Archive for March, 2008
Backslapping Mortgage Bailout, Fannie and Freddie Get a $200B Blank Check
March 20th, 2008 Categories: Mortgage News
Great Op/Ed article in the Wall Street Journal today…
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were allowed to ‘leverage up’ their portfolio from 30-1 to 33-1 (for every $1 in freed up capital they can spend $33 instead of $30) ‘creating’ an additional $200B(illion) worth of liquidity they may now use to buy more mortgage backed securities.
The recently carved up and eaten Bear Stearns had a 34-1 ratio; take that for whatever it’s worth…
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Yesterday’s capital expansion merely lets the companies continue their double lives as profit-making companies backed by taxpayer guarantees.
Of course, the last thing Congress wants is all of this to be transparent. The Members benefit from the current private-public confidence game because the two companies ladle them with campaign contributions to protect their privileged status.
At the end of the day if this strategy works the private investors get all of the upside. And if it fails? It becomes the taxpayers loss…
As the article states, with this type of mitigated risk policy it’s no wonder Fannie Mae’s stock has risen over 30% in the past week. This is what happens when Washington plays with Wall Street…
Also See:
Ubiquitous Perpetual Mortgage Solution Circle Jerk
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The XBroker Gets a Much Needed Facelift
March 19th, 2008 Categories: XBroker 2.0, real estate tomato
The XBroker has been aesthetically challenged since inception, an ongoing hack-job by yours truly using a self-hosted WordPress platform. Evolving the site to a WordPress-MU platform has been on my (never ending) to-do list for quite awhile but the procrastinator in me prevailed, until recently.
So, today is the first day in the rest of TXB’s life, pushing into ‘Blog Network’ territory and ready to make some major announcements regarding transparent mortgage and real estate technologies. It’s all been a long time coming. Bouncing from one start-up to another has emboldened me, alas everyone has a max bandwidth. Playing perpetual start-up is a grind and while entrepreneurialism may seem cool and exciting from the outside, behind the curtain it’s nervous chaos. More on these topics later…
Right now, I want to extend many thanks to the very professional crew at The Real Estate Tomato… Jim, Chris, Kenny, Jason…everyone exceeded my expectations in making TXB’s transition quick, painless and far better looking.
This should be taken as a ringing endorsement for anyone looking to upgrade their web presence 
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Should Real Estate Agents Disclose Their Sales History? Why Not?
March 19th, 2008 Categories: Real estate sales history disclosure
More on why they should later, for now vote and voice your opinion about whether real estate agents should disclose their sales history.
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Redfin Gets In Touch With The Human Side of Real Estate
March 19th, 2008 Categories: Redfin
Outside of subscribers to Redfins blog, this story probably won’t get much pub given their popularity in the RE.net. Say what you will about Redfin but I like them for what they’ve had the cajones to do, jam a stick in the eye of traditional real estate. I thought Glenn’s post was funny too.
Also See:
Redfin The Transparent Real Estate Brokerage
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The Sweet Sixteen at VARBuzz. Sticky Social Network Marketing
March 19th, 2008 Categories: social networking optimization
The XBroker has held up to it’s 4 seed in VARBuzz’s Blog Brawl. This week TXB takes on top seeded The Real Estate Zebra (boo-hiss) for a shot at the Elite Eight.
So here I am again, posting my weekly shameless solicitation for votes. I wonder what type of traffic spike this contest has created for VBuzz, how many notches their site has crawled up the various ‘credibility’ meters like Technorati. Sticky marketing strategy, regardless if you like the contest or not.
Instead of offering up some additional kernals of knowledge, I link…
The JP Morgan, Bear Stearns saliva swap
Keeping up with mortgage market trends vicariously through Dan Green
Staying on top of your writing game with CopyBlogger
Checking out cool new technology thanks to Galen
Star Realtor under 30 may get 30
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