Is Chad Rogers Leaving "Million Dollar Listing"?
Filed under: News, Cities
Is Chad Rogers vacating Bravo’s realty reality show, “Million Dollar Listing“? That’s the ,000 (or is it million?) question. The show has a cultlike following who track the weekly adventures of three high-end Los Angeles real estate agents. The three say their participation on the television series has led to international [...]
Goldman Fraud Victims? Homeowners, Not Investors
Filed under: News, Economy
You probably already know that the Securities and Exchange Commission alleges that hedge fund Paulson & Co handpicked stinker mortgage-backed securities to put into an investment pool, then bet that the pool would fail. Goldman didn’t even buy the securities themselves – it just took investors’ money based on other bankers’ securities. [...]
Nic Cage’s Latest Real Estate Disaster: A Pyramid Tomb
Filed under: Design, News, Cities
Nicolas Cage’s housing troubles are enough to drive a man to his grave. Perhaps that’s what he was thinking when he erected a 9-foot-tall pyramid-shaped tomb in a New Orleans cemetery. Who knows why Cage decided on this design, but as first reported in TMZ, it is possible it’s because his [...]
Brokers’ Hidden Fees Led Homebuyers Astray
Filed under: News, Economy
In my last post, I began to lay the groundwork for the argument as to why the mortgage (and real estate) markets need radical transparency to restore consumer and investor confidence. I described my experiences working in the industries and my resulting opinions — most specifically about a little-known fee called the [...]
Fannie Mae’s "Deed for Lease": Right for You?
Filed under: News, Cities, Economy
No longer able to afford your mortgage payment? Thinking about walking away from your underwater house? Really, what you’d like is an affordable way to stay in your current residence until you find a better solution.
Then Fannie Mae’s Deed-for-Lease program might be right for you.
The program was first announced in [...]
Foreclosures Rise in Military, Army Wife Goes to Battle
Filed under: News
While her husband serves his country, military spouse Nicole Rosen is fighting her own war to keep their home. The family moved to Washington State from Oklahoma in 2005 for Staff Sgt. John Rosen’s military duty and purchased a home at a high interest rate. Soon after, Nicole quit her job after her [...]
Real Estate iPhone App ‘Layar’ vs. the Classifieds
Filed under: News
It’s amazing how this technology works: Spread out before me on a single, neat page is a whole list of available nearby homes and condos, and even rental apartments. Is it on Layar, one of the latest so-called “augmented reality” mobile phone apps? Are you kidding? I’m using the L.A. Times classified section [...]
Top Posts on HousingWatch This Week
Filed under: News
HousingWatch readers had mortgage issues on the mind this week, with popular posts covering JP Morgan Chase’s stance on help for borrowers, a plea for industry transparency, and an unsurprising report that many recent home sales have been “distressed.” See what else was hot on HousingWatch this week.
1. JPMorgan Chase Is No Fan [...]
Rise in Jobless Claims Surprises Economists
Filed under: News, Economy
Hundreds of thousands of people lost their jobs and filed for unemployment last week. Officials processed claims at a seasonally-adjusted rate of 484,000 a week, up 24,000 from the week before, according to the Department of Labor. The rise in initial unemployment claims was the second in a row.
Economists were surprised and [...]
Mortgage Interest Rates Drop
Filed under: News, Economy
Worried about interest rates? If you’re looking for a home loan, you can breath a little sigh of relief: after inching up in recent weeks, average interest rates fell back to their near-historic lows.
Average interest rates for 30-year home loans slid to 5.07 percent (plus 0.6 percent in fees) for the week [...]
