Today was a busy news day!
President Obama administration’s 2010 budget proposes to limit the mortgage deductions on “higher income
ARDELL & OBAMA front page news above the fold - LOL!
Bloomberg is reporting that the $15,000 tax credit has been mostly dropped from the stimulus bill. Hat tip CR:
“Asked what a proposed $15,000 tax credit for homebuyers looks like in the compromise plan, Baucus laughed and said, “not much.
This announcement from IndyMac came via a press release today:
“…effective July 7, 2008, that we will no longer accept any new loan submissions or rate locks in our retail and wholesale forward mortgage lending channels, except for our servicing retention channel. We plan to honor all of our existing rate-locked loans and will continue to fund these loans in the coming weeks. While the managers and employees in these units have worked incredibly hard, these units are not currently profitable due to the continuing erosion of the housing and mortgage markets.”
IndyMac is planning on retaining the FHA portion of their reverse mortgage division, Financial Freedom.
This also means more people will be displaced from the mortgage industry.
“Unfortunately, the above actions will necessitate the reduction in our present workforce from approximately 7,200 to roughly 3,400 or so over the next couple of months…”
The press release mentions a couple locations where employees will be retained…no word or mention of the Bellevue office.
IndyMac had a lot of unique products and were no stranger to the subprime and alt-a markets. They had their own automated underwriting system, eMits, that provided “risk based” decisions and pricing. They are reported as being the seventh largest savings and loan in the nation with both retail and wholesale operations.
I really enjoyed today’s conversation with Tracy Records of the West Seattle Blog. Tracy shared a ton of great stories with us and I learned a ton…
Click here to listen to the entire interview!
And below are some links to some of the things we discussed:
We covered a lot of great topics in the interview including her perspective on the elements of the media that has fundamentally changed. As someone with 25 years experience in the traditional media space AND a successful local blogger, her perspective was fascinating!
Click here to listen to the entire interview!
*Note: If you’re wondering why this post looks different then when it was originally published, I didn’t like the outline that I originally provided, so I changed it around a bunch.
I was contacted by KOMO this morning to see if they could stop by my office this afternoon to interview me regarding subprime mortgages and how it has impacted consumers.
If I’m not on the cutting room floor…you can tune in tonight at 6:00 p.m. on Channel 4. 🙂
Zillow.com Launches Home Q&A
“Ask Questions, Share Answers
[photopress:images.jpg,full,alignright] The big news today, according to Inman, is that the Judge has ruled against the National Association of Realtor’s motion to dismiss the suit against them by the Department of Justice.
I don’t think this is a surprise. In fact, had the Judge ruled otherwise, it would have been a great disappointment. A lot of time and money has already been spent by both sides, and much more money will be spent before all is said and done. Had the motion been dismissed, all of those public funds spent, would have been for naught. And that can’t be a good thing.
My only concern about the whole thing, is that the DOJ doesn’t know enough about what they don’t know, to achieve the best results for the public at large. Lots of fishing expeditions, but what will they achieve, when all is said and done. It clearly would be best for all concerned if NAR would just “get real”. But that is not likely to happen. So the chips will fall where they may, in the end. My worst fear is that it will end up like the AT&T breakup. My worst fear will likely be the end result, the way things are going so far.
[photopress:Sichelman.jpg,full,alignright]”Lew Sichelman reports on the national housing scene from his Washington, D.C. base. A past President and Director of the National Association of Real Estate Editors, he has been the recipient of numerous journalism awards, and his weekly column on housing is syndicated in more than 150 newspapers throughout the U.S.”
Every once in a while, Lew includes some quotes from agents that end up in articles across the nation. I get calls from Seattle or Washington, or L.A. from people I know, thinking I was interviewed by that particular newspaper. So I show an explanation above as to why this article regarding commission issues, might appear in many papers around the Country.
Two paragraphs and the last word…thanks, Lew. Lew’s a good guy. I’ve never had problems with his quoting me in the past. My married name was a lot easier for him to spell. Lew, you shouldn’t separate the Della from the Loggia, or people may think I’m the illigitimate daughter of Robert 🙂
This was the last line of the quote before it was cut to fit the article: “It’s a business, look at the money and stop crying about percentages is what I say.”
David’s dwindling influence at Redfin has met it’s happy PR end. Now it is Glenn full-time, all the time! 🙂
While we’ve had a few run-ins with David Eraker in the past, he always kept his chin up and I wish him the best. It will definitely be interesting to see if he sticks with real estate for his next venture.