San Francisco Real Estate - Residential

Mortgage Weekly Update - Last Week in Review

Foster Weeks publishes a weekly mortgage report which is updated every Monday morning. How is this affecting the San Francisco real estate market? Read our weekly and monthly market reports. Here’s what Mr. Weeks says about last week’s activity:

“I DO NOT THINK MUCH OF A MAN WHO IS NOT WISER TODAY THAN HE WAS YESTERDAY.” Abraham Lincoln. Now more than ever, it’s important for our country’s leaders to heed yesterday’s lessons and make wise choices today for our banking system and the economy. There were several key developments that happened on this front last week - here are some highlights.

On Thursday, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Chief Accountant, the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s (FASB) Chairman and the Deputy Comptroller for Regulatory Policy in the Treasury Department testified in front of the House Financial Services committee on the “Mark-to-Market” accounting rule. This rule was created so that there would be more transparency in business dealings, but fell prey to the law of “unintended consequences”, and has played a major part in our current financial crisis. If you’ve been receiving this newsletter for awhile, you know this has been discussed several times - and we’ve even sent you a great explanatory video that breaks down what it all means, and why it has been such a major issue.

Because so many of you have been asking about this topic and great video - I am including the information and video once again in this week’s issue - keep reading for the full scoop in the Mortgage Market View article below.

During Thursday’s hearing, Congress demanded an answer for repairing this situation within the next three weeks, so right now, it looks like we will see some sort of coordinated action by both the FASB and the SEC to address the Mark-to-Market situation soon. Stocks certainly reacted positively to this news last week, as well as to Citigroup’s announcement that it will not need more TARP money from the government. Stocks also liked the remarks from Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke that the recession would be over by year-end if the banking situation is stabilized, and that major financial institutions would not be allowed to fail.

Read the entire article here.

posted by SFResidence.com @ 9:56 PM