Dave Witherow's Comments RSS Syndication from SeekingAlpha.com http://seekingalpha.comuser/41918/comments http://seekingalpha.com/article/106407/comments?source=feed#comment-308893 308893 I agree wholeheartedly with your observations and concern about legitimate, long-term affordability. Clearly any plan that does not allow a "buyer" (a term used in the loosest possible way) to make affordable payments for the long-term is just postponing the problem, elongating the housing crisis, and hiding the necessary bottom in housing prices. And while we can debate whether the right number is 25%, 28%, 31% or 33% of gross income, my deep concern is whether lenders are restructuring mortgages with regard to affordability of the long-term payments versus just the initial payments. One of the major reasons we're in this mess is that lenders were basing their mortgage debt-to-income ratios on the initial mortgage payment (often the teaser rate or a negative amortization amount), instead of applying that ratio to the payments that would happen after the loan rate reset or recast. Obviously this is a time bomb, and I think that some of the major lenders are doing it again, qualifying their loan modifications based on a new below-market initial rate (e.g., 2.5% for Countrywide). If lenders are allowed to do this as an expedience for 'avoiding foreclosures', the "glut of future foreclosures" you refer to seems almost inevitable.

This is the thing that keeps me awake at night. ]]> Tue, 18 Nov 2008 10:47:32 -0500 I agree wholeheartedly with your observations and concern about legitimate, long-term affordability. Clearly any plan that does not allow a "buyer" (a term used in the loosest possible way) to make affordable payments for the long-term is just postponing the problem, elongating the housing crisis, and hiding the necessary bottom in housing prices. And while we can debate whether the right number is 25%, 28%, 31% or 33% of gross income, my deep concern is whether lenders are restructuring mortgages with regard to affordability of the long-term payments versus just the initial payments. One of the major reasons we're in this mess is that lenders were basing their mortgage debt-to-income ratios on the initial mortgage payment (often the teaser rate or a negative amortization amount), instead of applying that ratio to the payments that would happen after the loan rate reset or recast. Obviously this is a time bomb, and I think that some of the major lenders are doing it again, qualifying their loan modifications based on a new below-market initial rate (e.g., 2.5% for Countrywide). If lenders are allowed to do this as an expedience for 'avoiding foreclosures', the "glut of future foreclosures" you refer to seems almost inevitable.

This is the thing that keeps me awake at night. ]]> http://seekingalpha.com/article/103594/comments?source=feed#comment-298060 298060 Thank you for your reply and explanation. I certainly understand SA's editorial decision and I hear its rationale, but I respectfully disagree with the call and the conclusion. Your work to summarize the plethora of articles on real estate and your demonstrated ability to extract the salient essence out of a myriad of articles was incredibly value-adding. Echoing Bill's comment, I agree that this summary was invaluable to my efforts to stay abreast with everything going on in multiple real estate sub-domains. Your housing trackers were literally the first thing I read each and every day.

Not to take away from your contributors, but they are just another few contributors to a large body of editorial content available on the web, whereas your well-edited summary was indeed a unique resource.

And as to notion that the residential real estate bubble has 'popped', while that's well understood by now, there is still much news and commentary in the futrure about whether we are reaching the bottom, how that's going to happen, whether commercial real estate will follow and how, when lending will recover, how prices and sales volume are shifting nationally and regionally, etc. This is a huge body of information of considerable future value to SA's readers, which SA has apparently chosen to abandon.

