Is our republic coming to an unceremonious end? History may not be on America’s side. Lawrence Lessig’s Republic Lost documents the corrosive effect of money on our political process. Lessig persuasively makes the case that we are witnessing the loss of our republican form of government, as politicians increasingly represent those who fund their campaigns, rather than […]
Only in the USA could one view the purchase of property by foreigners a sign of recovery. Chinese citizens buing 10% of every home sold in California, and 1/3 luxury homes in California. As China’s economy rises, a group of China’s new rich with abundant cash funds appeared in Southern California, mostly businessmen, taking advantage […]
President Barack Obama was a pioneering contributor to the national subprime real estate bubble, and roughly half of the 186 African-American clients in his landmark 1995 mortgage discrimination lawsuit against Citibank have since gone bankrupt or received foreclosure notices. As few as 19 of those 186 clients still own homes with clean credit ratings, following […]
The odds the United States will slip back into recession next year have risen, ratings agency Standard & Poor’s said, citing risks from the European debt crisis and budget tightening at year-end. The US ratings firm raised the chance of the US falling into recession to 25 percent, up from a 20 percent chance estimated […]
For many Americans, homeownership is the epitome of living the American dream. Yet, in towns with high tumbling home prices and double-digit vacancy rates, median-priced homes now cost the equivalent of new American cars – except, as investments go, they’re slightly more risky. Call it the dark side of the American dream – but […]
Nationwide, the housing market appears is back on track, so says the Wall Street Journal. It reports nearly seven years after the start of the housing bust, most indexes of housing prices are now going up. Experts say a reduced amount of unsold homes is the key to the turn around. More good news for […]
Be prepared for the worst, Europe and China are both in free fall. This is getting very ugly real quick. Then comes the Greek elections and the bad begins. QE3 won’t do anything just like operation twist and QE2. The economy is on the brink of global depression, we never did get out of the […]
Stop me if you’ve heard any of the following before: Exploding ARMs to subprime borrowers kicked off the nation’s housing and ensuing financial crisis. Mortgages during the boom era were designed to fail, and everyone making the loans knew it. Financial innovation ran amok in U.S. mortgage markets in the 2000s, driving unsafe lending. Government […]
(Reuters) – Half a decade into the deepest U.S. housing crisis since the 1930s, many Americans are hoping the crisis is finally nearing its end. House sales are picking up across most of the country, the plunge in prices is slowing and attempts by lenders to claim back properties from struggling borrowers dropped by more […]
Home prices are unlikely to recover before 2020 and mortgage defaults will persist for years, says a survey of bank risk managers out Friday. The Survey conducted by the Professional Risk Managers’ International Association for FICO, found that 49 percent of respondents do not expect housing prices to rise back to 2007 levels for another […]
