Current Housing Indicators |
| CURRENT | PREVIOUS | ||
| Existing Home Sales | 4.49m | ▼ | 4.74m |
| New Home Sales | 309,000 | ▼ | 344,000 |
| Housing Starts | 583,000 | ▲ | 477,000 |
| Building Permits | 547,000 | ▲ | 531,000 |
| HMI | 9 | UNCH | 9 |
| Existing Home Prices | $170,300 | ▼ (annually) | $199,800 |
| New Home Prices | $201,100 | ▼ (annually) | $232,400 |
More Videos
- Underwater Mortgages Could Sink Even Deeper
- First Time Buyers Rescue Housing: Realtors
- Housing Recovery 'Still In Uncharted Territory': HUD Secretary
- Shadow Inventory Dwarfs Loan Mods
- The Battered Businesses Behind Housing
- Watch Foreclosures, Seriously
- Home Buyer Tax Credit Expansion Heads to Obama
- Congratulations America, We're All Landlords Now
- Wells Fargo Bets on Housing Recovery
- Home Buyer Tax Credit Done: Does it Matter?
MOST SHARED
- Stocks Overvalued, Recession Will Return: Meredith Whitney
- Has Twitter's Finest Hours (Seconds) Come and Gone?
- U.S. May Wind Up Green With Envy
- Time Warner to Spin Off AOL on December 9
- US Top Banks Warn Congress on 'Break-Up' Risks
- CNBC Video: Warren Buffett & Bill Gates - Keeping American Great
- Paulson Betting Unemployment Not Getting Much Worse?
- Stocks May Rise Further after Fed Waves on 'Risk Trade'
- Millions May Have to Repay Part of Obama Tax Credit
- Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Almost Doubles Wal-Mart Holdings During Summer
- Answers to Your Questions: A Path to Economic Disaster?
- 5 Ways to Play the Chinese Markets: Analyst
- Meredith Whitney: Turns Bearish
- 3 Stock Plays on Rising College Costs
- Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Almost Doubles Wal-Mart Holdings During Summer
- Nov. 16: Unusual Volume Leaders
- Getting to the Heart of the Merck-Abbott Embargo Break
- What MGM's Sale Could Say About Value of Content
- My Ratings on Lowe's & Home Depot: Analyst
- Obama Nudges Hu on Yuan; to Ease Trade Tensions
- Fed's Kohn Sees No Asset Bubbles Building in US
- Stocks May Rise Further after Fed Waves on 'Risk Trade'
- Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Boosts Stake in Wal-Mart
- Microsoft Co-founder Allen Diagnosed with Cancer
- Time Warner to Spin Off AOL on December 9
- Gates Boosts Waste Management, Coca Cola Stakes
- US Cities With Most Underwater Mortgages
- What's Kept Stock Rally Going? Fear, Not Confidence
RSS FEED
Realty Check
Text Size 
 |
] today put out its December operational results, a few days early I might add. The release begins, “Our fourth quarter ended with a number of positive operational trends,” says President and COO David Sambol. He’s talking about loan fundings, up a bit from November and ahead of forecasts.
What he doesn’t discuss in the wordy part of the press release, but which you can find in the numbers section further down, is that delinquencies and foreclosures are way up from a year ago and the number of loans the company is making is way down.
"Management is pleased with the progress we have made in positioning the company to navigate the current challenging environment," Chief Operating Officer David Sambol said in a statement.
Is that just because they fired a lot of people and stopped making the shoddy loans that fuelled this incredible boom-to-bust? Despite the supposed good news today, that they beat their own expectations, the stock is tanking again. The numbers for the year are just stunning. ARM fundings are half what they were a year ago, home equities down 20 perent, nonprime fundings less than half the numbers a year ago.
We keep talking about a bottom to this housing market, a bottom to prices, a bottom to home builder stocks. I’ll say it here and now, if Countrywide goes under, the bottom may as well be in Hades.
Questions? Comments?
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes