Morning Report: Foreclosures continue to decline 11/17/15

Posted on November 17, 2015 by Brent Nyitray

Markets are higher this morning after good numbers out of Wal Mart and the Home Despot. Bonds and MBS are down.

Russia and France are going to coordinate military operations against ISIS.

Foreclosures fell to 1.88% of all homes with a mortgage in the third quarter, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. While we are approaching normalcy, we still have a ways to go to get there. That said, I wonder how many of the homes left in foreclosure will ever sell. Many have been vacant for years and are in areas where the population is leaving.

Mortgage delinquencies fell to 4.99% from 5.3% as well.

The National Association of Homebuilders sentiment index slipped to 62 in November from 64 in October.

Inflation remains well-controlled, as the Consumer Price Index came in at 0.2% MOM in October and is up 1.9% YOY. Real average weekly earnings were up 2.1%.

Industrial production fell 0.2% in October, while manufacturing production increase 0.4%. Utilities and mining dragged down the industrial production numbers. Capacity Utilization fell to 77.5%.

Yes, house prices are approaching their 2006 highs. Do we need to worry about another bubble? The Fed says no. The bubble years were fueled by an expansion of mortgage credit, while this time around we aren’t seeing that. Two other indicators: the house price to rent ratio and mortgage debt to personal income ratios are both well below the bubble years. I have always said bubbles are a psychological phenomenon. People have to believe an asset class is “special” and cannot go down in value. That isn’t the case anymore.

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33 Responses

  1. Michigoose, on November 17, 2015 at 9:28 am said:

    Ahhhhhhh. Frist!

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    • ScottC, on November 17, 2015 at 10:05 am said:

      Mich:

      Per our PL discussion yesterday, I remain interested in examples of the political right’s “vileness” towards Muslims, comparable to the political left’s attempts to use government to destroy businesses run according to Christian values.

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  2. jnc4p, on November 17, 2015 at 9:48 am said:

    Congrats.

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  3. Michigoose, on November 17, 2015 at 10:04 am said:

    Thanks, jnc. It’s a small thing, but sometimes it’s the small things in life.

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  4. jnc4p, on November 17, 2015 at 11:08 am said:

    When you’ve lost Eugene Robinson:

    “Obama’s tone in addressing the Paris atrocity was all wrong. At times he was patronizing, at other times he seemed annoyed and almost dismissive. The president said, essentially, that he had considered all the options and decided that even a large-scale terrorist attack in the heart of a major European capital was not enough to make him reconsider his policy.”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/what-would-obamas-critics-do/2015/11/16/c3144028-8ca1-11e5-ae1f-af46b7df8483_story.html

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    • ScottC, on November 17, 2015 at 1:32 pm said:

      jnc:

      Interesting interview with President Obama

      Tough, thought provoking questions. I imagine he really had to think twice about granting an interview to a sycophantic sports reporter.

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  6. novahockey, on November 17, 2015 at 11:27 am said:

    In thinking about the press response to Paris and Obama’s comments, I’ve concluded that the only reason the press is critical now is that they can envision themselves among the victims. it’s “hey, i go to concerts and enjoy Parisian cafes. that could have been me. my child might spend a semester abroad in a European city”

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  7. jnc4p, on November 17, 2015 at 11:43 am said:

    David Frum’s column after Charlie Hebdo is still spot on. This is exactly how the left/progressives think:

    “On first reading, then, Trudeau is presenting us with a clear and executable moral theory:

    1. Identify the bearer of privilege.

    2. Hold the privilege-bearer responsible.”

    http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/why-garry-trudeau-is-wrong-about-charlie-hebdo/390336/

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  8. novahockey, on November 17, 2015 at 11:52 am said:

    ” the responsibility for their actions shifts to the people they targeted, robbing them of agency”

    the agency bit is spot on. and it’s a core tenent of the left.

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  9. jnc4p, on November 17, 2015 at 1:07 pm said:

    Pretty good piece:

    “America’s wisest presidents have defined their enemies narrowly, even when that means cooperating with nasty regimes.”

    http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/11/democrats-republicans-isis-paris/416361/

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  10. jnc4p, on November 17, 2015 at 2:18 pm said:

    I find his constant belief that his failures are solely due to not communicating his polices better (which of course are self evidently the correct police) to be telling.

    It dovetails nicely with the assessment from the Holbrooke documentary. You can’t tell him anything.

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    • ScottC, on November 17, 2015 at 2:46 pm said:

      jnc:

      It dovetails nicely with the assessment from the Holbrooke documentary.

      Damn. Forgot to watch that last night. Tonight.

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      • markinaustin, on November 17, 2015 at 3:05 pm said:

        Apparently he [usually] listened to Gates, as did GWB. Good run while Gates was SecDef, not so much before and after.

        Yeah, I’m the guy who said Robert Gates should be POTUS. So forgive me if I think pre-Gates and post Gates has been a sort of hole for American global policy.

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  11. jnc4p, on November 17, 2015 at 2:19 pm said:

    Some one at Salon actually gets it.

    “It’s becoming increasingly difficult to talk honestly about Islam. For liberals in particular, it’s a kind of heresy to suggest that Islam, at this particular moment in history, has a problem. This is unfortunate, and it has to end.

    All religions are not the same. All faith traditions are not equally wise or equally tolerant or equally peaceful. A fundamentalist Jain is not the same as a fundamentalist Christian. A devout Quaker and a committed Wahhabist have very different ideas about justice and equality and morality. And to the extent that Quakers and Wahhabists live by the light of these ideas, the differences between them are vast and consequential.

