Financially illiterate homebuyers in distress – agents to the rescue!

This article is from First Tuesday Journal Online For many prospective homebuyers, the details of mortgage financing are just about as foreign and obscure as quantum physics. According to a recent survey by Zillow Mortgage Marketplace, prospective homebuyers answered basic mortgage finance questions incorrectly 46% percent of the time. More specifically: 44% admitted they were…

Secured credit lines: insurance, or trap?

This article comes from First Tuesday Journal Online This article examines the purpose and stability of credit lines during a recession, especially those lines of credit offered by financially unstable banks. Cash on demand, as agreed Consider the owner of a business that has been steadily expanding in the years leading up to an inevitable…

Where the buyers are

This article comes from First Tuesday Journal Online Where the buyers are Shadow inventory, meet the shadow households. Nearly one million households nationwide will be created in 2011 – roughly 130,000 in California alone – and start driving real estate sales and consumption in 2012, according to a prediction by industry analysts and IHS Global…

Whose Skin Is In The Game?

Article from First Tuesday Journal Online This article analyzes the benefits of requiring lenders to hold a greater fiscal risk associated with the loans originated in their portfolios. Homeowner’s hold the risk As federal regulators, private banks and real estate professionals make their way through the rocky plateau of this economic recovery, one question keeps…