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No sign of 'weapons of mass inflation'

By Lou Barnes, Friday, January 30, 2009.
Flickr photo by <a href="http://flickr.com/photos/jenrab/3062850686/" target=blank>jen_rab</a>.

Long-term Treasury yields blew up this week, along with mortgage rates. In two weeks, the 10-year Treasury-note has jumped from 2.25 percent to 2.85 percent, and mortgages from sub-5 percent to 5.5 percent (even that costs a 1 percent fee today), shutting down refinances altogether. Not even the all-time lows had created demand for purchase loans.

There are good odds that this move is temporary; even so, why did it happen?  more...

Home prices fall hard in Phoenix, S.F.

By Inman News, Friday, January 30, 2009.

An index measuring the price per square foot of homes in 25 U.S. metro areas declined in every location except Milwaukee in November 2008 compared to November 2007.

Several other price and sales reports reveal a pattern of record-low activity in some market metrics as the housing market crawls through one of the slowest periods since the Great Depression.  more...

Truth about home fixture warranties

By Paul Bianchina, Friday, January 30, 2009.

Warranties are something we see on a myriad of home improvement products, from roofing and siding to faucets and electrical outlets. They're intended to give the consumer some specific legal recourse should the product fail to perform properly, as well as some general psychological peace of mind.

But how valuable are warranties? Do they cover what you think they do, and can you rely on them to really protect your financial investment in the event of a problem? The truth is: probably not as much as you'd hoped.

READ, READ, READ  more...

Sorry state of architecture school

By Arrol Gellner, Friday, January 30, 2009.

Back during my school days at U.C. Berkeley's College of Environmental Design, one of our final class assignments was a project for a hypothetical cultural center. The program was elaborate, requiring dozens of spaces, large and small. I spent a good part of the allotted three weeks coming up with an unassailable floor plan before finally moving on to -- as architects like to put it -- expressing my solution in three dimensions.  more...

FBI: Fannie target of malicious code

By Matt Carter, Friday, January 30, 2009.

A software engineer fired from his job as a contractor for Fannie Mae is accused of planting a malicious script that would have wiped out the data on all 4,000 of the company's servers and halted the processing of mortgages for at least a week had it not been discovered, authorities said.

Rajendrasinh Babubhai Makwana, who was employed by OmniTech as a contractor at Fannie Mae's Urbana, Md. facility for three years, is accused of planting the script on Oct. 24.  more...