http://www.marinrealtygroup.com Marin County Real Estate Professionals Tue, 18 Nov 2008 18:48:15 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en As I write this Treasury Secretary Paulson is testifying be¬fore Congress... sounding defensive with his voice raised! Congress is grilling Treasury Secretary Paulson and Ben Bernanke today regarding the Hope Now Program and the use of TARP bailout funds. Their focus was on why Treasury funds under the TARP bailout ... http://www.marinrealtygroup.com/financial-market-news/what-about-that-700-billion/ The news keeps getting worse. The continuing slump in the housing market along with the failing credit market is exacerbating the serious problems facing the US and global economies. Marin County has been known as a bastion of “old money” and “security” that ordinarily weathers economic storms better than most. ... http://www.marinrealtygroup.com/insight-to-marin-real-estate/is-there-a-silver-lining-or-are-there-only-clouds/ Treasury Secretary Paulson has changed the terms of the bailout. After promising that the 700 billion would be used to purchase troubled home loans in order to keep Ameri¬cans in their homes he has now reversed course. Instead, it was announced today that the money WILL NOT be used to ... http://www.marinrealtygroup.com/financial-market-news/the-bailout-loan-modifications-and-the-r-word/ Regardless of what you thought of the Nov. 4 elections, I think we can all agree it was good to have some diversion from the gloomy financial news that has plagued us for months. Unfortunately, whether it was Barack Obama or John McCain who won, the times ahead will still be ... http://www.marinrealtygroup.com/insight-to-marin-real-estate/103/ Southern California home sales jumped 65% in September, setting new sales records as the biggest year over year jump in 20 years+ of sales history. Nearly half of those sales were foreclosed properties. We saw interest rates drop briefly in August and early September, so this may be one reason for the sudden spike in ... http://www.marinrealtygroup.com/financial-market-news/still-grappling-with-the-markets/ This past Saturday’s NY Times Business Day section had a very interesting article by Joe Nocera titled “Shouldn’t We Rescue Housing?”.  In it Mr. Nocera effectively argues that the root cause of the current financial meltdown is not being addressed. That problem is the continuing decline of housing prices. He ... http://www.marinrealtygroup.com/insight-to-marin-real-estate/housing-needs-help-too/ Panic or writing on the wall? After huge stock market losses last week Monday's market opened with gains higher than any other one day on record. But don't break out the champagne yet... because the crisis is far from over. Monday's gains brought us back to around Wednesday of last week in terms of stock ... http://www.marinrealtygroup.com/financial-market-news/panic-or-writing-on-the-wall-october-14-2008/ Yesterday brought a Fed rate cut by a half point that was part of a series of coordinated cuts by the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, The Bank of Canada, the Swedish Riksbank and the Swiss National Bank. But this is only one step. Stock losses are growing as the credit crisis expands ... http://www.marinrealtygroup.com/financial-market-news/market-update-october-9-2008/ Huge stocks losses in the past week eclipsed former records as a sell off on Monday pushed the DOW index down by over 777 points. This is the largest drop in one day for the DOW in its entire history. The S&P and Nasdaq also lost more than 7% of their values during Monday's ... http://www.marinrealtygroup.com/financial-market-news/market-update-october-2-2008/ Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are becoming commercial banks (they have been investment firms under the SEC), a shift in status that brings them under tighter federal banking regulation. Investment banking is officially dead with this development, the end of an era. It also likely marks the end of an era of lax regulation. This ... http://www.marinrealtygroup.com/financial-market-news/market-update-september-21-2008/