The Real Deal
therealdeal vs The Real Deal.
New York real estate action.
January 1, 2009
November 30, 2008
Bear Stearns' Building
Bear Stearns: When was the building at 383 Madison Avenue at 47th worth more than the banking firm ?
See also: Value of GM vs value of GM building.
November 27, 2008
Voting: more than Yea or Nay
It can be daunting for a first-timer. When a facilitator calls for consensus, members hold up cards to signify their positions on an issue. (1) Green means the holder agrees with the decision; (2) blue means he or she is neutral; (3) yellow, is unsure or unclear; orange, has serious reservations but will not block consensus; and (4) red, will block consensus. The group recently added a (5) white card to signify "I'm not up to speed on this issue because I didn't do my homework."
The revealing voting of co-housing in Brooklyn.
August 5, 2008
Foreclosure Pulse
Realty Trac's Foreclosure Pulse: hype for bargain home buyers ?
August 4, 2008
Housing Wire
Housingwire is a lively news source for the mortgage and residential real estate industries.
July 27, 2008
Urban Digs:economics of NYC real estate
urbandigs tracks real estate in NY -- more aimed at investors than at consumers.
July 22, 2008
McMansions no more (Leigh County, PA)
Bethlehem Township developer Abraham Atiyeh announced two weeks ago that he's building a downtown Bethlehem development of town homes starting at $129,000, and national builder Pulte Homes has halted its large-home building in the area and last winter began marketing a new home, called "The Lehigh", with 1,050 square feet and starting price of $139,000.
McMansions No More ** Fewer behemoth homes may be built in the Lehigh Valley as turmoil in the housing market opens the door for smaller, more affordable living
Morning Call - Allentown, Pa.
Author: Matt Assad
Date: May 25, 2008
Start Page: A.1
Section: National
Text Word Count: 2299
[Via McAll]
July 8, 2008
Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter tallies failed lenders
The Implode-O-Meter is the brainchild of Aaron Krowne, a former researcher
at Emory University in Atlanta. A computer scientist and mathematician,
Mr. Krowne, 28, started the site in 2007, believing that the troubles in the
housing market, and by extension the mortgage industry, would worsen.
He was right -- and the Implode-O-Meter took off. Traffic on the site soared,
reaching as many as 100,000 regular visitors, and advertising dollars rolled in.
Mr. Krowne quit his day job and hired 10 people for his company, Implode-Explode Heavy Industries.
"The crisis has come in waves," Mr. Krowne said. "It just keeps coming."
Business: Loan Pains Turned Site Into a Hit
By LOUISE STORY
Published: July 8, 2008
The Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter, a Web site, is gleefully tallying the
number of lenders that run into trouble.
June 10, 2007
Loop Net, Commercial Real Estate Listings
LoopNet, offers commercial real estate listings:
investor and customer perspectives.
June 5, 2007
House flipper fraud: Flip This House, Sam Leccima in Atlanta
'Flip This House' Star Accused of Fraud
On an episode of A&E's popular reality series "Flip This House," Atlanta
businessman Sam Leccima sits in front of a run-down house and calls
buying and selling real estate his passion.
Now authorities and legal filings claim that Leccima's true passion was
a series of scams that included faking the home renovations shown on
the cable TV show and claiming to have sold houses he never owned.
"This is, indeed, a con artist," said Sonya McGee, an Atlanta pharmaceutical
representative who says Leccima took $4,000 from her in an investment
scheme.
Continue reading "House flipper fraud: Flip This House, Sam Leccima in Atlanta" »
June 3, 2007
FTSE property index
*Its full title is the FTSE EPRA/NAREIT index, which is a mouthful for anyone.
FTSE stands for Financial Times/Stock Exchange, EPRA for the European Public
Real Estate Association and NAREIT for the National Association of Real
Estate Investment Trusts.
The FTSE EPRA/NAREIT Global Real Estate Index Series is designed to
represent general trends in eligible real estate equities worldwide.
Relevant real estate activities are defined as the ownership, disposure
and development of income-producing real estate.
The index series includes a range of regional and country indices,
Dividend+ indices, and a REITs and Non-REITs series. In response
to market demand, FTSE Group has also expanded the series to
include two new innovative benchmarks, The FTSE EPRA/NAREIT
Property Sector Index Series and the FTSE EPRA/NAREIT Investment
Focus Index Series.
April 25, 2007
Housing spot prices from Radar
Radar Logic tracks housing prices, instantly.
( Instantly = daily )
Via Miller Samuel.
April 2, 2007
NAR hype
"It's a great time to buy," said Pat Vredevoogd Combs, NAR's president. "
There's great amounts of inventory and interest rates are historically low.
We've got jobs being created."
April 1, 2007
Mortgage Who's who: Bob Tedeschi on mortgages at NYT
March 24, 2007
Safe from Sub-prime in the suburbs ?
Even affluent suburbs have their share of such borrowers.
Steven Habetz, chief executive of Threshold Mortgage, a
broker based on Westport, Conn., says subprime loans
account for about 5 percent of his business. That could
drop, though, as lenders leave the market.
March 13, 2007
Storage Nation
Some people are astonished that I’m so proud of it.
They think we’re funny that we’re spending money
to store things.
-- Beth Silver Pilchik, 36, a marketing consultant who
admits talking about her storage unit with friends at
cocktail parties.
She also jokes that the storage locker she rents at
Manhattan Mini Storage has better security than
their Upper East Side apartment.
March 11, 2007
LIC Alliance
Long Island City Alliance on LIC development
and LIC and Astoria life.
February 13, 2007
Housing Prices could go down, down,
it would seem that a sequence of price declines continuing for
many years has some substantial probability of happening.
Traditional finance theory has trouble reconciling even a semi-predictable
sequence of price declines with basic notions of market efficiency. The
situation we are facing is a reminder of the glaring inefficiencies and
incompleteness of existing markets for residential real estate, and
may be regarded as evidence that institutional changes will be coming
in future years to fundamentally change the nature of these markets.
Things That Go Boom
By ROBERT J. SHILLER
February 8, 2007; Page A15
February 8, 2007
Risk-based Capital Requirements for Mortgage Assets
February 4, 2007
China curbs urban housing demand
BEIJING (AP) -- Foreigners in Beijing will be limited to buying
a single home for their own use under new curbs imposed amid
efforts to slow a surge in housing costs, newspapers reported
Saturday.
Foreign home-buyers in Beijing will have to prove they have lived
in China for a year for work or study, and will be barred from
renting out the property, the Beijing Morning Post and China
Daily newspapers said.
January 11, 2007
Property Bytes, India
Citi is big in Indian Property.
January 9, 2007
Real Estate Futures / Squidoo
RE futures squido lense looks at trends in home prices.
January 8, 2007
Housing Derivatives
Housingderivatives tracks futures and options in housing prices.
December 17, 2006
Housing markets at Seeking Alpha
November 11, 2006
Home builders going bankrupt ?
buildersgoingbankrupt supplies downward hype the to real estate economy.
Previously: Tracking home builders' stock.
October 17, 2006
Who's who of Real Estate economics 3: Todd Sinai
We don’t have any house price indexes that get it right
-- Todd Sinai, an associate professor of real estate at the
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. bio, home,
Continue reading "Who's who of Real Estate economics 3: Todd Sinai" »
October 14, 2006
Multiple Listing Service: Long Island, New York.
October 7, 2006
Who's who of Real Estate economics 2: Dave Seiders, National Association of Homebuilders
Once a sales contract is signed, there's no way of recording
the cancellation or putting the home back in inventory.
Builders keep track of gross and net sales; we don't have a
net sales number from Commerce.
-- Dave Seiders, chief economist at
the National Association of Homebuilders in Washington.
The Census Bureau, which is one of the Commerce Department's
statistical agencies, counts an initial new home sale: Sales go
up and the ``for sale'' inventory is reduced. If the sale is
canceled, it isn't reflected in revisions to previous months.
What happens? When the home is ``resold,'' statisticians
ignore that transaction.
We don't double count.
-- Steven Berman, the survey statistician for the residential branch
of the Census Bureau's manufacturing and construction division.
October 5, 2006
Trulia, Truliablog
Trulia tracks real estate markets; updates in TruliaBlog.
Sample housing market search Great Neck NY, 3 bedroom, 2 bath.
An example of good URL engineering:
trulia.com/NY/Great_Neck/price_0-750000/baths_2-3/.
See also: Zillow.
October 4, 2006
Street Easy follows LIC Queens condos
StreetEasy monitors real estate markets; example: Long Island City, Queens.
September 20, 2006
Credit Slips
CreditSlips covers consumer lending from an
aspiring consumer protectionist regulator perspective.
Generally well informed and level headed:
debt trading,
Consuming is where consumers feel in control
(compare to John Fiske, "Shopping for Pleasure: Malls, Power & Resistance").
Innumerate: one number represents the whole population ?
September 2, 2006
Arris Lofts LIC $650 per square foot
Arris Lofts (Eagle Electric Company hq) 865 sf studio listed for $515K -- Queenswest.
