A report from the LA Daily News in California. "Rampant housing inflation means the federal government will now back almost million-dollar mortgages — including deals in Los Angeles and Orange counties. Note that mortgages made for vacation homes and second residences can be bought by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, so these higher loan maximums apply. It’s also worth noting that restrictions on agency purchases of mortgages for properties that aren’t the borrower’s primary residence were recently eliminated."

"The real estate transaction industry, from mortgage makers to real estate agents, will cheer this slice of government intervention because it’s good for their bottom lines. Without these government mortgage giants, homebuying would be a very different endeavor. And you could argue, federal 'help' — making financing cheaper — actually boosts prices and hurts the chances of many homeowner wannabes. Will anybody ever want to discuss how misguided government support for housing can be? Ponder this example: In an era of a purported housing shortage, why provide any financial support for second-home purchases, no less upping the size of the subsidized mortgages?"

From National Mortgage News. "While some companies with cyclical growth prospects such as non-qualified mortgage specialist Angel Oak continue to report expansion, thinning profit margins and layoffs at companies like Better and Interfirst suggest housing-finance companies are more generally experiencing a squeeze in their bottom lines and are budgeting less for personnel as result. 'Cost cutting is again becoming a priority for issuers and vendors as we head into 2022,' said Chris Whalen, chairman of Whalen Global Advisors."

From CNN Business. "Better.com CEO Vishal Garg announced the mortgage company is laying off about 9% of its workforce on a Zoom webinar Wednesday abruptly informing the more than 900 employees on the call they were being terminated just before the holidays. 'If you're on this call, you are part of the unlucky group that is being laid off,' Garg said. 'Your employment here is terminated effective immediately.'"

From the University of Dayton. "My husband and I had heard all the exciting stories. We never in a million years thought we’d get lucky enough to profit off it. That is, until our tenants called one night. 'We’re moving to Florida,' they said. My husband couldn’t believe our good fortune. Four years prior, we couldn’t give away this house. Now, not only would we finally be able to sell it, but we would make some money off it."

"As soon as we hung up with our tenants, we sped dialed our realtor—the cold hard cash from this burgeoning housing market already burning holes through our pockets. We would book our dream trip to Hawaii, pay off those college loans from twenty years ago and buy that Peloton I had my eye on. Our rental house officially hit the market a few days later, and we waited three whole hours for our full-price offer and subsequent bidding war to roll in."

"After three weeks, our house sat empty. Not even one showing. 'Why don’t you bring the price down a little bit?' the realtor asked us after the fourth week of no showings. 'What, like a thousand dollars?' I asked. We ended the conversation by agreeing to cut twenty thousand dollars off the asking price. Bye-bye, trip to Hawaii. A week later, we had a few more showings but no offers."

"With no other choice, since the house’s mortgage bills were coming in faster than my daughter’s crooked teeth, we cut another five thousand dollars off the asking price. Price cut after price cut, we were creeping dangerously close to what we initially overpaid for it. A few weeks later, we finally got the call. 'Full price?' I asked. 'Not exactly,' the realtor said. We settled a month later. In case you’re wondering, we don’t own a Peloton."

From Bloomberg. "Austin is at the center of America’s great migration. That’s sparking the biggest homebuilding boom in Texas history. 'We’re calling this the high-risk, high-reward part of the cycle — this is the time you can make a lot of money,' said John Burns, a building-industry consultant based in Irvine, California. 'The risk if you’re a homebuilder buying land is that if the market turns you’re stuck with it.'"

The Vancouver Sun. "Bank of Canada deputy governor Paul Beaudry last week expressed concern about the way investors have flooded into housing. But, as Vancouver housing market analyst Steve Saretsky says, the Bank of Canada is not taking responsibility for the way it has encouraged people during the pandemic to pour money into housing by setting extremely low interest rates and, through a process known as quantitative easing, has effectively been printing $5 billion worth of new money each week, to head off a slowdown. The bank has finally said it intends to stop doing so."

