http://blog.cringelysmortgage.com One geek's quest to find the perfect mortgage... before time runs out. Thu, 29 Jan 2009 22:33:12 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Big banks used to do a thriving wholesale mortgage business.  Working through mortgage brokers they’d issue mortgages direct to millions of homeowners with the broker taking the marketing risk but getting points and risk-yield premiums as his or her upside. Like an insurance agent the broker was acting purely as ... http://blog.cringelysmortgage.com/?p=193 Take a look at this chart that someone sent to me a couple days ago.  I'm making it big so you can see as much detail as possible.  Have a look and then come back, okay? Pretty scary, eh?  It's a chart showing the deterioration of major bank market caps since ... http://blog.cringelysmortgage.com/?p=178 With apologies to Charles Dickens, which is this, the best or worst time to buy a house or refinance your mortgage? Those are two completely different questions, but the short answer is that it’s a lousy time to buy and not all that good a time to refi, either, ... http://blog.cringelysmortgage.com/?p=173 It’s getting ugly out there. No matter where you live in the United States mortgage defaults are up, as are foreclosures. Though everyone looks to the incoming Obama Administration to do something miraculous for homeowners, the stats don’t look good. In many markets falling home valuations have ... http://blog.cringelysmortgage.com/?p=170 We have access to so much data today, thanks to the Internet. But those data vary a lot in quality. Just like you can find virtually any opinion on any subject somewhere on the World Wide Web, so too you can find a wide variety of opinions on ... http://blog.cringelysmortgage.com/?p=167