The Blog of Author Mark MacKenzie: It's The Housing Market, Stupid!

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Real Estate Broker/Owner

ARCHIVED BLOG POSTS

2009 

The Mortgage Bankers Association released their weekly mortgage application survey on Wednesday which showed that the mortgage purchase application index has dipped to an 8-week low to 251.6.  This was despite the fact that the 30-year fixed rate mortgage declined from 4.73% to 4.62% this week. T...
04/30/2009
For the past several months I have listened to CNBC analysts, politicians in Washington, and bank CEOs talk about the need to get credit flowing.  That once we fixed the banking system and gave the banks enough capital, or guaranteed enough of their loans, or when we removed the toxic assets (all...
04/26/2009
I'm not sure if the stock market was ever an economic indicator, but if it ever was, those days are behind us. According to a CNBC.com article, the latest stock market rally has been fueled by traders rather than investors.  "Wall Street's stunning six-week rally has been fed more by traders look...
04/25/2009
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While Larry Kudlow is not afraid to turn weeds into mustard seeds, I will give him this, he's also not afraid to call bull on what is taking place with TARP. In his latest bog post Kudlow illustrates how Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky's report into TARP has "opened 20 criminal probes int...
04/25/2009
The U.S. Census Bureau reported this week that new home sales remained sluggish in March with a 356,000 seasonally adjusted rate, down just -0.6% from the previous month but still down -30.6% from last year. The data that the media jumped all over was that the inventory of unsold new homes declin...
04/25/2009
For the second month in a row, existing home sales have declined, this time by -3% month over month to a 4.57 million seasonally adjusted rate. The 4.57 million rate is still off -7.1% from last year and it remains the slowest rate of existing home sales since 1997.  Despite record high housing a...
04/24/2009
Once again CNBC's Diana Olick hits the nail on the head with another insightful blog post about what is really going on with the housing market. With all of the talk about a housing recovery, the one thing a lot of talking heads have taken their eye off of is the job market and how that is going ...
04/23/2009
According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, the mortgage purchase application index fell to its lowest level in nearly six weeks to 253, a decline of 4.2% from the week before.  This was despite the fact that the average 30-year fixed rate mortgatge continues to hover at 4.73%. If you are wond...
04/22/2009
It's not often that you get some quality and un-biased financial reporting on CNBC, but David Faber is usually one of the few analysts that you can count on to sift through the muck and spin to reveal the truth.  His report on Bank of America today was no exception. The real story behind Bank of ...
04/20/2009
According to a Reuters article, RealtyTrac is reporting that filings, which includes bank repossessions, notice of defaults, and auction sales, are up 17% from February to March and up 24% quarter over quarter. The surge in filings is a result of bank foreclosure moratoriums that have been expiri...
04/20/2009
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Mark MacKenzie

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