Transcripts released by the Federal Reserve reveal the central bank misinterpreted the downswing in the housing market as a positive signal of the market pricing in risk rather than the beginning of a bust that would quickly unravel the financial markets. From the Financial Times: Top officials at the US Federal Reserve took months to [...]

Regardless of the recent bullish stories on the housing market (examples here, here, here and here), housing market fundamentals are lousy. Demand in the last decade was wildly distorted by banker abandonment of underwriting and appraisals. Now bankers are worsening the crash they created. As a result, prices will just keep falling, and foreclosures cannot [...]

There have been several housing-related reports this week, some better than others, so analysts have been reading the entrails to determine whether the housing market is finally starting to hit bottom and turn around. The answers are mixed — some regions are doing better than others — but we still seem to have a ways to go before the national market starts stops falling and begins to pick up in any meaningful way.