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Category: economy

Voters’ Biggest Concerns: Jobs and Housing

A Houselogic survey demonstrates that voters are most concerned about jobs and housing policy as election year issues for 2012.  Respondents were asked: “What issue area will have the greatest impact on your vote in 2012?” Jobs were mentioned as the top issue by 54% of respondents.  The next most critical issue was housing, which [...]

BOA Developing Foreclosure Rental Program

Ron Stuzenegger, head of Bank of America’s legacy asset servicing division, has indicated that the bank is in the process of preparing a rental program for former homeowners of property it is taking back as REOs.  BOA is currently looking through 1.1 million loans that are 60 days or more delinquent to determine which might [...]

Fiserv Optimistic About Housing Market Stability

Even though 2011 home values dropped an average of 5.1% and prices fell in 302 of 384 housing markets tracked by the Fiserv Case-Shiller Indexes, the picture should get considerably brighter as housing approaches 2013. Fiserv’s chief economist, David Shiff, believes that the housing market will see greater stability in 2012 than in the past [...]

New Proposal May Help Some Underwater Owners

The Wall Street Journal broke a story last week that the AG group and major servicers are nearing agreement on a new plan that would allow under water mortgagees to refinance.  The plan, reportedly, will not include any extensive principal forgiveness element, a strategy that has been a major roadblock for agreement on a robo-signing [...]

Federal Reserve Beige Book Continues to Show Weak Economic Expansion

The quarterly report from the Federal Reserve branch banking system called “The Beige Book” is out with its latest round of observations about the In most regions the pace of growth is described as “modest” or “slight” and general business conditions are considered weak but moving forward on some fronts.  Notably, auto sales and tourism [...]

Improved 3rd Quarter GDP at 2.5%

Despite the generally glooming housing market and a shaky world economy, the 3rd quarter preliminary gross domestic product report released Oct. 27 by the Commerce Department is actually pretty good news.  The preliminary data shows a growth rate of 2.5% in the 3rd quarter after a 1.3% second quarter GDP. The preliminary report is based [...]

S & P Home Price Index Continues to Rise

The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index continues to show modest increase in home prices in 10 of 20 markets on a month to month basis, and in 16 of 20 markets on an annual basis in August. The monthly increase in both the 10 and 20 city composites was .2%. Annual returns remain negative: -3.5% for [...]

How Will European Bank Failures Impact U.S. Banks, Cities?

While the U.S. Stock Market seems temporarily comforted by statements from the major European Union powers that shaky banks in Europe will be bailed out, some analysts in the U.S. are not so convinced. Conservative analysts at Weiss Ratings maintain that bank failure in Europe will have a domino effect in the U.S. and will [...]

Luxury Home Investment – Number of Millionaire Families Set to Double

I’ve been telling people to get into the luxury home market for years, but a new study has just come out that sheds a light on just how big of an opportunity luxury home investment is.  A study by Deloitte Center for Financial Services shows that the number of millionaire households in the U.S. will [...]

Unemployed Workers Face Almost Certain Foreclosure

A survey conducted for a consortium including the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Financial Planning Association, Foundation for Financial Planning, and the U.S. Conference of Mayors revealed that at least one in three Americans if handed a pink slip would not be able to pay their mortgage for more than one month. Sixty-one percent [...]