Daily life in these developments seems a bit post-cataclysmic. Children play on elaborate but empty playgrounds. They walk their dogs past rows of shiny houses that have never been lived in. Voices echo up and down the block. Unfinished houses…
Today after the close Washington Mutual (WM) announced a $3.3 billion 2nd quarter loss driven by a $6 billion provision for loan losses (WM Earnings Release). WaMu has a quarter trillion dollar ($250 billion) loan portfolio, almost entirely in real…
As we all know, the housing market is driving everything in this bust. And the financials, as the source of all the financing for the housing market, have borne the brunt of the pain and have led the entire stock…
The Wall Street Journal had an interesting article today (“Small Banks Reckoning Day Is Coming” (subscription required), Wednesday July 2, C2) on rising delinquencies on construction loans made to builders by regional banks. This chart of soaring delinquency rates on these loans…
The new home market continues to be brutal as we saw yesterday with Lennar and today with KB Homes (KBH Earnings Release). I created the same chart for KB Homes of new home deliveries and backlog going back to 2003:…
Homebuilder Lennar (LEN) reported 2nd quarter earnings today and they were not pretty (LEN Earnings Release). I put together a chart of Lennar’s new homes delivered and backlog going back 5 years which pretty much tells the story: LEN New Homes…
DataQuick yesterday released April Sales numbers for the Sacramento region and they were somewhat encouraging. The most encouraging number is sales volume which was up 10% for the 8-county region compared to last year. Even though prices are still going…
“The new capital will enable Fannie Mae to maintain a strong, conservative balance sheet….” – Fannie Mae 1st Quarter Earnings Release The Heard On The Street column in today’s WSJ, “Will $6 Billion Do For Fannie?” (subscription required), caught my attention. Fannie announced…
Trader Monthly recently named John Paulson trader of the year for 2007. Duh!!!! Funds run by Paulson, a hedge fund manager, were up $15 billion in 2007 and he is estimated to have made beteween $3-$4 billion himself. How’d he…
“Even a small loss evokes a sense of frustration. There’s something magical about ‘at least breaking even’.” – David Laibson, Behaviorial Economist, quoted in “Be It Ever So Illogical: Homeowners Who Won’t Cut the Price” , The New York Times, March 26 Read…