Orange County Register - "LendingTree lays off 20% of 2,200 workers" (5-11-07)

"LendingTree of Charlotte, N.C., which has a major presence in Orange County, laid off 20 percent of its 2,200 workers nationwide today, the company said. Rebecca Anderson, a spokeswoman for the company, said that although a majority of the workers are in Irvine, the layoffs are evenly distributed across Irvine, Charlotte and Jacksonville, Fla. That would equate to 440 layoffs, including 147 or so in Irvine."

Orange County Register - "New Century: We may never file profit reports" (5-11-07)

"Wow, my blog is on fire, I guess with people curious about LendingTree. But I feel obligated to update everyone about New Century Financial of Irvine, the once mighty subprime lender in bankruptcy court. The true story may never be told about its accounting mistakes since the company now says it may never file another report. Here's what AP has:"

Orange County Register - "Orange County home prices and sales" (5-11-07)

"For the 22 business days ending April 25, sales for all types of Orange County home sales decreased 26.5 percent. The median sales price decreased .6 percent. The median is where half the homes sold for more and half for less. Types of homes selling, as well as home value changes, cause the median to change."

NAR - "New Realtor.com Feature Streamlines Online Real Estate Services" (5-11-07)

"At the click of a mouse, consumers visiting Realtor.com, the official Web site of the National Association of Realtors®, can now more easily find Realtors® offering online transaction management services, bringing transparency and enhanced communications throughout each stage of increasingly complex real estate transactions. Consumers can identify these Realtors® by looking for the RELAY™ icon."

NAR - "NAR Survey Shows Realtors® Investing in and Demanding More Technology" (5-11-07)

"Realtors® invest heavily in technology with more than half of brokers, sales agents, associate brokers and managers saying they spent more than $1,000 last year, according to a new survey by the National Association of Realtors®. The 2007 Realtor® Technology Survey, conducted by NAR’s Center for REALTOR® Technology, also found that 25 percent of respondents spent more than $2,000 on technology in 2006. In addition, approximately two-thirds of those surveyed have a real estate business Web site, and a quarter spends more than $1,000 annually to maintain their site. Nearly all of these sites – 93 percent – provide listing search capabilities. Other than their own Web site, the most popular sites for Realtors® to display their listings include the local MLS, their broker’s Web site and REALTOR.com."

USA Today - "Hot property on cable" (5-11-07)

"Even as home sales and prices rapidly cool, shows that focus on selling homes — particularly for home "flippers" — remain a hot and growing commodity. Cable channels including HGTV, TLC, Bravo, A&E and DIY are ratcheting up home-dealing programming with new shows featuring developers, investors and do-it-yourselfers."

SFGate.com - "Fractional Fairy tale: The dream of owning a vacation home can come true via tenancy-in-common" (5-11-07)

"In the last 10 years, buying a second home has become the epitome of the American dream. Homeownership may have marked entry into the promised land, but it was the vacation property that fueled the most ecstatic visions: wineries, beach houses, pieds-à-terre and mountain cabins. These were not places where people lived, worked and paid bills, but where life unfolded according to the seasons, with the ebb and flow of recreation, family reunions and private retreats."

San Francisco Chronicle - "Ignoring equity line could hurt" (5-11-07)

"Daniel Y. of San Francisco has a question that's on the mind of many homeowners these days. Daniel wants to sell his condo and move into a bigger one in a nicer neighborhood. He figures the price he could get would pay off his first mortgage, but not a $50,000 home equity line of credit he took out last year to repay credit card debt. Daniel says the shortfall could be $10,000 to $30,000 and wants to know what would happen if he didn't pay it."

The Boston Globe - "Subprime woes hit buyers" (5-11-07)

"The meltdown in the subprime mortgage sector is making it harder for first-time and other home buyers with little down payment money to get even conventional loans, adding more troubles to a slumping real estate market. Due to a rash of defaults by subprime borrowers, mortgage companies have tightened lending to clients with good credit as well. These are typically buyers who once easily got 90 to 100 percent financing for a home, but now either have trouble getting loans or are paying more for them."

Blown Mortgage - "New Century's unbelievable yield spread premium offer" (5-11-07)

"Let me first start off by saying that this offer was presented to myself and my business partner as owners of our company from our representative at New Century. I have no idea whether this was common practice at New Century, but I believe from talking with our rep that it was. I never received anything in writing to confirm the offer, nor did we ever move forward with it to see if it actually would happen."

California Housing Forecast - "The Data Lies" (5-11-07)

"Almost every statistic reported about the housing market is misleading in some way. While the housing market is getting worse by the day, you wouldn't know it from information reported by the government, Wall Street, banks, realtors, media, and industry associations. Worse, none of them have tried to educate the public about the problems with their data. Here you will find the most complete description of what is wrong with the housing market data. Most of it is my own work. Some is copied from other sources as noted."

eFinanceDirectory.com - "Future of the Southern California Housing Market: Interview With Rich Toscano" (5-11-07)

"Rich Toscano is a financial advisor with Pacific Capital Associates in San Diego. He frequently writes about the housing market for voiceofsandiego.org, and for his own website, Professor Piggington's Econo-Almanac for the Landed Poor. Rich recently took time to share his views with us on the Southern California Housing Bubble."

San Francisco Chronicle - "5 arrested in alleged Alameda County real estate fraud" (5-11-07)

"The husband-and-wife owners of a Vallejo mortgage company and three other people were arrested today for their roles in an alleged $3.5 million real-estate fraud in Alameda County, authorities said. Amy Schloemann, 30, and her husband, Karim Akil, 40, also known as Scott Kinney, were named in a 73-count complaint filed in Alameda County Superior Court accusing them of defrauding two mortgage companies, Union Bank of California, local real-estate brokers and citizens from April 2005 to August 2006."

NPR - "Stocks' Gains May Be Linked to Housing Losses" (5-11-07)

"Though it fell nearly 150 points Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has been setting record highs in recent weeks, while home sales are at their lowest level in nearly four years. Some experts say real estate's swoon is freeing up money to bolster stocks. That could explain why one of the strongest stock market rallies on record has come at a time when gasoline prices are soaring, the overall economy is slowing and home sales are down."

Guardian Unlimited - "Wal-Mart posts worst sales ever as US retail figures slump" (5-11-07)

"The company said same store sales fell 3.5% in April on the same month a year ago. Same store sales measure the performance of stores that have been open for at least 12 months. But Wal-Mart was not the only US retailer turning in a poor performance in April, triggering fears that the US housing slump might be spilling over into consumer spending and that the economy might be taking a turn for the worse."


Mortgage Bankers Association - "HUD Solicits Comments on Revising Standards for Mortgagor's Investment in Mortgaged Property" (5-11-07)

"Through this proposed rule, HUD submits, for public comment, specific standards governing a mortgagor's investment in property for which the mortgage is insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). Specifically, this proposed rule would codify HUD's longstanding practice, authorized by statute, of allowing a mortgagor's investment to be derived from gifts by family members and certain organizations. The standards would address a situation in which the mortgagor's investment is derived from a gift, loan, or other payment that is provided by any donor, including an individual or an organization, and would also specify prohibited sources for a mortgagor's investment."