The failing economy strikes again. As a result of continuing recessionary conditions, residential property assessments throughout Maryland have gravitated to below-market levels throughout the last three years. The same — unfortunately —  cannot be said for commercial properties, which generally have not been similarly lowered to reflect the […]

Bank of America is “discussing the proposal with state and federal officials who are prodding the country’s biggest banks toward a multibillion-dollar deal to atone for foreclosure errors…As the discussions dragged on past the mid-June target set by U.S. officials, Bank of America began pressing officials for a speedy resolution, and it put forward its principal […]

Due to the intense competition for the small number of qualified and viable commercial real estate deals in the marketplace today, underwriting is starting to get very competitive, which in turn is getting a bit loose these day.A recent NY Times article outlines this trend, especially in the Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities (CMBS) market. Back at […]

Below is a chart that cuts right through the noise and semantics, and shows that when expressed in a currency — Gold — that has not been battered and diluted endlessly, the true normalized value of housing is really down 80% not just since the housing peak but since the turn of the millennium. Median home price priced […]

All that is old is new again! Fannie Mae reported a net loss of $6.5 billion for the first quarter 2011, as a weakening housing market dashed hopes that the company had stabilized. Fannie said  would ask the government for a fresh taxpayer infusion of $6.2 billion after paying dividends to the Treasury. The loss […]

What’s old is new again. Just posted to www.ZeroHedge.com, is a fairly comprehensive and enlightening recap of the recent International Monetary Fund (IMF) report which documents their stress testing of 53 large banking holding companies and published its findings last month.
This report and analysis is not only objective, but it’s consistent with many postings on this Blog. All […]

One more chart to put the home price development in a broader context. This chart compares residential home prices to commercial property prices.
Residential prices have fallen about 30% from their peak, while commercial property prices have fallen 40%.
 
Those are serious and significant declines that reflect a huge amount of price adjustment, easily enough to absorb excess […]

So you thought commercial construction has been off? You’re right and in a big way ….
Completed construction projects in downtown Baltimore fell by 62 percent in 2009 as money for new offices, homes and shops virtually dried up across the region.
Downtown Partnership of Baltimore Inc., the marketing group for city businesses, released the figures in […]

ALARMINGLY, today we discover that more than 1.2 million households [have been] lost to the recession, according to a report issued this week by the Mortgage Bankers Association that looked at data between 2005 and 2008.
That number doesn’t include information from 2009, when job losses and foreclosures continued to rise. So it’s likely that the […]

 In a word, the residential mortgage picture is: BAD.
As reported by MarketWatch, more than 11.3 million homeowners — nearly one-fourth of all Americans with a mortgage — owe more on their loan (or are “under water”), than their home is now worth, according to a report released February 23, 2010, by FirstAmerican CoreLogic.

More than 10% of […]