Single Family Months for Sale

Before 2000, the NAR only has inventory data on Single Family Homes. Here is the data since in started in June 1982. Clearly, they must have started to collect the data due to the large amount of inventory. Note that most of the inventory was of occupied homes for sale.

New Mortgage Backed Security

From Calculated Risk blog:

New Offering: Bullet Proof Mortgage Backed Securities

This is the first mortgage backed security in the last two years without government support.

There is very interesting documentation of the mortgages behind the securities:

SEC Filing

Check the properties of the mortgages beginning on page 15!

Sunday Irish Lion

Reminder:

Today we have presentations at the Irish Lion starting at 8:00.

Try to get there before 8:00 so that we can order food and drink and get the presentations started earlier rather than later.

We will be upstairs in the small room looking over the street.

See you there!

Sample Presentation

The Panic of 1907

Project Schedule and Topics Chosen

The current schedule and projects chosen so far can be seen here.

update (Friday Afternoon): I am continually update the list as topics are chosen.

(updated 7:00 pm Sun. April 11)

Suggested Topics

Reminder: you need to have a chosen topic by Friday April 9.

Here are some suggested topics:

How the crisis unfolded/impacted other countries:

• Iceland
• United Kingdom
• Eastern Europe: especially Latvia and Estonia
• Spain
• China
• Japan
  

Policy taken in the aftermath of the crisis:

Treasury/Federal Government Programs

• TARP: give us more detail and the subsequent results than we have seen in class so far
• HAMP: the program to prevent foreclosures
• The stimulus bill
• The bailout of the auto industry
• Cash for Clunkers
• First-time Home Purchases
  

US Federal Reserve Actions

• TAF: Term auction facility
• Commercial Paper actions
• TALF: Fed purchases of asset backed securites (non-mortgage)
  
• Mortgage Purchases

The FDIC and all of the bank closings

Actions taken in the UK.

Actions take in China.

The impact of the crisis on International Trade.

Some possible causes that we did not cover in class:

• China and Savings Glut
• Did the Fed keep rates too low for too long in 2002-2005
• Regulation of Derivatives market (there is a good Frontline episode on this)
  

Earlier Crises:

• Great Depression
• Japan 1990s
• Asian Crisis late 1990s
  
• Scandinavian Bank Crisis 1989-1991
• 1907 Banking Panic
• Savings and Loan Crisis
• Latin American Crises (there are a lot, see "This time..."

Proposals being put forth now to change regulation:

• Plans from the UK
• Current proposals from Senator Dodd
• Volcker proposals
  

There are some ideas, of course you can also suggest something yourself.

Final Project Guidelines

For the final project I expect you to write an 8-10 page paper and give an 18 minute in class presentation about a topic relevant to the class. The project should include some empirical results, namely some numbers and hopefully a graph or two about relevant data for your topic.

The timeline for the project is as follows:

• Monday April 5: in class lottery to determine the date for each presentations, see the schedule below. We will also determine whether the first evening gathering will be Monday April 19, Monday April 26 or Tuesday April 27. For details see below.
• Monday April 19: rough draft due
• Monday April 19-April 28: presentations
• Wednesday May 5: final draft due

Presentation schedule:

There will be four presentations per class. We are having two evening classes to cover all of the presentations. The second class will be on Wednesday at 7:30 pm, location tba (maybe Irish Lion). The first class will either be Monday April 19, Monday April 26 or Tuesday April 27. We will determine the time based upon an inclass vote on Monday April 5th.

Lottery:

We will have a lottery on Monday April 5th to determine who presents when. We will do this by everyone drawing a card form a standard 52 card deck. The priority of who chooses first will by number, Ace high, and then by suit: Diamond>Heart>Spade>Club. If you do not make class on Monday April 5, you will be forced to choose from what was left over.

Class Attendance:

Attending class is mandatory during the presentations. I will be taking attendance and this will be 5% of the 20% class attendance grade. In order to avoid a penalty for not attending you will have to clear it with me before Monday April 19th.