Driven largely by the federal government's first-time homebuyer tax credit, existing-home sales showed another big gain in October, while inventories continued to decline, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported Monday. Sales of previously owned homes have trended steadily upward for seven months now. According to NAR's market data, resales of single-family residences, townhomes, condos, and co-op properties surged 10.1 percent to an annual rate of 6.10 million units in October, compared to a 5.54 million unit sales pace in September. NAR says sales activity is the highest it's been since February 2007.
Last week marked the first sale of commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) in more than a year and already it seems to have sparked renewed interest in the previously stagnant secondary market for commercial real estate. Bank of America is pulling together the market's second new CMBS deal - a $460 million issuance backed by office and industrial properties in Florida. With this recent movement coming to what was previously a firmly gridlocked secondary market for commercial real estate bonds, analysts say liquidity could return to the commercial sector much sooner than anticipated.
Only one bank was shut down by regulators Friday - Commerce Bank of Southwest Florida in Fort Myers, Florida. The single failure pushes the total number of institutional closures in 2009 to 124, but was a rare departure from the typical multiple bank collapses that have characterized most weekends since the start of the year.
On Thursday in a United States District Court, Kevin M. O'Connell of Albany, New York, pled guilty to felony charges of laundering of monetary instruments in connection with his role in a mortgage fraud scheme which defrauded financial institutions and mortgage lenders of over $5.3 million in loans from July 2003 to December 2007.
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