I'm tremendously sorry to hear of this demise. I guess all I can do is get over the loss and thank you for the many months of summaries that you've provided. Thank you.
Dave

On Nov 03 03:44 PM Judy Weil, SA Editor wrote:

> Hi Bill and Dave,
>
> Thanks for the kind words and Bill, especially for your regular insightful
> comments. I'm happy to hear that the Housing Tracker has been useful
> to you both.
>
> We made an editorial decision to slim down on in-house coverage of
> the housing market for several reasons. The two main ones are that
> our contributors do a remarkable job in analyzing and keeping abreast
> of what's going on in the housing market and the other is, well,
> because the real estate bubble has pretty much popped.
>
> I'll probably be posting one or two weekly posts on a narrower field
> of interest in the housing market. I'd be interested to hear from
> you both which housing topics you'd like to continue reading about.
>
>
> If I do come across anyone who does the same kind of research on
> the housing market I'll be happy to post it here for anyone who is
> interested. Of course I'm always happy to answer your questions at
> any time.
>
> All the best,
> Judy]]> Tue, 04 Nov 2008 11:25:23 -0500 Thank you for your reply and explanation. I certainly understand SA's editorial decision and I hear its rationale, but I respectfully disagree with the call and the conclusion. Your work to summarize the plethora of articles on real estate and your demonstrated ability to extract the salient essence out of a myriad of articles was incredibly value-adding. Echoing Bill's comment, I agree that this summary was invaluable to my efforts to stay abreast with everything going on in multiple real estate sub-domains. Your housing trackers were literally the first thing I read each and every day.

Not to take away from your contributors, but they are just another few contributors to a large body of editorial content available on the web, whereas your well-edited summary was indeed a unique resource.

And as to notion that the residential real estate bubble has 'popped', while that's well understood by now, there is still much news and commentary in the futrure about whether we are reaching the bottom, how that's going to happen, whether commercial real estate will follow and how, when lending will recover, how prices and sales volume are shifting nationally and regionally, etc. This is a huge body of information of considerable future value to SA's readers, which SA has apparently chosen to abandon.

I'm tremendously sorry to hear of this demise. I guess all I can do is get over the loss and thank you for the many months of summaries that you've provided. Thank you.
Dave

On Nov 03 03:44 PM Judy Weil, SA Editor wrote:

> Hi Bill and Dave,
>
> Thanks for the kind words and Bill, especially for your regular insightful
> comments. I'm happy to hear that the Housing Tracker has been useful
> to you both.
>
> We made an editorial decision to slim down on in-house coverage of
> the housing market for several reasons. The two main ones are that
> our contributors do a remarkable job in analyzing and keeping abreast
> of what's going on in the housing market and the other is, well,
> because the real estate bubble has pretty much popped.
>
> I'll probably be posting one or two weekly posts on a narrower field
> of interest in the housing market. I'd be interested to hear from
> you both which housing topics you'd like to continue reading about.
>
>
> If I do come across anyone who does the same kind of research on
> the housing market I'll be happy to post it here for anyone who is
> interested. Of course I'm always happy to answer your questions at
> any time.
>
> All the best,
> Judy]]> http://seekingalpha.com/article/103594/comments?source=feed#comment-297161 297161 I've been a big fan of your articles and article summaries for many, many months. I have particularly appreciated your article summaries and editorial overviews that precede them. But it seems that your Housing Tracker article summaries haven't appeared in a while, and I just looked up your article history and it seems that your last Housing Tacker summary was mid-October. Are you abandoning that format? I certainly hope not (but fear so) as that has been an invaluable resource for me to keep an eye on everything happening in real estate. I'd love to know what your plans are, and if you are indeed moving on from these summaries, do you know of anyone who does such a summary, even if it's only fractionally as good as yours? Thank you. Dave]]> Mon, 03 Nov 2008 10:29:56 -0500 I've been a big fan of your articles and article summaries for many, many months. I have particularly appreciated your article summaries and editorial overviews that precede them. But it seems that your Housing Tracker article summaries haven't appeared in a while, and I just looked up your article history and it seems that your last Housing Tacker summary was mid-October. Are you abandoning that format? I certainly hope not (but fear so) as that has been an invaluable resource for me to keep an eye on everything happening in real estate. I'd love to know what your plans are, and if you are indeed moving on from these summaries, do you know of anyone who does such a summary, even if it's only fractionally as good as yours? Thank you. Dave]]>