KeNo's Housing and Economic Portal: Tuesday March 1 2016 Housing and Economic stories

Monday, February 29, 2016

Tuesday March 1 2016 Housing and Economic stories

High-Risk Deals on Shabby Homes Ensnare Buyers – (www.cnbc.com) Hundreds of broken-down houses still dot the streets of this onetime tire capital of the world, a scar from the financial crisis and housing bust. The wood has rotted in some; others have black mold, broken windows or failing foundations. Many lack working electrical systems or are missing water pipes and furnaces. The unpaid property taxes mount. Dozens of these houses were scooped up after the financial crisis by investors, who then make deals with low-income home buyers unable to get traditional mortgages. The arrangement is something like buying a home on an installment plan, with a high-interest, long-term loan called a contract for deed, or land contract.

‘Brexit’ Fears Fuel U.K. Credit Premium to Historic Highs: Chart - (www.bloomberg.com) U.K investment grade corporate bonds have been trading at the widest ever spread to their European peers. This premium has been increasing since the beginning of January, rising above 100 basis points for the first time. These relative price moves appear to underscore the potential impact on corporate risk appetite of a U.K. exit from the European Union.

Fannie Mae at risk of needing a bailout - (www.cnbc.com) Fannie Mae, the state-sponsored U.S. mortgage backer, is at risk of needing a government bailout that could shake confidence in the housing finance market, senior officials have warned. Fannie Mae's chief executive and its regulator are sounding the alarm on a decline in the institution's capital cushion, which is on course to vanish in 2018, when it would have to ask the US Treasury for emergency funds. Their warnings highlight Washington's inaction on housing policy and its failure to reform the institution, which guarantees nearly $3 trillion of securities and enables 30-year fixed rate loans, following the last financial crisis.

Biggest Banks' Commodity Revenue Slid to Lowest in Over a Decade - (www.bloomberg.com) Revenue from commodities at the largest investment banks sank to the weakest in more than a decade last year, laid low by a rout in prices for everything from metals to gas. Income at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and the 10 other top banks slid by a combined 18 percent to $4.6 billion, according to analytics firm Coalition Ltd. That was the worst performance since the London-based company began tracking the data 11 years ago, and a slump of about two-thirds from the banks’ moneymaking peak in 2008. Revenues are unlikely to return to the heights of $14.1 billion seen at the top of the market, according to George Kuznetsov, head of research at Coalition.

Iraq On The Brink Of Chaos As Oil Revenues Fall - (www.zerohedge.com) During a sombre visit to Germany last week, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi urged the international community to help boost his country's crisis economy in the face of plummeting crude oil prices, underscoring a desperate situation in which Iraq has lost 85 percent of its oil revenues. Iraqi oil revenues have fallen to just 15 percent of what they used to be, the embattled prime minister said, despite a boost in production ordered last year. The surge in production has failed to compensate for the collapse of oil prices, and the situation is dire when oil revenues constitute around 43 percent of Iraq’s gross domestic product (GDP), 99 percent of its exports and 90 percent of all federal revenues. All told for this year, the Iraqi government expects to export 3.6 million barrels of oil per day (bopd).

OTHER STORIES: