Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Flashback: Prices The Only Thing Still Headed Up

Mortgage data isn't free, so from time to time it helps when a company like Countrywide Financial has to restate an older quarter, like this one ended June 30,2004.

"Industry-wide, residential mortgage originations were approximately $800 billion during the second quarter of 2004, down from approximately $1,075 billion in the second quarter of 2003."

In the US, total mortgage production for 2003 was a trillion dollars higher than 2004. But if you asked most people they would say the market has never been hotter than now. That's how mind-numbing the hype can be.

Let's look at the plunging prime originations at CFC in the quarter ended June 30, and the fall-back on new 'products'.

2003 in $millions
Prime.......120,811
Home Equity...4,373
Subprime......4,256
2004 in $millions
Prime........82,808
Home Equity...7,301
Subprime......9,554

5 Comments:

At 4:40 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Explode is such a great word for sub primes, I think we'll be seeing it used more and more!

 
At 5:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Won't yesterday's Federal Reserve statement start to tamp down sub-prime lending?

 
At 5:02 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Here is another gem from the report:

Interest Rate Type: 04 03
Fixed Rate $47,973 $106,586
Adjustable Rate 40,517 14,225

$88,490 $120,811

 
At 6:24 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Original Anon -- your deduction makes a lot of sense to me. A mark of sound corporate management is the ability to distinguish between acceptable risk and unacceptable risk.

 
At 7:53 PM, Blogger Ben Jones said...

5:00 anon,
It will. Several Fed guys have come out and said that housing is on their plate. The stock market and the retail street buyer haven't got the message. It looks like several more rate hikes from the Fed.

 

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