Headlines...

NEW -> Contingent Buyer Assistance Program
Lawyerliz - it'll be a new computer AI called "The Liquidator". Which will all go great ... until it decides to take over the world and causes a systemic world wide financial crisis
 
<a href="http://tinyurl.com/33m6or">Toll Brothers suffers worst year ever</a>.





<p><em> "By many measures, fiscal 2007 was the most challenging of the forty years that Toll Brothers has been in business," said Chief Executive Robert Toll in the earnings release. </em></p>

<p><em> He said the housing pullback in 1974 was "perhaps rougher, but the difficult times only lasted one year."





Chief Financial Officer Joel Rassman said Toll expects revenue to fall in 2008, although the company declined to offer a profit forecast. </em></p>

<p><em> "Given the numerous uncertainties related to sales paces, sales prices, mortgage markets, cancellations, market direction and the potential for and size of future impairments, in the current climate it is particularly difficult to provide guidance" for fiscal 2008, Rassman said.





"Normally, other than for this time around, housing has not been a leading indicator [of a recession] but generally a follower," the CEO said during a conference call to discuss quarterly results. </em></p>

<p><em> "If I had to make a bet on recession or no recession right now, I'd probably think that we're going to have a recession," Toll said. "I have no idea how deep or how long it would be."





</em> </p>
 
<p>Mortgage deliquency rate table 1979-present</p>

<p><a href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_pMscxxELHEg/R1hL6zRwQuI/AAAAAAAABTw/ZvDWIIhGTnA/s1600-h/MBAMortgageDelinquency.jpg">http://bp1.blogger.com/_pMscxxELHEg/R1hL6zRwQuI/AAAAAAAABTw/ZvDWIIhGTnA/s1600-h/MBAMortgageDelinquency.jpg</a></p>

<p><img alt="" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_pMscxxELHEg/R1hL6zRwQuI/AAAAAAAABTw/ZvDWIIhGTnA/s1600-h/MBAMortgageDelinquency.jpg" /></p>
 
<p>House prices seen falling 30 pct</p>

<p><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/gc03/idUSN0544897520071206">http://www.reuters.com/article/gc03/idUSN0544897520071206</a></p>

<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - Housing markets from Punta Gorda, Florida, to Stockton, California, will crash and suffer price drops of more than 30 percent before the housing crisis is over, a report from Moody's Economy.com said on Thursday.</p>

<p>On a national level, the housing market recession will continue through early 2009, said the report, co-authored by Mark Zandi, chief economist, and Celia Chen, director of housing economics.</p>

<p>The report paints a worsening picture of the hard-hit housing sector, which is in the midst of its worst downturn since World War II.</p>

<p>While activity will stabilize in 2009, it will not be until 2010 before a measurable improvement in sales, construction and pricing will emerge, the report said.</p>

<p>House prices are forecast to fall 13 percent from their peak through early 2009. After accounting for incentives home sellers are offering buyers, effective declines peak-to-trough will total well over 15 percent, the report said.</p>

<p> Punta Gorda, Florida, and Stockton, California, are the hardest hit markets in the U.S., with price declines from peak-to-trough forecast at 35.3 percent and 31.6 percent, respectively.</p>
 
The tourism industry in London <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071206/bs_afp/britaineconomybankrateforexmoney_071206175344">must be doing pretty badly</a>.
 
<p>Hmm, those AI computers aren't doing too well...</p>

<p>http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a1u52EKp84.w&refer=home</p>

<p>Goldman Sachs, AQR Hedge Funds Fell 6% in November (Update3)


By Jenny Strasburg and Katherine Burton</p>

<p>Dec. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Hedge funds run by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and AQR Capital Management LLC fell in November as swings in financial markets confounded the computer-driven trading models used by the quantitative managers. </p>

<p>Goldman's Global Alpha, which started 2007 with more than $10 billion, dropped 6 percent, bringing the decline for the year to 37 percent, according to an investor in the fund. AQR's $4 billion Absolute Return fund is down 11 percent, after losing about 6 percent last month, said a client of the firm, based in Greenwich, Connecticut. </p>

