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Saturday, 01 September 2007 05:00

Correction, and further thoughts on the topic

It has been called to my attention that among the many typos in my earlier post, an important one was the reference to the funding costs of DHI. The company in question was actually DHOM - Dominion Homes, not DR Horton - DHI. The general theme still stands, though, these guys as an industry who hold significantly depreciating real assets or options on said assets, financed by debt (all of them) or those who have significant mortgage banking operations without internal financing (ex. deposit accounts, etc.) (the vast majority of them), and who are running consistent operating losses for the last quarter and foreseeable next half (all of them) are in trouble, to say the least.

Published in BoomBustBlog

How low can prices go, again??

from WSJ.com:

"An auction of about 135 foreclosed homes in San Diego Saturday provided more sobering news for mortgage lenders. Ramsey Su, an investor and former real-estate broker who attended, calculated that the high bids for the homes averaged 67% of the prices they fetched when they were last sold, mostly in 2004 or 2005. At a similar auction in San Diego in May, the average was 73%. The auction was held by Real Estate Disposition Corp., Irvine, Calif., which promotes such sales on the www.usahomeauction.com Web site. REDC officials couldn't be reached to comment."

Will this spread to the greater economy?

"Countrywide Financial Corp., reducing costs as part of its effort to weather a credit crunch, has begun laying off employees involved in originating loans, according to an internal email."

Published in BoomBustBlog