That is a bit too interesting, there seems to be a series of these data points that indicate rapid deceleration in the economy, possibly the velocity of money absolutely cratering?
Thinking ISM services, Empire state manufacturing, Philly Fed...are there dots to connect or is that finding the face in a cloud?
Please use following DTI ratios to qualify your full docs stand alone deals. See our attached current rate sheet for more details:
DEBTTO- INCOME Ratio based on Monthly Income
Monthly Income > 720 660-719
< $3,000 40% 40%
$3,001-$5,500 50% 45%
$5,501-$8,000 50% 50%
$8001 55% 55%
HELOC and Closed end 2nd trusts (Fixed loans) are Full doc only now.
Minimum credit score is now 660 Equifax Beacon.
Purchase money and simultaneously closed end equity loans behind a non-SunTrust first mortgage no longer available. Only HELOC is available for piggy back transaction.
Declining Markets: 5% Reduction
· Condominium: 5% Reduction
· Second Home: 5% Reduction (additionally, the minimum FICO for second homes is increasing to 680)
Full Doc Max 89.9% CLTV with 700+ Beacon score ----85% CLTV Declining Markets
Full Doc Max 85% CLTV with 660+ Beacon score ----- 80% CLTV Declining Markets
Here is how declining markets 5% Reduction can be waive: 720+ Beacon score, full doc and 12 months PITI reserve verify by recent 3 months bank statements.
Fact: January existing home sales drop, median price falls, inventory levels still high and rising
Fact: Goldman Sachs lowers its first quarter earnings estimates on a number of investment banks
Fact: Lowe's earnings outlook disappoints
Rumor: Continued speculation there will be an Ambac bailout plan as early as today.
hmmmm, I wonder what item will be the focus of the market so far today...
Me? Animal sacrifice? No way - I'm not the one communicating with imaginary deities. Plus, I like animals. Plus, plus, I'm not the one god talks to.
GWB has a red phone to heaven (well, maybe it's a white phone). He should get his brush-clearing ass on the horn and find out what's going on with the money.
Another sign post along the way. Golf memberships in SW Florida are in excess supply. Developers giving them away with purchases in order to get annual membership fees.
Folks still can use credit cards until they hit their max line of credit. This will occur over time and the Lowe's numbers reflect that process occurring. It would be interesting to know the breakout of Lowe's sales by state and region.
MEWs maybe tapped out, but don't forget about REWs, that is retirement equity withdrawals. You have to wade through a lot of sob story fluff to get to some interesting data and quotes in this report about 401k loans and withdrawal.
Theresa Perry, who manages benefits for the firm PinkSlip in San Francisco Bay area, said she's been surprised by the number of people using hardship withdrawals to make payments on so-called "piggyback" loans, which are home-equity loans wrapped with a first mortgage to allow borrowers to fully finance a home's value.
Reposting from last thread:
Gary writes:
If you read nothing else today, follow this link and start with the third paragraph ("But he spoke . . .") . . . Set in 1929. Highly recommend the book.
Stocks Higher on Hope for Housing Bottom- AP
Wall Street turned higher Monday on hopes that the worst housing slump in a quarter century might be nearing a bottom, a trend that could be the catalyst needed to revive the badly beaten financial sector
Lowe's went up 4-5 percent on the news, so people were apparently relieved by these numbers. 7.6 pct same store sales decline is a big light flashing "buy" for some people. What am I missing?
ot
Oppenheimer & Co analyst Meredith Whitney cut her first-quarter and 2008 earnings estimates on major U.S. banks, and said bank losses will be the highest in the past 20 years or more due to greater individual defaults on mortgages and other loans.
Whitney expects Citigroup to have the largest first-quarter write-down, ranging from $2.1 billion to $3.0 billion, given its highest leveraged lending commitments.
She expects JPMorgan Chase & Co to mark down $1.3 billion to $1.8 billion for the quarter.
Whitney believes U.S. home prices will fall by about 3 times the present level over the next two years.
"That's not a smart strategy. You don't want to apply a short-term fix to a long-term issue,"
I think that pretty much sums up the problem with everything that the government and financial industry is trying to do right now to "manage" the current financial crisis.
Gary writes:
If you read nothing else today, follow this link and start with the third paragraph ("But he spoke . . .") . . . Set in 1929. Highly recommend the book. Google Books? id...g3JvbDucDvUbKJQ
Gary-
What is the book?
