Don't ask me; I only just recently figured out who the Olsen twins are.
I can't say that this information was ever useful until this morning, but it certainly now puts the last bit of perspective together for me. And explains where the hell those leopard-print chairs came from. Like dryfly, I've really been nagged by that detail. So now I get it.
I believe that is somewhere around 70-80% of households.
I thought it was more than that, actually, but since I'm too lazy to look it up I'll accept the statistic.
In any case, as long as it's more than 30% of households, it creates a minor math problem for those who argue that subprime has been boosting the homeownership rate.
I didn't quote this little gem that comes just before the part I did quote, largely because I was going to end up calling Mr. Marano from Bear Stearns a very, very ugly name on the main blog page, and that would get us some weird commenters after we came up on some problematic Google searches.
The lower-income population doesnt always have the traditional documentation that the middle-class borrower typically has, said Mr. Marano of Bear Stearns. There has been an effort to, frankly, satisfy some of the needs in the housing market by expanding the guidelines.
It's all because those do-gooders made us make loans to those, um, you know what people.
Can someone please explain to me how home ownership, at double the cost of renting, plus losing flexibility to move to take a better job, solves all problems?
Can someone please explain to me how home ownership, at double the cost of renting, plus losing flexibility to move to take a better job, solves all problems?
Simple, dear. Most problems are caused by spending too much time in sports bars watching the Olsen twins on the teevee. You can't afford to do that under the basic homeownership scenario. Poof! Problem solved!
Of course, if you refuse to solve your rentit problems by going to Ownit, Mr. Dallas still wins. Nice hedge.
" More than 26 percent of borrowers took out a second mortgage, indicating that they did not have enough savings for a full down payment, up from 14 percent"
This surpises me that amongst subprime borrowers, ~74% paid full down payment??
And of course it's just pure coincidence that the public service provided by Ownit had the side-effect of leaving Mr Dallas himself a very wealthy man.
This surpises me that amongst subprime borrowers, ~74% paid full down payment??
It shouldn't surprise you. See Nicholas's point above. There are a lot of move-up borrowers here making a big down payment with proceeds of the sale to the other segment who needed the second lien.
Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, who barely registers in public opinion polls of the Republican presidential field, won last Thursday night's debate.
That was the unmistakable conclusion of the online poll posted by debate sponsor MSNBC, which registered Paul with higher positive ratings and lower negative numbers than any of the other nine candidates on the stage.
Those of you who were hanging out here yesterday may already be tired of this new genre of news story, but I'm not.
Me either.
I want the numbers & facts but if we can't weave them into some kind of human tapestry what's the point...
I've said it a million times that I lived & worked through the agricultural crisis in the 80s in Middle America... to this day when I think about that time one image comes to my mind before all others...
Circa 1986 in Lexington Nebraska - I went out there to see what had happened to a recently built farm machinery plant I used to call on (I believe it was for New Holland). Rumors were that it had closed the year before.
It was hot & late summer, early fall - I pulled off I 80 headed north and there it was COMPLETELY abandoned with tumbleweeds growing up from the cracks in the parking lot pavement - they were so certain it wouldn't be resold & reoccupied they didn't even make the effort to maintain it.
About five years later it was sold & turned into a discount store. 200-500 union wages w/ benefits gone, replaced by maybe 20 minimum wage part-timers.
There are towns out there that are just now recovering from the 80s collapse... driven at least in part by the recent 'commodity bubble'... ethanol primarily. We'll likely be revisiting that story someday soon...
Anyway one part of my brain hungers for the numbers... the other side wants to know what those numbers mean. I'd keep looking for stuff like this Tanta - I'll read it if no one else.
I utterly detest people like this. "I'm gonna save the world, goddammit! And I deserve to get rich doing so." Please don't vote for him when he runs for office.
WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- A realtors' association on Tuesday further pared back its forecasts for the housing market this year, saying stricter lending standards and subprime mortgage woes are producing headwinds for the sector.
In its latest forecast for the real estate market, the National Association of Realtors projected that existing home sales will fall 2.9% this year to 6.29 million, compared with its previous forecast of a 2.2% decline.
I'm with Dryfly. Anecdote is not data, but anecdotes frequently suggest interpretations of data which then can be checked for integrity in other ways.
We have heard so much about "subprime"; the reality of loose lending is totally different. I think parts of the housing/mortgage market over the last two years have operated to take the "non-affluent" and convert them to genuine subprime. Papering it over with a veneer of idealism doesn't change the economic or social effect.
But the mortgage broker, Troy Musick of Wholesale Mortgage Co., was so eager to clinch the deal, he followed the couple into the hospital, said DeWitt's wife, Ruth DeWitt.
As a surgeon cracked Mr. DeWitt's chest open for a quadruple heart bypass, the broker approached her in the waiting room of Elkhart General Hospital in Elkhart, Indiana.
"It's now or never," she remembers him saying.
Afraid of losing out on the chance to buy a home, she left the hospital and signed the loan documents. Lelon DeWitt survived the surgery, but not the $143,400 loan from Irvine, California-based Argent Mortgage.
"The loans are, proponents say, primarily used by borrowers who are self-employed or who earn money through off-the-books second jobs or child support payments."
Sorry for the broken record lama response, but:
People who cannot verify their income are, in all cases, tax cheats (a.k.a.: felons, liars, dishonest). Also, child support payments are easily verified.
I hope they have a special place in hell for that broker... and it doesn't surprise me that they were all from Elkhart Indiana. You would just have to spend time there to understand what I mean.
This morning, the Pentagon announced the decision to deploy an additional 35,000 soldiers to Iraq. The Pentagon explained that this will give them the "capability" to extend the initial surge.
I don't know about you folks, but I'm going to call it Surge II.
The lower-income population doesnt always have the traditional documentation that the middle-class borrower typically has, said Mr. Marano of Bear Stearns. There has been an effort to, frankly, satisfy some of the needs in the housing market by expanding the guidelines.
Traditional documentation--let's see now, this would be pay stubs, checking account balance, maybe some bank statements, some rent receipts? And if you don't have those pieces of paper, maybe it is because you don't have the income to support a home loan? Naw.
You know, maybe this guy could open a Mercedes/Lexus dealership to serve those of us who don't qualify for ownership of such cars under "traditional" guidelines...
I belive the Olsen Twins peaked right around with housing in '05; I havnt seen the twins' mugs on T.V. for many months now (goodness out on some weight ladies) but rumor has it they have now opted to handle their own finances...
"In any case, as long as it's more than 30% of households, it creates a minor math problem for those who argue that subprime has been boosting the homeownership rate."
What math are you using? If Ownit was making loans that the lending police think were inappropropriate and would not have been made by more prudent and ethical lenders, it seems to me 70% of near a billion a month of loans going to purchase money would put a dent in the homeownership numbers. Times Ownit by a few other like lenders and I would be sure of it.
Did he take any risk?
Don't ask me; I only just recently figured out who the Olsen twins are.
I can't say that this information was ever useful until this morning, but it certainly now puts the last bit of perspective together for me. And explains where the hell those leopard-print chairs came from. Like dryfly, I've really been nagged by that detail. So now I get it.
...serve borrowers who earned less than $100,000 and had less than $100,000 in assets, a group he calls the mass nonaffluents.
I believe that is somewhere around 70-80% of households.
OMG -
"to serve borrowers who earned less than $100,000 and had less than $100,000 in assets, a group he calls the mass nonaffluents"
Those poor people! If it wasn't for guys like Bill Dallas, how would they ever afford a home?
I believe that is somewhere around 70-80% of households.
I thought it was more than that, actually, but since I'm too lazy to look it up I'll accept the statistic.
In any case, as long as it's more than 30% of households, it creates a minor math problem for those who argue that subprime has been boosting the homeownership rate.
I'm sure it's quite a bit more than 70%. Actually, I would venture to guess it's more like 90%+.
I didn't quote this little gem that comes just before the part I did quote, largely because I was going to end up calling Mr. Marano from Bear Stearns a very, very ugly name on the main blog page, and that would get us some weird commenters after we came up on some problematic Google searches.
The lower-income population doesnt always have the traditional documentation that the middle-class borrower typically has, said Mr. Marano of Bear Stearns. There has been an effort to, frankly, satisfy some of the needs in the housing market by expanding the guidelines.
It's all because those do-gooders made us make loans to those, um, you know what people.
I'd supsect less than 90%, because of the AND clause.
If you have >100K income OR 100K assets you aren't in the category. So, eg, anyone who bought a home in 99 or before and who hasn't refinanced.
Ownit: You're not poor yet -- but we can help get you there.
Rentit (successor in interest to Ownit): not just for poor people anymore.
Can someone please explain to me how home ownership, at double the cost of renting, plus losing flexibility to move to take a better job, solves all problems?
I was pulling the stat out of my...
I was guessing based on median household income being around $35-$43K. Regardless, as Tanta points out, we aren't talking 30% of the pop here.
Nic Weaver gets the gold star for today... I'm pretty sure...
Mr. Dallas, who is also chairman of the Fox Sports Grill restaurant chain and manages the business interests of the Olsen twins
Why send this guy to jail? That last part is punishment enough.
Can someone please explain to me how home ownership, at double the cost of renting, plus losing flexibility to move to take a better job, solves all problems?
Simple, dear. Most problems are caused by spending too much time in sports bars watching the Olsen twins on the teevee. You can't afford to do that under the basic homeownership scenario. Poof! Problem solved!
Of course, if you refuse to solve your rentit problems by going to Ownit, Mr. Dallas still wins. Nice hedge.
This is the scariest personality type of them all. A guy who actually believes the lies he tells. "His speaking style seems part revival preacher..."
" More than 26 percent of borrowers took out a second mortgage, indicating that they did not have enough savings for a full down payment, up from 14 percent"
This surpises me that amongst subprime borrowers, ~74% paid full down payment??
I was just thinking the same as gab.
And of course it's just pure coincidence that the public service provided by Ownit had the side-effect of leaving Mr Dallas himself a very wealthy man.
This surpises me that amongst subprime borrowers, ~74% paid full down payment??
It shouldn't surprise you. See Nicholas's point above. There are a lot of move-up borrowers here making a big down payment with proceeds of the sale to the other segment who needed the second lien.
OT: The Ron Paul Effect
The Ron Paul Effect - ABC News
Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, who barely registers in public opinion polls of the Republican presidential field, won last Thursday night's debate.
That was the unmistakable conclusion of the online poll posted by debate sponsor MSNBC, which registered Paul with higher positive ratings and lower negative numbers than any of the other nine candidates on the stage.
Those of you who were hanging out here yesterday may already be tired of this new genre of news story, but I'm not.
Me either.
I want the numbers & facts but if we can't weave them into some kind of human tapestry what's the point...
I've said it a million times that I lived & worked through the agricultural crisis in the 80s in Middle America... to this day when I think about that time one image comes to my mind before all others...
Circa 1986 in Lexington Nebraska - I went out there to see what had happened to a recently built farm machinery plant I used to call on (I believe it was for New Holland). Rumors were that it had closed the year before.
It was hot & late summer, early fall - I pulled off I 80 headed north and there it was COMPLETELY abandoned with tumbleweeds growing up from the cracks in the parking lot pavement - they were so certain it wouldn't be resold & reoccupied they didn't even make the effort to maintain it.
About five years later it was sold & turned into a discount store. 200-500 union wages w/ benefits gone, replaced by maybe 20 minimum wage part-timers.
There are towns out there that are just now recovering from the 80s collapse... driven at least in part by the recent 'commodity bubble'... ethanol primarily. We'll likely be revisiting that story someday soon...
Anyway one part of my brain hungers for the numbers... the other side wants to know what those numbers mean. I'd keep looking for stuff like this Tanta - I'll read it if no one else.
I utterly detest people like this. "I'm gonna save the world, goddammit! And I deserve to get rich doing so." Please don't vote for him when he runs for office.
NAR Again Lowers '07 US Home Sales Forecast
Company News Story
WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- A realtors' association on Tuesday further pared back its forecasts for the housing market this year, saying stricter lending standards and subprime mortgage woes are producing headwinds for the sector.
In its latest forecast for the real estate market, the National Association of Realtors projected that existing home sales will fall 2.9% this year to 6.29 million, compared with its previous forecast of a 2.2% decline.
I'm with Dryfly. Anecdote is not data, but anecdotes frequently suggest interpretations of data which then can be checked for integrity in other ways.
We have heard so much about "subprime"; the reality of loose lending is totally different. I think parts of the housing/mortgage market over the last two years have operated to take the "non-affluent" and convert them to genuine subprime. Papering it over with a veneer of idealism doesn't change the economic or social effect.
In 2004 85% of households reported less than $100k income.
Leona Helmsley has met her match.
Who are the Olsen Twins?
Frenzy of risky mortgages leaves path of destruction
Frenzy of risky mortgages leaves path of destruction
| Reuters
But the mortgage broker, Troy Musick of Wholesale Mortgage Co., was so eager to clinch the deal, he followed the couple into the hospital, said DeWitt's wife, Ruth DeWitt.
As a surgeon cracked Mr. DeWitt's chest open for a quadruple heart bypass, the broker approached her in the waiting room of Elkhart General Hospital in Elkhart, Indiana.
"It's now or never," she remembers him saying.
Afraid of losing out on the chance to buy a home, she left the hospital and signed the loan documents. Lelon DeWitt survived the surgery, but not the $143,400 loan from Irvine, California-based Argent Mortgage.
"The loans are, proponents say, primarily used by borrowers who are self-employed or who earn money through off-the-books second jobs or child support payments."
Sorry for the broken record lama response, but:
People who cannot verify their income are, in all cases, tax cheats (a.k.a.: felons, liars, dishonest). Also, child support payments are easily verified.
Ah, but Mr. Dallas is a believer, a zealous man if you will.
That reminds me of a few quotes on zeal. (Google is a horrible thing..)
"Zeal without knowledge is the sister of folly."
-- Sir John Davies
"Zealous men are ever displaying to you the strength of their belief. While judicious men are showing you the grounds of it."
-- William Shenstone
"The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal well meaning but without understanding."
--Justice Louis D. Brandeis
Rumor has it that Dallas and Mozillo tan at the same beach.
Ron Paul is the best candidate running in EITHER party, BY FAR!
Anthony - your story wins.
"Its now or never."
I hope they have a special place in hell for that broker... and it doesn't surprise me that they were all from Elkhart Indiana. You would just have to spend time there to understand what I mean.
This morning, the Pentagon announced the decision to deploy an additional 35,000 soldiers to Iraq. The Pentagon explained that this will give them the "capability" to extend the initial surge.
I don't know about you folks, but I'm going to call it Surge II.
The lower-income population doesnt always have the traditional documentation that the middle-class borrower typically has, said Mr. Marano of Bear Stearns. There has been an effort to, frankly, satisfy some of the needs in the housing market by expanding the guidelines.
Traditional documentation--let's see now, this would be pay stubs, checking account balance, maybe some bank statements, some rent receipts? And if you don't have those pieces of paper, maybe it is because you don't have the income to support a home loan? Naw.
You know, maybe this guy could open a Mercedes/Lexus dealership to serve those of us who don't qualify for ownership of such cars under "traditional" guidelines...
I belive the Olsen Twins peaked right around with housing in '05; I havnt seen the twins' mugs on T.V. for many months now (goodness out on some weight ladies) but rumor has it they have now opted to handle their own finances...
"In any case, as long as it's more than 30% of households, it creates a minor math problem for those who argue that subprime has been boosting the homeownership rate."
What math are you using? If Ownit was making loans that the lending police think were inappropropriate and would not have been made by more prudent and ethical lenders, it seems to me 70% of near a billion a month of loans going to purchase money would put a dent in the homeownership numbers. Times Ownit by a few other like lenders and I would be sure of it.