"Saretsky said: 'We’ve now tried a foreign buyers tax, empty homes tax, speculation tax, mortgage stress test, record new home completions, and yet house prices continue to push higher. We’ve tried everything but raise the cost of borrowing money. Imagine that.' 'Remember in 2018, mortgage rates hit 3.5 per cent and everyone thought they were going to four per cent? What happened that year?' Saretsky asks. 'Home sales in Greater Vancouver fell to an 18-year low. And in the Greater Toronto area, home sales fell to their lowest total in a decade. Not surprising that two highly levered housing markets slumped as borrowing costs ramped up.'"

The Telegraph. "The Bank of England is poised to loosen mortgage lending rules introduced in the wake of the financial crisis, in a move economists have warned risks sparking a housing bubble. Martin Beck at the EY Item Club said the move would be 'odd given how loose mortgage lending has been – it has not been hard to get a loan.'"

From The Street. "Late on Friday, the time companies release news if they want it to be buried, Evergrande released a statement warning that, given its current financial situation, 'there is no guarantee that the Group will have sufficient funds to continue to perform its financial obligations.' Time ran out on Monday for a much-smaller developer, Sunshine 100 China Holdings. The Beijing-based developer had already missed payments for the principal and premium on convertible bonds that came due on August 11. The outstanding principal of US$170 million and accrued unpaid interest of US$8.925 million was deferred to December 5. But the company is still unable to pay back the principal or the accrued interest, even given that extension. 'As a result, an event of default has taken place,' the company said."

From Bloomberg. "One risk is that Beijing may not have a full picture of how indebted Evergrande and its peers have become. The Shenzhen-based developer indicated in its exchange filing on Friday that it may not be able to fulfill its pledge to guarantee payment on a $260 million note issued by joint venture Jumbo Fortune Enterprises, an obligation that many Evergrande investors didn’t even know existed until a few months ago."

From Express. "Dr Marco Metzler, senior analyst for Deutsche Markt Screening Agentur (DMSA), said $23.7billion in international bonds is now at risk. Dr Metzler, who has also invested in Evergrande, had previously told Express the property giant had missed five deadlines for bond interest repayments. The five repayments total £110million and Dr Metzler warned the collapse of Evergrande could send shockwaves throughout the global financial system."

"Commenting on Evergrande's statement to the stock index, Dr Metzler said: 'We are vindicated by this official statement. We have still not received the interest on our bonds, although it has been widely reported in the press that interest payments have been made on bonds where interest payments were past due in October and November 2021. This declaration represents an event of default for all 23 outstanding international bonds valued at $23.7billion. Almost all will be lost and also has huge implications for the CDS markets and Evergrande bonds used as a collective, as mentioned in my last two posts.'"

From New Zealand City. "A new survey shows more than 80 percent think house prices are too high ... in light of the average price doubling to one-million dollars in seven years. Forty percent of people think the Government needs to intervene and force prices down. But Independent Economist Tony Alexander says that's ridiculous. He says they'd have to strip independence off the Reserve Bank which would have seriously bad consequences."

From Telangana Today in India. "In a tragic incident, four of a family committed suicide in Sangareddy district on Thursday night. The victims were identified as Chandrakanth (39) and Lavanya (35), natives of Garlapally in Munipally Mandal and their children Pratham (8) and Sarvagnya. Chandrakanth, who was working as Software Engineer in TCS Company at Gachibowli, had settled down in the BHEL area in Ramachandrapuram Mandal. However, Chandrakanth reportedly invested in real estate recently, but he did not get desired profits in the business."

"When he was struggling financially, Chanrakanth and his wife had a serious argument on the same issue on Thursday night. In a fit of rage, Lavanya left their home at Garlpally along with his two children. When she called his neighbours to know what Chandrakanth was doing, the neighbours told her that Chandrakanth committed suicide by hanging."

"Shocked over the development, Lavanya has jumped into Andole tank after throwing her two children on Thursday night. On Friday morning, the fishermen found two dead bodies floating in the water body. After informing their family members, the fishermen also fished out another body. A pall of gloom descended on Garlapally village as an entire family ended life."