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Fannie Mae Under the Gun
by Ram Seshadri @ FinancialSense.com
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Greenspan: The Man Who Does the Opposite
by Ram Seshadri @ FinancialSense.com
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My Predictions for 2004
by Ram Seshadri @ Alyxfunds.com
See: link

Area Home Resales Fall for 2nd Month
by Steve Brown @ DallasNews.com
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From Boom to Bust, Eventually
by Robert Shiller, Professor of Economics at Yale @ TaipeiTimes.com
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EDITOR'S COMMENTS
The Great Monty Hall Give-Away?
by Ole Bear

And behind door number three...? a Brand Spanking New Cadillac!

Author Steve Brown in Area Home Resales Fall has some really interesting quotes in an article that generally describes new homes taking a bite out of used home resales in the Dallas/Ft.Worth micro realty market. Here goes and the [comments in red are mine]:

• "The new-home numbers are strong," said Ted Wilson, who works with the Dallas housing market analyst. "Builders are doing whatever they can do to recruit buyers -- that means a lot of incentives."
• [Just you wait, Baby... before long they will be putting new Cadillacs behind every garage door -- been there, seen that!]
• "What the builders offer is unbelievable," said residential agent Barry Hoffer of Prudential Texas Properties. "They pay closing costs, give a decorating allowance, and sometimes they'll cut their price if you can close in 30 days."
• [We expect a lot of these jokers who think they are homebuilders, operating on OPM, other people's money, will eventually learn about buying low and selling high to make a profit, cash flow, and how to balance a checkbook.]
• Dr. Harris at Texas A&M: "You can get in a house practically with no money down, paying about what you are paying in rent," he said. "The builders think they can take market share away from existing homes. Apparently they are."
• [At the 20-year historic average of 7-9%+ for mortgage interest rates, a lot of folks are going to rethink the housing market and Austrian Economics.]
• "The creditworthiness of the buyer is not quite as good as it was a few years ago, he {Mr. Wilson} said.
• [Gee Whiz, Class! This is so profound a statement, why didn't I think of it! Of course the obvious reason is the Fraud of Appraisal Regulation or FIRREA 1989, Fannie Mae and their partners in GSE crime, the credit score panacea, and the banking cartel running the realty valuation industry...]

In Boom to Bust, Author Shiller from Yale describes a global problem in the real estate micro and macro markets. Read the article.

We also feature three essays by Mr. Ram Seshadri because of their relationship to homebuilding, the housing market, central banking, the smoke and mirrors of Green$peak Obfuscations, and Fannie Mae, our favorite fudge candy, becoming our most favorite National Soap Opera. In Fannie Mae Under the Gun, the observations of Pulte Homes (PHM) cutting prices and its 4th quarter earnings corresponds with our observations in the Dallas/Ft. Worth markets about OPM and balancing your checkbook. All three of his essays we find entertaining and enlightening. In My Predictions for 2004, this quote is priceless:

• "The chairman [Franklin Raines] of this giant hedge fund [Fannie Mae] is arrogant enough to believe that all his greasing of Washington's wheels will keep his august institution growing by 20% every year forever."

In the Author's essay on Greenspan, verbal diarrhea has been clearly and cleanly defined for the ages. We find the essay on Greenspan not daunting at all. It is a very measured, contained pen, has no touches of irrational exuberance, and is applicable to any micro realty market, local or bubblewise.

Ole Bear, Editor