will know the initials PMI, even more so if you’ve had to take PMI on a mortgage. PMI Group Inc. is a one of the largest mortgage insurance companies around. The Fall 2005 PMI Economic and Real … Continue reading →