Salient to Investors: ARM applications in late June rose to the highest level since 2008. loan pay Cameron Findlay at Discover Financial Service said we’ve seen a shift in the way people look at adjustable-rate mortgages: they are still skeptical but the sticker shock of fixed rates is making them
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Matthew C. Klein writes: The Wall Street Journal reports that well-to-do young Americans prefer to invest into “safe” luxury real estate rather than “risky” equities. The article could have been written in 2002 or 2003 before the housing bubble and bust. $100 invested at the market peak
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: A growing number of companies are offering financing to consumers with irregular incomes, damaged credit or past foreclosures as the housing market recovers and rising interest rates drive down demand for refinancing. Keith Gumbinger at HSH.com said at least a few lenders are starting to dig into the nooks and
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Miller Samuel and Douglas Elliman Real Estate said the median price of Brooklyn condominiums, co-ops and 1- to 3-family homes that sold in Q2 was $550,000, up 15 percent from a year earlier and the highest in more than a decade of record keeping. Jonathan Miller at Miller Samuel said the inventory of
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Foreclosure auctions surged last month, signaling lenders are preparing to sell a backlog of distressed properties amid rising home prices. RealtyTrac said total US foreclosure filings are the lowest since December 2006. S&P/Case-Shiller report prices for single-family homes in the Miami metro area climbed 13 percent in April from a year earlier,
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Hamilton “Tony” James of Blackstone Group said stocks were a fool’s game compared with alternative investments. and investing in alternatives makes sense even when they underperform. James said the return from these idiosyncratic investments are very uncorrelated to the broader markets, so portfolio volatility falls. Hedge funds have been
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Banks are offering jumbo mortgages – too big for government programs – at rates at or below taxpayer-backed loans, while the extra cost of 30-yr fixed jumbo loans averaged a 6-year low of 0.16 percent in June. Paul Miller at FBR Capital Markets said bigger loans are becoming relatively cheaper
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Bureau of Labor Statistics data indicate that California is losing ground in the number of business establishments – 5.2 percent fewer at the end of 2012 than in the previous year or 73,000 fewer versus second-place Massachusetts which lost 5,200 businesses. Nebraska added businesses at 11.9 percent, the fastest rate.
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: The share of yet-to-be-built dwellings was 36 percent in May versus 26 percent a year ago and versus 14 percent in September 2008. Neil Dutta at Renaissance Macro Research said there is clearly more housing starts activity in the pipeline, while the economic outlook is improving and there
READ MORE... →Salient to Investors: Jeffrey Lacker at FRB of Richmond said Financial markets will remain volatile as policy makers debate tapering, part of the process of incorporating new information into financial asset prices. Reaction to Bernanke’s comments is evidence that they had built-in expectations of more asset purchases than I think the
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