The Blog of Author Mark MacKenzie: It's The Housing Market, Stupid!

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association and an article put out by Reuters, a record 11.18% of one to four unit residences were at least 30 days late on their mortgage payment. And while some people, and I'm not one of them, may find some solace with Obama's $275 billion sweeping housing and...

It news that is not so surprising, according to a report by Reuters, the House of Representatives approved a piece of legislation that would allow bankruptcy judges to write down mortgage principle of primary residence loans. The Senate, where I would expect this to meet significant resistance, w...

The free markets are an interesting thing, they actually work.  Sometimes they need a little poking or prodding from the government, other times common sense prevails.  But more often than not, the free market will usually find a solution to a problem and it is going to be a solution that rewards...

A couple of months ago I had written a post about the number of homes that are under water or have "negative equity", essentially the home is worth less than what is owed on it.  Well, today, Reuters is reporting that according to First American CoreLogic, nearly 1 in 5 or approximately 8.31 mill...

The NAR is reporting that housing affordability as measured by mortgage rates, median income, and median home values, has reached a new record high as of January of 2009. The composite index increased from 153.2 in December to 166.8 in January.  Historically, the highest affordability index was i...

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, the weekly mortgage purchase application index declined -5.6% from last week to 236.4. Outside of the week of February 11th of 2009 when the mortgage purchase application hit 235.9, this is the lowest reading since 2000.  Two reasons why this number ...

According to the NAR, the pending home sales index fell -6.4% from last year and -7.7% from last month to the lowest level on record dating back to 2001.  The pending home sales index is the leading indicator of future existing home sales.  This along with the anemic mortgage purchase application...