The link did not come through cleanly,
so I can't click through (and I doubt others can)
On the cc, Lowe's said they saw an improvement in the first few weeks of Feb. over Jan. They also claimed they were being conservative in their guidance. Music to the analysts' ears.
What didn't come up in the call: we haven't seen the full effect of HELOC guideline tightening. About a third of HELOC draw downs are used for home improvement.
Moreover, the company will expand store space in '08. This demonstrates that Lowe's saw the '01-'05 comp growth as "secular", but now sees the'06-'08 decline as "cyclical".
I mention the above because conventional wisdom holds that inventories are now "well managed". What is not "well managed", however, is the likes of retail capacity investment and retail employment. This will make for a longer cycle than bloated inventories, and its the reason why ISM services will be a more important indicator than ISM manufacturing.
Last week observed a
30-car Century 21 caravan
heading into San Diego county.
Sporting yellow window flags,
$5000 checks at the ready
Like FEMA
after Katrina
to rescue those
underwater
TulipsAllOverAgain asks, "Any chance Home Depot is taking up market share?"
I was in there last week, in Seattle, and Home Depot was a ghost town.
The workers use to ignore me, a woman, wandering through the isles looking for something as girlie as a curtain rod or gardening shears. Now they smile and approach me, hand me a bag of warm popcorn, and personally lead me to the isle and hover.
Amazing. Where were they when I needed help plunking down several hundred for a new lawn mower?
hey 4822, remeber when and maybe they still do, century 21 had the "if we dont sell your house in ...we will buy it from you" Maybe everyone should lkist their homes with C@! and that caravan was people actually calling them on the carpet to buy...
Home Depot used to have helpful staff, but Bob Nardelli sent all those people packing so he could replace them with lower wage, less skilled staff. Gotta keep those costs down, and people won't notice the difference. Right?
That's why Home Depot started losing out to Lowes. Now they are both screwed becuase the MEW cow is dead. No more free milk...
Yes, you could have a gifted six year old that understands the difference between CDOs and credit default swaps, and Conjure Bags. Unlikely, but who am I to judge?
But no way is this site being 'assigned reading' for a kindergarten class homework assignment, gifted or not. If it IS assigned reading, then you need to have a word with the teacher. Start with, "How much economics and finance did you teach my kindergarten student ... so my child could try to read a finance blog?"
Then, ask if the teacher can help you with your own capital letters, and apostrophe problems.
Just being helpful.
YN approaches next droid in sight, in conversation with droid-3.
YN: Where do I find the framulators?
HD: This isn't my department. [both droids depart in opposite directions]
YN meanders aimlessly; eventually accosts droid-4.
YN: Where do I find the framulators?
HD: They don't make those.
YN beginning to leak around his lips, retrieves broken framulator purchased at another Hopeless Depot from pocket, waves it under droid's nose.
HD: We don't carry those.
YN pictures the route to Lowes while heading for the door.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I used to have a tin-foil-hat theory that HD had a professional Store Opening Crew who knew where every single item was located, AND, what it was used for.
Once the suckers were hooked, the crew moved on to the next opening and the personnel was replaced with all those who failed the entrance application.
My experiences with the HD help haven't been that bad, but navigating the endless amount of junk on the floor in the aisles - especially the cross-aisles and near the registers - drives me nuts. And the stores look like utter crap and there never seems to be enough checkout people at prime-time - a summer weekend afternoon.
When I remodeled my kitchen a few years ago there were two Home Depots, two Builders Square, and an HQ Warehouse within easy driving distance. Lowes was merely a rumor. While HQ and Builders Square have disappeared there are now seven Home Depots and four Lowes with Menards coming soon.Two of the Home Depots and two of the Lowes have opened within the past year. I emphasize that these are only those fairly close to my house-drive a bit farther and there are many more. The funniest part of all this is that I live in suburban Detroit. Anybody think Detroit is about to have a massive remodeling boom?
I was in a Lowe's this weekend in Seattle. Saturday, 4PM, there were maybe 8 or 9 customers in the whole store. Certainly more employees than customers. There was a definite eeriness.
omg-
It's not all about you. This is a site for grownups. If you don't want your 6yo to come across the occasional curseword, then send her back over to Disney.
I'm sick of people who think that the world revolves around them and their fucking kids. It doesn't.
Consumer Housing MEW- done.
Okey dokey- Wall Street is going to be shopping pols for the bailout in short order- meanwhile they are quietly raising cash by hook or crook.
Good luck to the folks who have all their retirement money in the Wall Street game.
Someday this war's gonna end...
No one could have seen this coming.
Man, who cares.
With housing bottoming out I'm just going crazy buying stocks.
I literally can't control myself.
That is a bit too interesting, there seems to be a series of these data points that indicate rapid deceleration in the economy, possibly the velocity of money absolutely cratering?
Thinking ISM services, Empire state manufacturing, Philly Fed...are there dots to connect or is that finding the face in a cloud?
yes, but at least he wasn't stunned.
AllenM writes:
Consumer Housing MEW- done.
Yep...check this email from a SunTrust Heloc rep-
Hello Everyone:
Please use following DTI ratios to qualify your full docs stand alone deals. See our attached current rate sheet for more details:
DEBTTO- INCOME Ratio based on Monthly Income
Monthly Income > 720 660-719
< $3,000 40% 40%
$3,001-$5,500 50% 45%
$5,501-$8,000 50% 50%
HELOC and Closed end 2nd trusts (Fixed loans) are Full doc only now.
Minimum credit score is now 660 Equifax Beacon.
Purchase money and simultaneously closed end equity loans behind a non-SunTrust first mortgage no longer available. Only HELOC is available for piggy back transaction.
Declining Markets: 5% Reduction
· Condominium: 5% Reduction
· Second Home: 5% Reduction (additionally, the minimum FICO for second homes is increasing to 680)
Full Doc Max 89.9% CLTV with 700+ Beacon score ----85% CLTV Declining Markets
Full Doc Max 85% CLTV with 660+ Beacon score ----- 80% CLTV Declining Markets
Here is how declining markets 5% Reduction can be waive: 720+ Beacon score, full doc and 12 months PITI reserve verify by recent 3 months bank statements.
Astounding, that sales are falling at a rapidly accelerating rate.
But, to those of us anticipating a depression, such is not surprising.
In the Aug. '29- Mar. '33 depression, GDP fell 10% (real)/12% nominal in the first full year ('33).
Wherewithal to buy is drying up rapidly.
C'mon naturally-following stock market crash!
We should ask George Bush to ask god WTF is going on.
God is Georges "yes" man.
Fact: January existing home sales drop, median price falls, inventory levels still high and rising
Fact: Goldman Sachs lowers its first quarter earnings estimates on a number of investment banks
Fact: Lowe's earnings outlook disappoints
Rumor: Continued speculation there will be an Ambac bailout plan as early as today.
hmmmm, I wonder what item will be the focus of the market so far today...
M-A-, go do an animal sacrifice or whatever you do.
This, a well-deserved economic downturn, is not worthy of the Good Lord's time.
jg | 02.25.08 - 11:12 am
Me? Animal sacrifice? No way - I'm not the one communicating with imaginary deities. Plus, I like animals. Plus, plus, I'm not the one god talks to.
GWB has a red phone to heaven (well, maybe it's a white phone). He should get his brush-clearing ass on the horn and find out what's going on with the money.
If god don't know, maybe he can ask Putin.
And if Putin isn't any help, Bush can call his BF Prince Bandar.
X-
so now Wells Fartgo's dictum is being adopted by all???
I mean seriously 720??? Come one let's just cut off all funding while we are at it...
But it seems good enough to juice the markets up....again.
MS
Another sign post along the way. Golf memberships in SW Florida are in excess supply. Developers giving them away with purchases in order to get annual membership fees.
Folks still can use credit cards until they hit their max line of credit. This will occur over time and the Lowe's numbers reflect that process occurring. It would be interesting to know the breakout of Lowe's sales by state and region.
Those are pretty impressive declines. Any chance Home Depot is taking up market share?
To be fair, the rate of decline isn't accelerating. It more than doubled, from 4 to 9 Nov-Dec, but then declined to less than 33% from Dec. to Jan.
MEWs maybe tapped out, but don't forget about REWs, that is retirement equity withdrawals. You have to wade through a lot of sob story fluff to get to some interesting data and quotes in this report about 401k loans and withdrawal.
404 Error, No such article | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle
Best,
Lowes said their numbers would have been even worse were it not for the large up-tick in sales of For Sale By Owner signs.
MS
michael schumacher-
It's worse than it seems. It's basically only full doc with low LTV/CLTV/high FICO that lenders MAY want to lend on.
He should get his brush-clearing ass on the horn [Marcus Aurelius]
(-:
Yeah, who intelligently designed this plan.
For Sale By Owner signs.
for sale by lender, you meant, right
Reposting from last thread:
Gary writes:
If you read nothing else today, follow this link and start with the third paragraph ("But he spoke . . .") . . . Set in 1929. Highly recommend the book.
