The Blog of Author Mark MacKenzie: It's The Housing Market, Stupid!

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Real Estate Broker/Owner
RECENT BLOG POSTS
Back in February, Senator Isakson, a former real estate broker, was the prime sponsor of a proposed $15,000 home buying tax credit that was eventually shot down in favor of the current $8,000 first time home buyer tax credit. Isakson was quoted in February as saying, "We do have a history in this...
06/20/2009
Steve Forbes is the latest financial talking head to call for the Fed to continue to purchase mortgage backed securities in an effort to plunge rates further and get the housing market moving again. During an interview on CNBC, Forbes said, "What the Fed should do is follow through on its promise...
06/20/2009
According to CNNMoney.com and a government report, the nations 21 largest banks that received TARP funds showed a decline of 7% in their lending volume in April compared to March. This of course continues a trend that we saw established in 2008 when the credit markets seized and loan volume decli...
06/18/2009
According to the Mortgage Bankers Association and their weekly survey of mortgage applications, the mortgage purchase application index slipped 3.5% to 261.2 as rates moderated from 5.57% to 5.5% for the week. The four-week moving average for the purchase index is up 0.7% since rates have surged ...
06/18/2009
This blog is in response to Jed Smith's feature post questioning whether or not the government's stimulus package was too small. Mr. Smith recently wrote a really informative post about how to calculate the needs for a stimulus package based on Okun's Law and the GDP multiplier and how they are r...
06/17/2009
To use Jim Cramer's own words, Cramer's housing bottom call today is "shameful". He has no idea what is going on out there. Jim Cramer is being an academic, something he accused Ben Bernanke of nearly two year ago. This is a different kind of market, Cramer.  It is not just about stabilizing dema...
06/16/2009
According to the Census Bureau, housing starts jumped 17.2% in May from their record low in April. While this is a good indication for the housing sector, it is worth noting that the month over month improvement was driven by starts for 5 units or more which were up 77.1% from the previous month....
06/16/2009
According to Reuters, credit card defaults surged to another record high in May after setting a previous record in April. "Bank of America-the largest U.S. bank-said its default rate, those loans the company does not expect to be paid back, soared to 12.50 percent in May from 10.47 percent in Apr...
06/15/2009
Never mind that credit card defaults and mortgage delinquencies are surging, these are apparently insignificant details.  CNBC's Jim Cramer is bullish on Bank of America due to Morgan Stanley's recent announcement that the previous analyisits earnings estimates are too low for B of A. Morgan Stan...
06/14/2009
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According to a CNBC article, Jim Grant, the editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, said that, "the Federal Reserve's balance sheet is so out of whack that the central bank would be shut down if subjected to a conventional audit." The article stated that, "With $45 billion in capital and $2.1 t...
06/14/2009
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