Michael Hobbs's (michaelhobbs) Blog

  Ron Phipps, Immediate Past President NAR, quipped, “that means 15% of potential buyers cannot qualify (for a mortgage).”  What exactly did Ron mean? In his recent post in the National Association of Realtors weekly blog, he was referring to the change in underwriting standards and the powerfull...

  In January the National Public Radio (NPR) website ran a story accusing Freddie Mac, a government sponsored entity of betting against homeowners, by investing billions of dollars to ensure that they do not refinance their mortgages at lower rates. The broadcaster had sighted an investigation ca...

    The recent housing burst and the eventual financial crisis that preceded it has opened up a lot of debate about what our economic system really can handle and what the role of government in society should be.  One such debate has been the conversation about whether counties and cities should ...

  Is prohibiting short-term rentals an intrusion on property owners’ rights or is it protecting homeowners’ rights by preserving residential areas?   The Wall Street Journal reported that an estimated five million visitors to Berlin last year chose to stay in unregulated, privately rented vacatio...

The time was 1969.  The Rolling Stones released 'Gimme Shelter' off of the Let It Bleed album as an “end-of-the-world song, really. It's apocalypse, (the times were) rough, very violent era, The Vietnam War. Violence on the screens, pillage and burning. Not …as we knew it in the conventional sens...

  Calculated Risk reported Friday that First United Bank in Illinois is the 43rd FDIC-insured institution to fail in 2012 and it is the seventh to fail in Illinois in 2012. First United Bank is the 39th Chicago-area bank to fail since the onset of the financial crisis. The failed bank was purchas...

  According to reports by the Mortgage News Daily website, misuse of the FHA Pre-foreclosure Sale Program, may have cost the Department of  Housing and Urban Development (HUD) over $1 billion in claims that did not meet program requirements.  Was it short sale fraud or was it poor documentation a...

How would you feel about having the homes in your neighborhood securitized?  We have all probably heard the news that the housing market is finally turning the corner, and we could well be on our way to a housing recovery and out of one of the greatest economic crisis of our time. We have also pr...

  The Chicago metro area had the best home sales volume in 59 months according to reports by the Illinois Association of Realtors (IAR). In the last year sales were up 28.5%. There were 9,240 new and existing homes sold in the nine-county Chicago metropolitan area, compared to the 7,188 homes sol...

  Have you noticed that many fellow Americans still have that look on their face? You may even ask them, “Why such a sad look on your face my friend?” Last week, Corelogic, a national data aggregator, reported that rising home values helped 1.3 million homeowners get out from "underwater" in the ...