Bloomberg - "Citadel Bet Signals Return of Subprime Bond Market" (6-4-07)

"Citadel Investment Group's purchase of Resmae Mortgage Corp. is the latest evidence that investors' appetite for bonds backed by subprime mortgages is returning five months after the industry crashed. The $180 million acquisition by Citadel, a $14 billion hedge fund, shows that the market for loans to people with weak, or subprime, credit isn't dead, said Sharon Greenberg, vice president of asset-backed securities research for Credit Suisse Group in New York."

Yahoo - "Accredited Home OK's $400M Buyout Offer" (6-4-07)

"Accredited Home Lenders Holding Co., which makes mortgage loans to residential buyers with shaky repayment records, on Monday said it agreed to be acquired by a private-equity buyer for about $400 million in cash. Lone Star Fund V LP will pay $15.10 per share for the company, a 10 percent premium over the stock's closing price of $13.76 on Friday."

NAR - "NAR Joins Nation in Celebrating National Homeownership Month in June" (6-4-07)

"As the nation’s leading advocate for homeownership, the National Association of Realtors® understands the value and joy of owning a home. This month, as the nation celebrates National Homeownership Month, NAR and state and local Realtor® associations across the county will do their part to help raise awareness of homeownership and encourage more Americans to consider the benefits of owning their own home."

Bloomberg - "Treasury Yields Touch Nine-Month High on Jobs, Manufacturing" (6-4-07)

"Treasuries declined, pushing 10- year note yields to the highest level in more than nine months, as larger-than-forecast gains in employment and manufacturing suggested economic growth is accelerating. Ten-year securities fell for a fourth week as traders erased bets the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates later this year."

Financial News - "A brief history of blowing bubbles" (6-4-07)

"Peter Garber, an economist at Deutsche Bank, demonstrated that there were rational underpinnings of the world’s most celebrated mania – the tulip craze in Holland in the 1630s – and that the apparently grossly overvalued prices were paid only for particular kinds of tulip with a beautiful patterning derived from a mosaic virus infection that could not be grown from bulbs. Garber’s point sounds analogous to the contemporary voices who claim that not all modern art is bubbling, but only the very best pieces, or that the real estate boom is confined to particular high-end locations."

North County Times - "Real estate scam emerges -- 'Crash and inflate' method generally leads to foreclosure" (6-4-07)

"Real estate appraiser Todd R. Lackner's second job as mortgage fraud investigator began when he stumbled onto a suspicious-looking transaction while online one day last March, he said last week. Within weeks, he was chest-deep in dozens of investigations of suspected mortgage fraud, and was helping federal investigators get the goods on real estate scammers who commit what are known as inflated-sale and-crash schemes, Lackner said."

Financial Times - "Fears over helping hand for mortgage defaulters" (6-4-07)

"A generation ago, a mortgage was still a simple contract negotiated face-to-face between a borrower and a local bank manager. But the business of home lending has changed dramatically. The crisis in the US subprime mortgage market has revealed a tangled web of relationships and competing interests between lenders and mortgage brokers, investment bankers and bond investors, and bank trading desks and hedge funds."

San Francisco Chronicle - "Subprime borrower rescue bill is dead" (6-4-07)

"A bill that would have created a pool of money to help subprime mortgage borrowers facing foreclosures to refinance their loans died in the state Assembly Appropriations committee Thursday. The measure, AB1538, was introduced by Assemblyman Ted Lieu, D-Torrance (Los Angeles County) in response to potential mass foreclosures of homes financed with controversial loans to consumers with little or subpar credit history."

Omaha World-Herald - "Owning home may not be best move for some people" (6-4-07)

"Nearly one-third of all homeowners move within five years, the council said, before they start building any real equity in a home. In cases like those - and even longer term - putting money into the stock market instead of into a house could provide superior returns, council officials said."

The Hankyoreh - "The U.S. economy: Where is it going?" (6-4-07)

"While the stock market has been booming, this seems to be primarily the result of the sort of irrational exuberance that infects people who speculate on stock markets at regular intervals. Many investors are fishing for the next big company that will be bought out by a private equity firm; they are not looking at the prospect for long-term profits. Those who do care about future profits would probably not keep their money in the stock market. The United States Congressional Budget Office projects that, after adjusting for inflation, corporate profits will be 5 percent lower in ten years than they are today. That is not the sort of forecast that ordinarily leads to a booming stock market."

MSN - "3 bad reasons to buy a home" (6-4-07)

"Fear stampeded a lot of people into buying a home during the recent real estate boom. Now we're seeing the even more fearsome fallout. People who were terrified about being priced out of the real estate market are now horrified by their ever-rising mortgage payments. People who were afraid of missing out on the "easy money" of home-price appreciation are now anxiously realizing that what goes up can also come down."