[In The Media] Bloomberg Midday Surveillance w/Tom Keene 3-30-11

Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Wednesday, March 30, 2011, 10:27 PM
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I’ve been slammed as of late and Matrix has been dark for a week and a half – good grief – it pains me – what better way to come back to blogging than to have an energetic interview with Tom. Always fun.

BTW, I’m now the mayor of the Bloomberg HQ cafeteria on Foursquare.

Just When You Thought No Finance Execs Would Be Scrutinized

Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Friday, March 18, 2011, 10:13 AM
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Even St. Patrick must have had enough of the housing market woes as evidenced with this week’s housing related personnel announcements:

FT/Alphavile writes about FDIC going after former WaMu CEO Kerry Killinger for $900M:

The FDIC is seeking $900m in damages from three former executives of Washington Mutual

and their wives!

The wives of Washington Mutual Inc.’s two top executives when the nation’s largest thrift collapsed in 2008 were accused by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. of illegally moving cash and houses into trusts in an effort to shield the assets from legal claims.

It looks like the SEC may go after former Freddie Mac CEO Richard Syron

The former chief executive of Freddie Mac has received notice that he may face civil action from the Securities and Exchange Commission as part of its continuing probe of whether the firm properly disclosed its exposure to subprime loans.

And Daniel Mudd, former CEO of Fannie Mae is being investigated by SEC as well.

The CEO of Fortress Investment Group is likely to face a Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit over his stewardship of mortgage giant Fannie Mae.

[Three Cents Worth #168 DC] Who Has The More Resilient Market: Washington Or New York?

Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Thursday, March 17, 2011, 3:39 PM
3 Comments

It’s time to share my Three Cents Worth on Curbed DC, at the intersection of neighborhood and real estate in our Nation’s capitol.

…As a Manhattan real estate appraiser who grew up in the Washington, DC metro area, I thought it would be appropriate to link the two markets in my inaugural Three Cents Worth DC column for Curbed. One of the things that seems to be missing from the DC metro area housing market discussion is some historical context…

Three Cents Worth: Who Has The More Resilient Market: Washington Or New York?

[Click to expand and read full post on Curbed DC]

Curbed DC Three Cents Worth Archive
Curbed NY Three Cents Worth Archive

Objective vs Subjective Home Buying – It IS All In Your Head

Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Wednesday, March 16, 2011, 11:06 AM
3 Comments

I read a great NYT Op-Ed article this weekend by David Brooks called “The New Humanism:

Reason, which is trustworthy, is separate from the emotions, which are suspect. Society progresses to the extent that reason can suppress the passions.

This has created a distortion in our culture. We emphasize things that are rational and conscious and are inarticulate about the processes down below. We are really good at talking about material things but bad at talking about emotion.

There has been a groundswell of this type of reasoning from the brokerage community as of late – I wrote about “Analysis Paralysis“

I asked the question – does it come down to “ignorance is bliss” versus “knowledge is power”?”

I was reminded of the Op-ed piece when I read Fred Peters’ interesting take in Warburg Blog post It’s Not All In Your Head which basically addresses the paradox.

I think he is saying that we can’t be too dependent on one or the other approach and like mortgage lending, the pendulum has swung too far. The brokerage community, coming from a gatekeeper legacy which extolls “It’s always a good time to buy” versus the blogosphere mantra, a la Felix Salmon/Reuters “It’s never a good time to buy.”

There are two approaches to buying a home like any other material item: More after the jump…

[iPad 2, Japan] Yes, Its A Global Economy

Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Tuesday, March 15, 2011, 1:07 PM
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I was using my iPhone this morning to check the status of my pending iPad 2 order and got this message – a sobering reality check.

I’ve been watching the news from Japan in horror of the past few days. I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose family, friends, a home and all possessions in the blink of an eye.

[3.141592653] National Pi Day

Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Monday, March 14, 2011, 4:55 PM
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Well, it’s that time of year – the most important day of the year of numbers geeks, second only to Talk Like A Pirate Day (for all remaining geeks) – National Pi Day.

Not to be confused with National Pie Day because it’s a lot more cerebral.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology often mails its application decision letters to prospective students for delivery on Pi Day.

Congress officially recognized the day back in 2009 but the GOP transition team is trying to remove “commemorative resolutions” (say it isn’t so!).

One thing for sure – despite the proliferation of cake shows on television, and the continued heated debate on the merits of each…

PIE (PI) trumps CAKE anytime.

Ok, I’m full.

DC Metro Sees Largest Pending Home Sales Increase in a Decade

Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Monday, March 14, 2011, 1:05 PM
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[click to open release]

These days I have added reporting on the DC and Baltimore housing markets to our suite of market research – this time for RealEstate Business Intelligence (RBI), the research, analytics arm of MRIS, the largest MLS in the country.

I grew up in that region of the country and it’s been fun to analyze it. What got me excited about the index I created is the fact that it is released about 3-4 weeks sooner than NAR’s version and is 5-6 months faster than the point where contracts are signed for the Case Shiller Index and the FHFA Home Price Index.

Here is the DC headline from March release (February results):

“There was a 33 percent year-over-year increase in the number of contracts signed in February, the largest increase in more than a decade,” says housing market expert and RBI analyst Jonathan Miller. “The number of signed contracts remains 13.7 percent below the ten year average but activity has begun to expand. Unusually restrictive mortgage lending conditions continue to keep housing prices in check.”

View the release and listen to the podcast below.

[MillerQA] Housing Survey Results: Question #5 of 5

Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Monday, March 14, 2011, 7:30 AM
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By using iClickers in our MillerQA seminars, we are able to poll our audiences for instant anonymous feedback on housing market sentiment at that specific moment.

[click to find out more]

Our next public event is:
Monday, April 4, 2011 from 4:00-7:15 pm Scandinavia House, 58 Park Avenue (at 38th Street), New York, NY

The nitty gritty:
Understanding Today’s Housing Market, 1Q11 [MillerQA Housing Market Seminars]

[Duct Tape Wrap] “Housing does not truly recover until lending does”

Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Sunday, March 13, 2011, 7:00 PM
1 Comment

Good article on the state of mortgage lending by Marc Santora in the New York Times real estate section this weekend: New Worries for Buyers Seeking Mortgages.

I realized the article was out when I got some tweets of my quote:

“Housing does not truly recover until lending does,” Mr. Miller said. “It is currently dysfunctional.”

Housing and mortgages are joined at the hip. Most people do not pay all cash for homes in the US. The housing market is dependent on the mortgage market so let’s not by so myopic towards housing yet.

Doh!

[TED] Salman Khan Videos – Housing Market

Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Sunday, March 13, 2011, 4:27 PM
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Salman Khan has cracked the code and his message of teaching is short and sweet. Raw, basic videos that are easy to follow. The logic is powerfully simple.

Here are a few basics related to housing that you should check out. Lots of related topics. Love the logic.

The housing price conundrum

Here are a few more, plus lots of financing and Wall Street topics.

Housing price conundrum (part 2): How lower lending standards led to housing price inflation.

Housing Price Conundrum (part 3) : Why did lending standards become more and more lax from 2000 to 2006?

Housing Conundrum (part 4) : The virtuous circle of housing price appreciation making defaults go down…