Housing Market: The Notorious M.A.E

It's a rough day to be working for (or invested in) Fannie Mae, that's for sure:

WASHINGTON - Employees at mortgage giant Fannie Mae manipulated accounting so that executives could collect millions in bonuses as senior management deceived investors and stonewalled regulators at a company whose prestigious image was phony, a federal agency charged Tuesday.

The blistering report by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, the product of an extensive three-year investigation, was issued as the government-sponsored company struggles to emerge from an $11 billion accounting scandal.

I certainly have nothing against any sort of oversight or smackdown of this egregious level of corruption, but you gotta wonder why Bush's DOJ is so hot to trot against Fannie and Freddie as opposed to, well, everything else. :) The idea of anyone working for John Snow calling for regulation and oversight is just hysterical.

Bubble Meter helpfully provides links to the full Fannie Mae report and press release for your reading pleasure.

Perhaps doing his part to prove that he's 2 legit 2 quit, Freddie Mac's CEO had some interesting things to say about the current market recently:

But Syron said he does not necessarily think housing prices "are peaking."
The areas at greatest risk are those where buyers have been buying residential properties with no plans to reside in them, but rather as a speculative investment, he said, citing resort areas with a fast-growing supply of condominiums as particularly vulnerable.

There's nothing there that bubble watchers don't already know, but it's gratifying to see insights like this making it into the lexicon of the "common wisdom."

Of course, Ben Bernanke is still offering mea culpas by the pound for deviating from what everyone wanted to believe, so take that with a grain of salt when you ride 4 your dead homiez. :)

Posted at May 23, 2006 02:14 PM

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It's a rough day to be working for (or invested in) Fannie Mae, that's for sure: WASHINGTON - Employees at mortgage giant Fannie Mae manipulated accounting so that executives could collect millions in bonuses as senior management deceived investors and stonewalled regulators at a company whose prestigious image was phony, a federal agency charged Tuesday. The blistering report by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, the product of an extensive three-year investigation, was issued as the government-sponsored company struggles to emerge from an $11 billion accounting scandal. I certainly have nothing against any sort of oversight or smackdown of this egregious level of corruption, but you gotta wonder why Bush's DOJ is so hot to trot against Fannie and Freddie as opposed to, well, everything else. :) The idea of anyone working for John Snow calling for regulation and oversight is just hysterical. Bubble Meter helpfully provides links to the full Fannie Mae report and press release for your reading pleasure. Perhaps doing his part to prove that he's 2 legit 2 quit, Freddie Mac's CEO had some interesting things to say about the current market recently: But Syron said he does not necessarily think housing prices "are peaking." The areas at greatest risk are those where buyers have been buying residential properties with no plans to reside in them, but rather as a speculative investment, he said, citing resort areas with a fast-growing supply of condominiums as particularly vulnerable. There's nothing there that bubble watchers don't already know, but it's gratifying to see insights like this making it into the lexicon of the "common wisdom." Of course, Ben Bernanke is still offering mea culpas by the pound for deviating from what everyone wanted to believe, so take that with a grain of salt when you ride 4 your dead homiez. :)