Have you noticed the number of vacant buildings and houses in your neighborhoods increasing?  If you said, “well yeah.” to yourself, then you have identified a wonderful opportunity to save the planet.

Read the rest of this entry »

Any good investor will keep up with market information, trends and news items that may affect their investments.  In my case, being good friends with several of the editors at CNBC biases me Read the rest of this entry »

Ladies and Gentlemen -   Look to South Florida! Read the rest of this entry »

Here is a neat little online application I ran by this morning.  It scores your area based on how easy it is to get to basic places like shops, restaurants and grocery stores by just walking there.  The extra walking means better health and a more attractive neighborhood.  It’s cool. Check it out!

Posted by Lee Brodie

 A hedge fund manager argues in the Wall Street Journal that the housing market is bottoming. Is he right… or out of his mind? Read the rest of this entry »

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Mortgage-finance giant Fannie Mae reported a much wider-than-expected first-quarter loss of $2.2 billion, as credit-related expenses took a bite out of its bottom line, and said it’s planning to raise $6 billion in new capital and cut its dividend.

Fannie Mae said fair value losses and credit-related expenses due to adverse market conditions hit its first-quarter earnings. The planned new capital, Fannie Mae said, will enable the company to “maintain a strong, conservative balance sheet, enhance long-term shareholder value and provide stability to the secondary mortgage market.”

As a result of the capital plan, Fannie Mae’s federal regulator said it is reducing the company’s capital surplus requirement to 15% from 20% once Fannie raises the money.

Fannie’s Chief Executive Officer Daniel Mudd said the first quarter saw heightened volatility in the secondary mortgage market, credit spreads that hit 22-year highs and a faster-than-expected drop in home prices.

“Our first-quarter results, although an improvement over the last quarter, reflect these challenging market conditions,” Mudd said. Meanwhile, Fannie Mae’s mortgage credit book of business grew by 3% in the quarter, to $3 trillion.

Last week, Mudd said he doesn’t expect a real recovery in the U.S. housing market before 2010.

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 This falls in line with exactly what we have been preaching for the last 6 months. (3 months for this blog)  We have already started the “bottoming process”. This is evident by large mortgage-financing companies missing earning as they simply cannot hide the numbers within their books and financial documents anymore.  Watch as investors start grabbing fantastic deals from desperate sellers late this year.  We hope you are one of them!

I ran across this little piece on MSN. It is talking about how “upper crust” neighborhoods are being affected by massive foreclosures.  Maybe this is my chance to move into Beverly Hills?!

Check it out! 

http://realestate.msn.com/Buying/Article_busweek.aspx?cp-documentid=7042488&GT1=35000