<p>Losses in November extended beyond quant managers to stock pickers such as James Pallotta, whose Raptor fund declined 3.1 percent. Traders were tripped up by increased volatility, as the Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose or fell by more than 1 percent on 12 trading days last month, compared with four days in October. The Reuters-Jefferies/CRB Commodity Price Index moved more than 1 percent on 10 days in November. </p>

<p>``Every manager at some point experienced a violent move against a position, whether it was in stocks, bonds, currencies or commodities,'' Philippe Bonnefoy, chairman of Geneva-based hedge fund Cedar Partners Investment Management Ltd., said in a telephone interview. </p>

<p>Hedge-fund managers globally lost an average of 1.4 percent in November, bringing the average 2007 gain to 10.2 percent, according to the HFRI Index, a monthly estimate released today by Chicago-based Hedge Fund Research Inc. using a sample of managers worldwide. The benchmark S&P 500 ended the month down 4.2 percent, the most since December 2002. </p>
 
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/04/AR2007120402186.html?">Washington Post business columnist: "It's Not 1929, but It's the Biggest Mess Since" - a house of cards that's about to come crashing down.</a>

 
<p>IR, this particular sentence in that article caught my attention... <em>"This may not be 1929. But it's a good bet that it's way more serious than the junk bond crisis of 1987, the S&L crisis of 1990 or the bursting of the tech bubble in 2001".</em></p>

<p>He just forgot to say "<strong>combined</strong>".<strong></strong></p>
 
<p>I didn't realize that they turned the mezzanine tranches into further sliced and diced tranches. </p>

<p>I think an awful lot of people need to go to jail. For criminal stupidity, if nothing else.</p>

<p>The Florida pool is letting the municipalities take out some of their money, but charging a fee, if they take more than an allotted amount. And have separated the toxic part, supposedly, (14%?, 17%?) into a separate little pool, to moulder until it is determined what, if any value is there.</p>
 
Every time I read an article like this it makes me wonder about the complexity of this mess. Wall street will make you believe that this is above average people understanding. In actuality it is quite simple. It always has been simple. It hasn’t changed since the dawn of commerce.



“You gave money to people who are not able to pay you back”.
 
Waiting to Hit Bottom













There’s anxiety over home prices, but is there an upside?



<p>http://www.latimes.com/features/magazine/la-tm-space30dec9,1,4431370.story?coll=la-headlines-latmagazine</p>
 
<p>Ouch! Fee hikes pinch borrowers who can't raise the bucks</p>

<p><a href="http://www.latimes.com/classified/realestate/printedition/la-re-harney9dec09,1,3067880.story">http://www.latimes.com/classified/realestate/printedition/la-re-harney9dec09,1,3067880.story</a></p>

<p>WASHINGTON -- Home buyers and refinancers who can't come up with sizable down payments and whose FICO credit scores are below 680 are about to get squeezed.





Giant investors Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are imposing significant increases in fees for a broad range of borrowers who have lower than 30% down payments and formerly were treated as "prime" credit applicants. At the same time, the two largest private mortgage insurers -- MGIC Corp. and PMI Group -- are raising premiums on consumers who have low down payments and FICO scores in the mid- to upper-600s. The added costs for some buyers could mount to thousands of dollars either upfront at the closing or in the form of higher interest rates.


</p>
 
MORTGAGE MELTDOWN


Interest rate 'freeze' - the real story is fraud

Bankers pay lip service to families while scurrying to avert suits, prison





<p>http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/09/IN5BTNJ2V.DTL&hw=interest+rate+%27freeze%27&sn=001&sc=1000</p>
 
<p>From <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119696216000715924.html?mod=todays_us_page_one">http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119696216000715924.html?mod=todays_us_page_one</a></p>

<p><img alt="" src="http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/P1-AJ800_HOUSIN_20071206215009.gif" /></p>
 
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