Google Books
? id...g3JvbDucDvUbKJQ
God damn, but it's resonant of today.
Gary | Homepage | 02.25.08 - 11:48 am | #
People like to hit up their HELOCs for home improvement so I agree this suggests the MEW stoppage is finally catching up with us.
Stocks Higher on Hope for Housing Bottom- AP
Wall Street turned higher Monday on hopes that the worst housing slump in a quarter century might be nearing a bottom, a trend that could be the catalyst needed to revive the badly beaten financial sector
491
Lowe's went up 4-5 percent on the news, so people were apparently relieved by these numbers. 7.6 pct same store sales decline is a big light flashing "buy" for some people. What am I missing?
John:
Isn't it obvious? You're missing the "bottom"!!
What else are you going to put your money into? A false bottom is as good as anything else for sale?
Nothing that a $1500 check from Uncle Sam can't fix. Remodel or die!
ot
Oppenheimer & Co analyst Meredith Whitney cut her first-quarter and 2008 earnings estimates on major U.S. banks, and said bank losses will be the highest in the past 20 years or more due to greater individual defaults on mortgages and other loans.
Whitney expects Citigroup to have the largest first-quarter write-down, ranging from $2.1 billion to $3.0 billion, given its highest leveraged lending commitments.
She expects JPMorgan Chase & Co to mark down $1.3 billion to $1.8 billion for the quarter.
Whitney believes U.S. home prices will fall by about 3 times the present level over the next two years.
CORRECTED - CORRECTED-UPDATE 1-Oppenheimer cuts Q1, '08 EPS outlook on major
| Reuters
From the article that hiker90 posted up above:
"That's not a smart strategy. You don't want to apply a short-term fix to a long-term issue,"
I think that pretty much sums up the problem with everything that the government and financial industry is trying to do right now to "manage" the current financial crisis.
Gary writes:
If you read nothing else today, follow this link and start with the third paragraph ("But he spoke . . .") . . . Set in 1929. Highly recommend the book.
Google Books? id...g3JvbDucDvUbKJQ
Gary-
What is the book?
The link did not come through cleanly,
so I can't click through (and I doubt others can)
article on cnn.com front page - US consumer debt (credit cards) up 315% since 1998.
I dont think US consumers have anything left. Or access to any more debt even if they wanted it.
et result - stock up 5%. Already priced in. Ya. Right. I say, load up on shorts in an hour.
The book Gary posted is "You Can't Go Home Again" Thomas Wolfe. One of the best books, ever...
IS it not now painfully obvious that the market is in control of a few rather than us retail slobs???
Lowes up 4% on a decline is SSS???
Fuckin a bubba....
Down is still a four letter word.
Fuck Me...
MS
please refrain from explicit langaugeMS, my 6 year old daughter reads this site for her homework assigment's. yes, she's in gifted class.
John Stark,
On the cc, Lowe's said they saw an improvement in the first few weeks of Feb. over Jan. They also claimed they were being conservative in their guidance. Music to the analysts' ears.
What didn't come up in the call: we haven't seen the full effect of HELOC guideline tightening. About a third of HELOC draw downs are used for home improvement.
Moreover, the company will expand store space in '08. This demonstrates that Lowe's saw the '01-'05 comp growth as "secular", but now sees the'06-'08 decline as "cyclical".
I mention the above because conventional wisdom holds that inventories are now "well managed". What is not "well managed", however, is the likes of retail capacity investment and retail employment. This will make for a longer cycle than bloated inventories, and its the reason why ISM services will be a more important indicator than ISM manufacturing.
It's the OMG douche again.....
Are you going to tell on me???
Go ahead........she probably translates it for you.
MS
creekside, anonymous is right, it's Thomas Wolfe . . . I'm less than 200 pages in but the guy can write. The language is amazingly evocative.
And the social commentary is something else. Highly recommended.
Could write, I mean. Been dead for 70 years now.
yes, she's in gifted class.
Everybody gets a trophy these days.
Last week observed a
30-car Century 21 caravan
heading into San Diego county.
Sporting yellow window flags,
$5000 checks at the ready
Like FEMA
after Katrina
to rescue those
underwater
TulipsAllOverAgain asks, "Any chance Home Depot is taking up market share?"
I was in there last week, in Seattle, and Home Depot was a ghost town.
The workers use to ignore me, a woman, wandering through the isles looking for something as girlie as a curtain rod or gardening shears. Now they smile and approach me, hand me a bag of warm popcorn, and personally lead me to the isle and hover.
