kebu77

Who Should Have Skin in the Game?

How about a 5-10% requirement for loans the bank did not originate in-house (the bank's skin in the game as some assurance that their brokers (or other originators) have not been too "creative" in setting up their loan files...

Worst Housing Number in Decades: What Is the Wall Street Media Smoking?

"In what universe do you think that a seasonally adjusted number of housing starts being 27% of what they were four years ago is good economic news, Mr. Wrixon?"

Actually, it could be. Builders could go to 0.0% I suppose but then would be OOB. Builders are "chasing" completions, which over the last two years have exceeded new-starts/permits by around 150-200k per month, with some months as high as 300k. You know the new-house mkt. has hit bottom, more or less, when completions fall more in line with new-starts/permits. We are at least several months off from this - - doesn't matter whether you do SA or NSA on this, result is roughly the same - - too many new completions competing with the current (recent completions and existing) housing inventory.