Kudos to Barron’s for being the most pro-active in reporting on the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac saga. It was Barron’s that posed the question on their March 10, 1008 cover, “Is Fannie Mae Toast?”. Then back on August 17th they published an article questioning the solvency of these two institutions (here’s a link to […]
According to this article on CNN Money’s website gas prices are expected to climb back towards the $4/ gallon level. Althugh there is still a lot of uncertainty about the extent of the damage to oil producing infastructure caused by Hurrican Ike it looks like gas prices will be increasing. I’ll be filling up my […]
Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits is considered to be Phil Fisher’s signature book on investing. This investment classic was originally published in 1958 but the content is timeless. In this book Fisher describes his unique investment criteria which is more growth oriented than the value approach that I have been more interested in as of […]
In 1958 Phil Fisher wrote an investment classic called, “Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits”. In the first chapter he wrote a very profound statement regarding the cause of inflation. This seems to be extremely applicable in today’s economic environment: “It seems to me that if this whole inflation mechanism is studied carefully it becomes clear […]
Kenneth Harney wrote this article on the Washington Post regarding shared equity loans (I’m not even clear if this is the correct name for this). From the sounds of it the loan would work kind of like a reverse mortgage where the lender would make a loan collateralized by equity in a home. But instead […]
Mortgage rates are unchanged from yesterday but we feel they will move higher in the next couple days. Mortgage-backed bonds are currently selling off which is a sign mortgage rates will move higher in the coming hours and days. However, we still feel optimistic that mortgage rates will move lower because a substantial spread sill […]
The Economist had a great article in their Technology Quarterly section of the latest issue which talked about green homes. Much of article talks about some of the technological innovations which are occurring specifically with windows. If you’d like to read the article yourself you may download by clicking here. Especially in the Pacific NW […]
Mortgage rates are unchanged from yesterday. Since falling by approximately .50% earlier in the week mortgage rates appear to have stabilized. However, there are economic and technical forces that may come into play in the next few days. Working in favor of mortgage rates are credit worries surrounding Washington Mutual, Lehman Brothers, and now Merrill […]
This has nothing to do with mortgages but I thought it was a pretty fun mind puzzle to challenge me. Click this link to give it a whirl. Be sure to comment on how you did!
Mortgage rates are essentially unchanged from yesterday although pricing on 30 year fixed loans are modestly worse. We still believe that over the next few weeks mortgage rates will improve. Now that the federal government has assumed the guarantees of Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac’s mortgage-backed bonds investors will view these securities on par with […]