    All of this should be obvious to anyone paying attention, and yet it isn’t.”

    http://www.salon.com/2015/11/17/the_left_has_an_islam_problem_if_liberals_wont_come_to_terms_with_religious_extremism_the_xenophobic_right_will_carry_the_day/

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    • ScottC, on November 17, 2015 at 3:27 pm said:

      jnc (from Salon):

      All religions are not the same. All faith traditions are not equally wise or equally tolerant or equally peaceful.

      Reihan Salam over at NRO has a post related to this, pointing out the conflicting positions that liberals take in relation to it.

      If one favors welcoming refugees out of humanitarian concern, I suppose one could be entirely indifferent as to whether or not the refugees in question have social attitudes that are sharply at variance with the host society. But it does seem as though liberals who see transgender and gay rights as a high priority issue ought to give these social attitudes at least some consideration. Moreover, it is not just attitudes towards transgender and gay rights that separate people from the Arab world from people living in the rich market democracies of Europe and North America — it is also attitudes towards women’s rights and much else. One could argue that the U.S. and other countries should not just tolerate but welcome vigorous opposition to, say, same-sex civil marriage, and that an influx of refugees with conservative attitudes would enrich our public conversation. I’m just not sure all liberals would see things that way if they gave the social attitudes of migrants some thought.

      http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/427215/do-social-values-migrants-matter-reihan-salam

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  12. novahockey, on November 17, 2015 at 2:43 pm said:

    “All of this should be obvious to anyone paying attention, and yet it isn’t.”

    But it is. they just don’t want to see it. why? see your linked Frum piece.

    but, i take comfort that they make no distinction between me and the Al’s of the world. should it come to that, we’ll be lined up together.

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  14. Michigoose, on November 18, 2015 at 7:35 am said:

    Based on this morning’s events, looks like we need to add Belgium and Morocco to the list of countries from which we won’t accept immigrants.

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    • ScottC, on November 18, 2015 at 8:04 am said:

      Mich:

      Based on this morning’s events, looks like we need to add Belgium and Morocco to the list of countries from which we won’t accept immigrants.

      The troublesome characteristic is not nationality, Mich. That the left is unaware of that fact is really quite astounding.

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  15. Kevin S. Willis, on November 18, 2015 at 8:01 am said:

    @Michigoose: ultimately, we’d have to add every country to that list, because they will at least attempt to infiltrate through any crack. And likely be successful at some point.

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  16. Kevin S. Willis, on November 18, 2015 at 8:02 am said:

    @mcwing: Who hasn’t wanted to conduct a terrorist attack against a newspaper for publishing cartoons? That just makes good sense. We just have to expect that.

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  17. Let the mutherfuker burn!, on November 18, 2015 at 8:21 am said:

    Has the EU’s open borders worked out well for them?

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  19. Kevin S. Willis, on November 18, 2015 at 8:27 am said:

    @Scottc1: “The troublesome characteristic is not nationality, Mich. That the left is unaware of that fact is really quite astounding.”

    Aren’t the GOP governors and congress-critters mostly talking about Syrian refugees and excluding them specifically (or putting their immigration “on pause”)?

    Ultimately, any litmus test is not going to work because we’re dealing with an enemy that has no compunction against stealth and fakery (and an ability to get the required forged documents).

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    • ScottC, on November 18, 2015 at 9:20 am said:

      KW:

      Aren’t the GOP governors and congress-critters mostly talking about Syrian refugees and excluding them specifically (or putting their immigration “on pause”)?

      Yes, but only because “Syrian” is a reasonable proxy for “Muslim”. 90% of the Syrian population is Muslim. If we were talking about a nation in which 90% of the refugees were Buddhists, the discussion would be entirely different.

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  20. Let the mutherfuker burn!, on November 18, 2015 at 8:33 am said:

    See if they’ll bake a cake for a gay wedding. If yes, let them in.

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  21. Let the mutherfuker burn!, on November 18, 2015 at 8:34 am said:

    Ultimately, any litmus test is not going to work because we’re dealing with an enemy that has no compunction against stealth and fakery (and an ability to get the required forged documents).

    Answers itself, don’t it?

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  23. Kevin S. Willis, on November 18, 2015 at 9:02 am said:

    @mcwing: As usually, Kevin Williamson’s thinking is rational and sound. No wonder the left hates him!

    Right under that, from Ramesh: “The president has said some very encouraging things about free speech on campus. His Education Department has undermined it.”

    http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-11-18/who-s-to-blame-for-pc-culture

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  24. Kevin S. Willis, on November 18, 2015 at 9:05 am said:

    @mcwing: “Answers itself, don’t it?”

    Either do nothing or close the borders. The latter probably can’t be done, alas.

    My personal sense is the only option of many bad options is to keep intelligence at hand and bombers at the ready. Every time there’s any kind of terrorist attack, we bomb anyplace we think ISIS might be or might want to be or might have ben. And with a lot more than 20 bombs. We articulate a policy of “terrorist attacks on US soil are an invitation for us to bomb you and everybody you know and every place you’ve ever lived. Possibly even Belgium.”

    Or something like that. The French response, only with a lot more bombs.

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  25. Kevin S. Willis, on November 18, 2015 at 9:07 am said:

    @McWing: “See if they’ll bake a cake for a gay wedding. If yes, let them in.”

    I wonder what the response to that would be. Everybody coming in has to agree to participate in a gay wedding and agree that Caitlyn Jenner is a global hero. And that women are smarter and better than men in every way. Also that the holocaust happened and was very bad.

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