HousingWire’s Monday Morning Cup of Coffee takes a look at news from the weekend with more coverage on bigger issues.
If anyone can take a joke, it’s Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.
During a speech to new Princeton University graduates on Sunday, Bernanke made a joke that he received a rejection letter from the university about the status of his application for a faculty position, Reuters reports.
Surely, this was a joke. However, what is not is the mounting obsession over who may take charge of the central bank after Jan. 31, 2014, when Bernanke’s term expires.
“Talk that he is reluctant to accept a third term has been swirling for months, and speculation that he plans to leave the post got a boost in late April when the Fed confirmed he will skip the annual Jackson Hole monetary policy symposium in August due to a scheduling conflict,” according to Reuters.
Click here to read the full article.
More than 1,100 real estate professionals touched down in Fort Worth this weekend. They join scores of exhibitors and numerous speakers, all getting ready for HousingWire’s Real Estate Expo (REX Annual).
HousingWire editorial is also at the convention center and will keep readers up-to-date with all relevent developments.
Houses within walking distance to shops and restaurants are forecasted to drive housing and economies in mountain communities of the interior West as the recession’s effects wane, according to the Denver Post.
A study conduced by the Sonoran Institute showed that while homebuyers are willing to pay an average of 18.5% more for a house in a walkable mountain neighborhood in the Rocky Mountain West, the supply of homes in or near commercial areas is too small.
“There is growing demand for walkable neighborhoods, and it’s an untapped market opportunity,” said Clark Anderson, director of the Sonoran Institute’s Western Colorado Program.
The rest of the article can be read here.
Studies often miscalculate the effectiveness of the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing programs because they ignore the impact on interest rates of financial markets’ prior, rising expectations that a given new program may be in the offing, said Andrew Foerster of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
In his latest research note, Foerster found that event studies often measure the efficacy of large-scale asset purchases using major announcement dates.
However, evidence drawn from surveys, newspapers and Internet searches suggested that markets had some degree of advance expectation of the announcements for all the Federal Reserve’s recent rounds of large- scale purchase assets.
“Measures drawn from the surveys and news searches tended to move significantly prior to all of the recent announcements, implying that expectations of announcements may have affected long-term interest rates and the term premium before the announcements occurred,” Foerster concluded.
Click here to read the full research publication.
The prospect of the central bank slowing its bond-buying program rocked the market for mortgage real estate investment trusts this month.
Shares in the largest mREITs – publicly trade trusts that purchase mortgage bonds with borrowed money, suffered double-digit losses in May, the Financial Times reports.
This was due to rising interest rates and the value of their holdings declining.
Click here for the full story.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. shut down one banking institution at the end of last week.
Banks of Wisconsin located in Kenosha, WI, was closed by the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions, which appointed the FDIC as the receiver. To protect the depositors, the FDIC entered into agreement with North Shore Bank, FBS in Brookfield, WI, to assume all of the deposits of Banks of Wisconsin.
The former Banks of Wisconsin will reopen its two branches on Monday as North Shore Bank, FBS.
As of March 31, 2012, Banks of Wisconsin had $134 million in total assets and $127 million in total deposits.