Riverview in Astoria (Eagle Electric Company factory on 21st Street ) is cheaper ?
Arris Lofts reports they have 100 contracts currently out for review,
16 of which were issued today alone. A waiting list of 4,200 potential
buyers was amassed in the months before the sales office opened.
-- RealGotham.
September 1, 2006
Mortgage economists, who's who 1: Scott Anderson at Wells Fargo
Scott Anderson at Wells Fargo: bio.
Scott Anderson holds a doctorate in economics with an
emphasis in monetary theory and international trade
and finance from George Washington University. He is
responsible for analysis and forecasting of international,
national and regional economic trends. His areas of focus
include macroeconomic and interest rate forecasting,
financial markets, and international economics.
Mr. Anderson provides daily analyses of U.S. economic
news, and produces the Wells Fargo Economics macroeconomic
forecasts. He authors the bi-monthly Wells Fargo California
Outlook report and co-authors Wells Fargo’s weekly Financial
Market Strategies report and the monthly Economic Indicators
report. In addition, he covers the United Kingdom, China, South
Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore as part of our
bi-monthly international report.
Mr. Anderson's research is widely read by the financial
and business community and he has appeared in
numerous media including: CNN, Bloomberg, MSNBC,
CBS MarketWatch, BBC, NPR, Wall Street Journal, New York
Times, Financial Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles
Times, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, San Francisco
Chronicle.
Mr. Anderson joined Wells Fargo as senior economist in 2001.
Citation: decade of flat home prices.
August 28, 2006
Echelon in Long Island City
Echelon LIC; hype at the developers group. Subway adverts.
Update: picture gallery from LICNYC.
August 24, 2006
Urban Digs
Another consumer guide to NY real estate: urbandigs
August 17, 2006
The Real Estate Observer
therealestate.observer by the New York Observer
tracks New York real estate's luxury and upscale
developments.
August 13, 2006
zillowblog, real estate mapping and data services
Zillow, the real estate mapper, blogs.
And Zillow adds new real estate mapping and data services,
drive-by appraisal via SMS.
See also Trulia.
August 12, 2006
Carnivalofrealestate
Carnival of real estate
Best of Real Estate this week.
August 5, 2006
mortgagebankers
Mortgage Bankers have an association; news on refinancing, prepayment,
orginations, servicing, delinquency, foreclosures, MBS, ABS, securitization.
More like this: mortgage.
August 2, 2006
House price decline, why ?
At another smaller project, the Abbey, a former parish
building on East 16th Street being converted to condominiums,
most of the apartments sold for the asking price, or close
to it. But according to property records, one apartment,
a duplex on the top two floors, sold at a discount of
$500,000, or about 27 percent below the asking
price. Eight of 31 apartments are still listed as available.
The developer, Herbert Hirsch, said that he became
convinced that a sloping triangular roof limited the
use of some of the top floor of the duplex, so he
reduced the price to account for this. He said buyers
were out there looking but were worried by press
accounts about the market and were postponing purchases.
Not a declining market, no Sir.
August 1, 2006
Larger apartments, higher ceilings, open views, add value
Strong demand for larger apartments with higher ceilings,
open views and well-designed kitchens and bathrooms
— the type of apartments that have not been built in
large numbers in a generation.
The bullish view of the Manhattan real estate market is based
on the belief that it is unique -- a magnet for wealth from
across the country and around the world.
Continue reading "Larger apartments, higher ceilings, open views, add value" »
July 29, 2006
Long Island Multiple Listing Service
MLSLI, the MLS of Long Island.
House shopping in suburban Long Island.
July 16, 2006
Two-Factor Mortgage Valuation Model: How Much Do House Prices Matter?
An Empirical Test of a Two-Factor Mortgage Valuation Model:
How Much Do House Prices Matter?
Mortgage-backed securities, with their relative structural simplicity
and their lack of recovery rate uncertainty if default occurs, are
particularly suitable for developing and testing risky debt valuation
models. A two-factor structural mortgage pricing model in which
rational mortgage-holders endogenously choose when to prepay
and default subject to
i. explicit frictions (transaction costs) payable when terminating
their mortgages,
ii. exogenous background terminations, and
iii. a credit related impact of the loan-to-value ratio (LTV) on
prepayment.
We estimate the model using pool-level mortgage termination data
for Freddie Mac Participation Certificates, and find that the effect of
the house price factor on the results is both statistically and
economically significant. Out-of-sample estimates of MBS prices
produce option adjusted spreads of between 5 and 25 basis
points, well within quoted values for these securities.