Amazing. Where were they when I needed help plunking down several hundred for a new lawn mower?
Anticipate layoffs at both companies.
My dachshund can beat up your honor student.
Sometimes i feel like walking up to a home depot employee and asking them if they need help.
Don't know if this is new, UPS now has a 6.25% "Fuel Surcharge" on their ground commercial deliveries. Ben, bake that into your model ASAP.
Clyde | Homepage | 02.25.08 - 1:24 pm |
Clyde,
The other guys also...
Ya think Jet-A is getting a little pricey ??
FedEx Express
Surcharge Effective Date
18.50% Feb. 4, 2008March 2, 2008
18.50% March 3, 2008April 6, 2008
Chris
MS:
OM asked nicely to refrain from profanity.
seems reasonable to me.
not like it really adds that much to a post anyway.
I personally don't care that much, but others do, regardless of their ages or their honor roll status.
YTL
Cobra,
I've pretty much stopped buying stuff online for work because of it.
Cheers,
X, thanks for the mortgage product updates, very informative.
hey 4822, remeber when and maybe they still do, century 21 had the "if we dont sell your house in ...we will buy it from you" Maybe everyone should lkist their homes with C@! and that caravan was people actually calling them on the carpet to buy...
that was the closing cost caravan..
Re Home Depot:
Home Depot used to have helpful staff, but Bob Nardelli sent all those people packing so he could replace them with lower wage, less skilled staff. Gotta keep those costs down, and people won't notice the difference. Right?
That's why Home Depot started losing out to Lowes. Now they are both screwed becuase the MEW cow is dead. No more free milk...
Damn. I better go use us the last of my Lowe's Christmas gift card before they go away.
My apologies for the strong language.
Yes, you could have a gifted six year old that understands the difference between CDOs and credit default swaps, and Conjure Bags. Unlikely, but who am I to judge?
But no way is this site being 'assigned reading' for a kindergarten class homework assignment, gifted or not. If it IS assigned reading, then you need to have a word with the teacher. Start with, "How much economics and finance did you teach my kindergarten student ... so my child could try to read a finance blog?"
Then, ask if the teacher can help you with your own capital letters, and apostrophe problems.
Just being helpful.
Typical Hopeless Depot experience...
Your narrator walks in looking for a framulator.
YN: Where do I find the framulators?
Hopeless Droid: I'm on my break. [walks away]
YN approaches next droid in sight, in conversation with droid-3.
YN: Where do I find the framulators?
HD: This isn't my department. [both droids depart in opposite directions]
YN meanders aimlessly; eventually accosts droid-4.
YN: Where do I find the framulators?
HD: They don't make those.
YN beginning to leak around his lips, retrieves broken framulator purchased at another Hopeless Depot from pocket, waves it under droid's nose.
HD: We don't carry those.
YN pictures the route to Lowes while heading for the door.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I used to have a tin-foil-hat theory that HD had a professional Store Opening Crew who knew where every single item was located, AND, what it was used for.
Once the suckers were hooked, the crew moved on to the next opening and the personnel was replaced with all those who failed the entrance application.
My experiences with the HD help haven't been that bad, but navigating the endless amount of junk on the floor in the aisles - especially the cross-aisles and near the registers - drives me nuts. And the stores look like utter crap and there never seems to be enough checkout people at prime-time - a summer weekend afternoon.
Lowe's is always far less crowded then any of the other "junk" stores around. Thank god I still have a really hardware store in my neighborhood.
When I remodeled my kitchen a few years ago there were two Home Depots, two Builders Square, and an HQ Warehouse within easy driving distance. Lowes was merely a rumor. While HQ and Builders Square have disappeared there are now seven Home Depots and four Lowes with Menards coming soon.Two of the Home Depots and two of the Lowes have opened within the past year. I emphasize that these are only those fairly close to my house-drive a bit farther and there are many more. The funniest part of all this is that I live in suburban Detroit. Anybody think Detroit is about to have a massive remodeling boom?
I was in a Lowe's this weekend in Seattle. Saturday, 4PM, there were maybe 8 or 9 customers in the whole store. Certainly more employees than customers. There was a definite eeriness.
omg-
It's not all about you. This is a site for grownups. If you don't want your 6yo to come across the occasional curseword, then send her back over to Disney.
I'm sick of people who think that the world revolves around them and their fucking kids. It doesn't.
HD near me has leaky roof for the past few months.
Irony?