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Constantine von Hoffman

As vacancies soar, commercial space owners fight cutting rents

by Constantine von HoffmanMay 14, 2009 Commercial real estate

A bad time to sell things is an even worse time to own property where things get sold. Thus the news that retail sales dropped “unexpectedly” in April means retailers are dropping as well. Here in Boston take a walk down posh Newbury Street and you will see many storefront “for rent” signs.
Other high enders [...]

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New Fed plan will help with 2nd mortgages, home equity loans

by Constantine von HoffmanApril 28, 2009 Foreclosure

The Obama administration has announced a new program to help borrowers with second mortgages stay out of foreclosure. Under this program, the government will pay mortgage servicers $500 upfront and $250 a year for three years if they successfully modify a second mortgage, such as a home equity loan.
The Treasury Department says second mortgages are [...]

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Deflation is real and it’s spreading

by Constantine von HoffmanApril 23, 2009 Credit

So far Spain, Ireland and the UK are already seeing it and Japan is teetering on the brink.

“Ireland, struggling with a ballooning budget deficit and record unemployment, has been at the vanguard of Europe’s economic collapse. Now deflation threatens to push the country deeper into its worst recession in eight decades.” (Bloomberg)
“Britain’s statistics office says [...]

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Home builder confidence up as housing starts fall off a cliff

by Constantine von HoffmanApril 16, 2009 Bailout
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A brilliant and simple guide to how we are being lied to about the meltdown

by Constantine von HoffmanApril 7, 2009 Bailout

There has been a deliberately high signal-to-noise-ratio (”the ratio of a signal power to the noise power corrupting the signal“) around the financial fiasco. The reason for this is the same reason that a magician does patter — to divert your attention from the sleight-of-hand.
We have heard long explanations about how no one could have [...]

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Rule change lets banks set the value of their own toxic assets

by Constantine von HoffmanApril 2, 2009 Bailout

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) has approved a new set of rules allowing financial firms to fiddle with how big their real-estate losses are.
The change is in mark-to-market accounting rules, which say companies must value assets at prices reflecting current market conditions. But now the phrase “current market conditions” will have a big asterisk [...]

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New game lets you get a bonus and a bailout for screwing up the bank

by Constantine von HoffmanMarch 26, 2009 Bailout

“Crunch, The Game For Utter Bankers” is a card game for anyone with a distinctly gallows sense of humor:
[It] allows you to experience the upside of down. Placed in the role of a global banking CEO, you have to juggle the conflicting demands of your ailing bank and your flourishing bank account. … Each player [...]

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Spike in existing home sales mostly fueled by foreclosures

by Constantine von HoffmanMarch 23, 2009 Bailout

The nearly 500-point dead-cat-bounce on Wall Street yesterday was credited in part to the reported increase in existing home sales. The headline about homes: resales rose 5.1% to a 4.72 million annual rate from 4.49 million in January, via the National Association of Realtors.
The devil rested in the details which showed that 45% of that [...]

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Housing starts go up in February and no one knows why

by Constantine von HoffmanMarch 17, 2009 Economy

Multi-family homes (apartments) seem to be behind the comparatively big increase.

BBC: US new homes increase by quarter “The rate of construction of new homes in the US soared by almost a quarter in February compared with the previous month, official figures show.”

AP: Housing starts surge; wholesale prices edge up “Housing construction posted a surprisingly large [...]

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