1. The interest rate is a price – the price of credit like the price of any good.  In a free market the price would be set like the price of any good at the intersection of the supply of funds (our savings), and demand for funds (businesses’ and individuals’ investing [...]

On Wednesday, the Fed’s Beige book was released for July and August. It summarizes reports from the 12 Federal Reserve Districts and pointed to economic activity that continues to stabilize.
Compared to the summary from the Fed’s last report 11 out of 12 regions asserted that economic activity had either stabilized or improved. Even [...]

Interview With Jim Willie
An interview with Jim Willie where we discuss the potential of bank failures emanating from the Middle East and rippling throughout the world being the catalyst for the next round of the credit contraction.
TRACE MAYER: Hey this is Trace Mayer and you’re listening to the 50th episode of the RunToGold.com podcast (mp3)and [...]

On Tuesday, the National Association of Realtors announced that the pending home sales index for June jumped 3.6 percent. The gain is the fifth such monthly gain in a row and represents the longest string of surges in six years! Year-over-year comparisons also now show improvement — up 6.7 percent since June of 2008. In [...]

On Tuesday, the National Association of Realtors announced that the pending home sales index for June jumped 3.6 percent. The gain is the fifth such monthly gain in a row and represents the longest string of surges in six years! Year-over-year comparisons also now show improvement — up 6.7 percent since June of 2008. In [...]

I have mentioned my misgivings with the Case-Shiller 20 City Real Estate Index before, but everyone now hangs on it monthly and I have had to get on board too.
I have also mentioned that I am a real estate agent in New Jersey with access to the MLS data here, and a keen follower of [...]

According to reports in the online version of the Wall Street Journal, one of the largest real-estate investment trusts in the US is seeking to raise $1 billion to invest in commercial properties.
Vornado Realty Trust, one of the biggest real-estate investment trusts in the U.S., says, it would seek “high quality assets at distressed prices.”
Vornado [...]

On June 1 we pointed to three clear markers that signified the beginning of US economic recovery. As we enter July more and more economists are also reflecting on the signs that the US economy as a whole is returning to growth.
On Tuesday, Rebecca Wilder in her excellent blog “News N Economics,” reflected, “The [...]

Some commercial real estate business is stirring again.
The deals seem to be starting small, but never-the-less they are happening.
“Until a couple of transactions settled, you didn’t have a floor in the market,” says Jeff Pacy, a broker with Preston Partners in Lutherville, MD.
According to Pacy and other commercial real estate insiders outside of Baltimore, they [...]

I have been analyzing real estate and construction since 1991. I can’t even say that our current real estate collapse is unprecedented, because to me it’s not – I went through the Asian Financial Crisis, and this is like that. As a matter of fact, the Hongkong real estate slump of 1994-95 was [...]