SUGGESTED CITATION:
Chris Downing, Richard Stanton, and Nancy E. Wallace,
An Empirical Test of a Two-Factor Mortgage Valuation Model:
How Much Do House Prices Matter ? (link to 406 K, PDF file)
Chris Downing, Federal Reserve Board, Washington, DC
Richard Stanton, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley
Nancy E. Wallace, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley
Continue reading "Two-Factor Mortgage Valuation Model: How Much Do House Prices Matter?" »
June 29, 2006
Futures markets in home prices: Altos
Altos Research real estate price and market tracking.
Predicting home prices with futures' markets at Altos.
For a prospective homeowner, indicies based on regional
prices are nearly meaningless in real estate prices. Consider
that the median price in Los Altos, CA, lost 25% between 2000
and 2001 when the last bubble burst. 2006 has finally
moved prices back over their 2000 peak. But San Jose,
median priced at half that of Los Altos, never even dipped
in that period. For those of you from outside the Bay Area,
Los Altos is less than 10 miles from San Jose. The CME
housing market would have been an ineffective hedge
for my Los Altos home.
More: Altos Research's Mike Simonsen some maps
June 26, 2006
NY Real Estate maps: Shark Bites
Curbed and Property Shark team for NY Property Map theme of the week at Shark Bites.
June 11, 2006
Curbed: New York Real Estate / Lockhart Steele
Deflate real-estate hype. Update twice per shift. Former magazine
editor Lockhart Steele mocks overpriced condo listings and the
language brokers use to pump up and pimp out properties.
PriceChopper highlights grossly overpriced apartments and
takes credit when the asking price drops.
BubbleWatch links to optimistic market forecasts. Curbed's major
feature drawback is its New York-centric coverage and its
obsession with celebrity and luxury properties. Occasional
ganders at Los Angeles and Boston.
May 30, 2006
Best-Practices in Mortgage Default Risk Measurement and Economic Capital
Best-Practices in Mortgage Default Risk Measurement and Economic Capital
Each of the major processes used by industry participants to measure
so-called “credit risk” for first mortgage products. The study has three
sections:
Section I provides a discussion of the general concept of Economic
Capital (“EC”), how EC is measured and used by best-practice banks,
and how EC concepts used by industry practitioners differ from
regulatory definitions of capital.
Section II discusses the various types of theoretical “credit risk
models” that are used by practitioners to measure EC for mortgages.
Section III conducts several empirical experiments in which large
historical databases are used to estimate the credit risk models
described in Section II. The empirical work is aimed at helping
the practitioner and the regulator to evaluate the results of
alternative models.
David Kaskowitz, LoanPerformance
Kyle Lundstedt, LoanPerformance
Alexander Kipkalov, Washington Mutual Inc.
John Mingo, Mingo & Co.
PDF.
May 28, 2006
Mortgage handbook at Treasury
May 26, 2006
House Price CAPM
Cointegration and Error Correction Mechanism Approaches:
Estimating a Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) for House
Price Index Returns with SAS
Many researchers erroneously use the framework of linear
regression models to analyze time series data when predicting
changes over time or when extrapolating from present conditions
to future conditions. Caution is needed when interpreting the results
of these regression models. Granger and Newbold (1974) discovered
the existence of ‘spurious regressions’ that can occur when the
variables in a regression are nonstationary. While these regressions
appear to look good in terms of having a high R2 and significant
t-statistics, the results are meaningless. Both analysis and modeling
of time series data require knowledge about the mathematical model
of the process.
This paper introduces a methodology that utilizes the power
of the SAS DATA STEP, and PROC X12
and REG procedures. The DATA STEP uses the SAS LAG and
DIF functions to manipulate the data and create an additional
set of variables including Home Price Index Returns (HPI_R1), first
differenced, and lagged first differenced. PROC X12 seasonally
adjusts the time series. Resulting variables are manipulated
further (1) to create additional variables that are tested for
stationarity, (2) to develop a cointegration model, and (3) to
develop an error correction mechanism modeled to determine
the short-run deviations from long-run equilibrium. The relevancy
of each variable created in the data step to time series analysis is
discussed. Of particular interest is the coefficient of the error
correction term that can be modeled in an error correction mechanism
to determine the speed at which the series returns to equilibrium. The
main finding is that Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) with very
slow shortrun acceleration paths to the equilibrium have higher
returns and risk associated with house price returns than
MSAs with very rapid speed-of-adjustment coefficients.
-- Ismail Mohamed and Theresa R. DiVenti, PDF.
May 14, 2006
Matrix @ Miller Samuel
Home buying reasons vary by generation and that open
houses are now on iPod video.
-- Matrix at Miller Samuel.