- FTSE, DAX, CAC Seen Lower, Greek Deal Delayed
- Citigroup Takes $50 Million Loss in Lending Rate Probe
- Investment Banking Drags Down Barclays Profit
- The Secret Lives of Traders—Seeking the Next Hot Thing
- FBI Investigated Steve Jobs Drug Use
- Strip Greenspan of His Knighthood: SocGen Strategist
- China January Trade Surplus Soars as Imports Crumble
- Markets Finally Get Greek Deal —So Where's the Rally?
- Warren Buffett: Stocks Will Outperform Gold and Bonds
MOST SHARED
- Tesla Unveils First SUV: Model X
- Strip Greenspan of His Knighthood: SocGen Strategist
- Sony's Hirai to Extend PlayStation Strategy, Cut Costs
- India's Tata Steel Posts First Quarterly Loss in 2 Years
- China January Trade Surplus Soars as Imports Crumble
- Steelers' Antonio Brown Spends Super Bowl Week with Twitter Fan Turned BFF
- Top Five Mistakes to Avoid in Online Dating
- Jobs You Can Do Forever
- Zynga, Hasbro Partner to Make Toys, Games
- Warren Buffett: Stocks Will Outperform Gold and Bonds .. and They're Safer 'By Far'
MOST POPULAR
HOT ON FACEBOOK
Housing in 'Double-Dip': Economist Zandi
Text Size 
CNBC.com Writer
 |
Peter Gridley | Getty Images |
“Tomorrow we are going to get an existing home sales number that that I think is going to be very, very weak, closer to 4 million units, which I think would be a new low in this cycle,” said Zandi, who is also the author of forthcoming Paying the Price.
“We probably, almost assuredly, will experience more house price declines. By those two criteria, I think that would qualify as a double dip.”
Home prices fell 5.1 percent in June to an annualized pace of 5.37 million homes, the weakest since March.
Zandi said the housing situation can’t really improve, in spite of the millions spent by the government, until more people have jobs. He also said that homeowners whose mortgages are guaranteed by Fannie Mae [FNMA
Loading...
()
] and Freddie Mac [FMCC
Loading...
()
] need help.
“There are millions of homeowners with Fannie and Freddie loans that are having trouble refinancing these very low rates, and they are paying on their loans and they are have a job, but they are underwater, or their credit score has been a little bit impaired,” said Zandi.
“Under current rules, they can’t capitalize the transaction costs into the mortgage balance and they don’t feel comfortable to do that. I think there may be a creative way to facilitate that process. And I think that that would be helpful to forestall further foreclosures and actually put some cash into people’s pockets at a critical time.”
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes
