No Truth Coming From Mortgage Bankers Ass.

Courtesy of Lee Adler of the Wall Street Examiner 

Apparently the MBAss (Mortgage Bankers Association) didn't like the fact that someone in the financial blogo-wackosphere actually had the temerity to make use of real, hard data, that they hadn't massaged. Now, not only do they not report the actual index level of their seasonally smoothed applications indexes, the charts of the not seasonally adjusted indexes have disappeared from Bloomberg.com in the past week. I doubt that Bloomberg would have pulled them on their own. Seems more likely that the MBAss wasn't too happy about anyone actually reporting the truth. So unless Bloomberg relents or I can find the data elsewhere, it looks like last week's report will be the last time we get to see what the actual purchase applications look like.

For now, I'll return to looking at the seasonally smoothed data which, while not the actual numbers, should give us an idea of the trend. The MBAss stopped reporting the actual index levels about a year ago, but they still report the weekly percentage changes, so it is possible to reproduce a close approximation of their index.

Of course, if the news gets bad enough, like if purchase apps drop to new lows, they can always stop publicizing the data altogether. These are after all, the very same people who brought us the housing crisis in the first place. Things like fudging, lying, cheating, stealing, and committing fraud are part of their natural order. Getting the truth out--not so much. In fact, before joining the organization a prospective member needs to pass a sociopathy test.

The seasonally adjusted mortgage purchase applications graph broke a long term downtrend line this week, but it remains below the one year moving average, which is flat. While the trend of purchase applications has apparently stopped weakening, it hasn't turned up. Comparing the week ended November 4 with the same week last year, applications are down 2.9%. They remain down over 65% from the May 2005 peak. Furthermore, taking into account the 18% of deals that the NAR is reporting have recently been falling through, versus 9% a year ago, and an increase in cash deals of about 1% since last year, effectively purchases are down by around 11%.

That's not the news the housing industry wants to hear, and certainly not news it wants potential market participants to hear. So organizations like the MBASS do their best to hide it, because it's the truth, and from their perspective, you can't handle it.

Lee posted his housing market update for subscribers to the Professional Edition yesterday. That report includes the relevant housing market data from the past month. Get regular updates on the US housing market, and stay up to date with the machinations of the Fed, Treasury, Primary Dealers and foreign central banks in the US market, in the Fed Report in the Professional Edition, Money Liquidity, and Real Estate Package. Get the research and analysis you need to understand these critical forces...stay ahead of the herd. Click this link to try WSE’s Professional Edition risk free for 30 days! 

Comments

[merchantratereview]

When whores I knew in 2007 were getting into da mortgage biz I knew we were at the top.

[GMadScientist]

Biblically?

[Bansters-in-my-...]

Ilene...

Are you pimping oother people again...?

[PulauHantu29]

"Naturally, the holders of the debt are a bit nervous. And who holds it? Banks. That’s right. The same banks that bought housing derivatives and brought the whole world’s financial system to the brink of collapse. Now, they’ve got government debt up the kazoo. And once again, the world’s financial system edges towards a fall."

From The Daily Reckoning by Bill Bonner

[RafterManFMJ]

Let's get this party jumpin'
Let's see some 40 chuggin'

I wanna see your booty rubbing
Against my dick when I start buzzin'

Come on girls I wanna see you drinkin'
I wanna see your brain start shrinkin'
Make a move, I saw you winkin'
Drunken pussy's what I'm thinkin'

I don't give a fuck if you're drunk or not
Turn it up loud feel the ambiance
Grab two hoe's and do some body shots
I wanna party all night until they call the cops

From Everywhere I Go by Hollywood Undead

[GMadScientist]

Yawn...

Who gives a fuck if I ain't got no job

'cept slangin' rock out in front of the club?

I spend all I make on booze and dub

and then wonder I gots no duckets to rub.

Drunken pussy is way to loose

and a 40 gets you nothin but a big caboose

over which you can wax that DNA

lest the babymomma send you a bill to pay.

Now I'm sittin' in the drunk tank rubbin' my jaw

because I tried to give the finger to Johnny Law

so they threw my dumb ass in the back of they car

maybe I should've been smarter back in the bar.

[TheMerryPrankster]

A modern day Shakespeare....

"Let every eye negotiate for itself
And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch
Against whose charms faith melteth in blood."

[GMadScientist]

"Come, thou monarch of the vine, Plumpy Bacchus with pink eye."

[jimmyjames]

This is a positive sign in a weird sort of way-

It means the market is working efficiently as always-

Ripping apart the scam-forcing the vermin to hide the fraud in dark corners while the market prices the value of the collateral that underpins the whole shitshow and it could care less what the "association" wants the value to be-

[Rainman]

The whole world is pimping something round the clock.

Meanwhile the People's Republik of Kali whiffs the budget by 1.5 billion fiatscos....only 4 months in

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-10/california-revenue-collection-1-5-billion-below-budget-controller-says.html

[DeadFred]

Not good for the state. Brown may be a left-wing whacko but his is fairly honest for a politician so unlike the MBAss he's likely to make the cuts his budget promised. All the kids will like the extra week off school.

[the not so migh...]

Ilenes Ass.=HOT

Bankers Ass.=not hot

[CIABS]

dear zerohedge:

you might want to reconsider abbreviating the word "Association" in the headline of this article, as it might be misread by some in a way that was not intended.

yours truly,

CIABS

[HD]

Tyler didn't abbreviate. He simply forgot to add "holes"...

[NotApplicable]

Unintended? Given all the shit they talk, it's not likely.

[V4Vendeta]

Rectum perhaps

[RafterManFMJ]

Rectum?! Damn near killed 'em!

[chunga]

This has been seen by everyone by now...but I can't resist...lol.

The Mortgage Bankers Association strategically defaults on its loan after shaming homeowners who do the same.

Too funny.

[doggings]

even funnier when seen in context with Schiff's seminal mortgage bankers conference speech in Nov 06

were they listening...?  :)

[lotsoffun]

thanks.  that was funny!  or sad...

[eatthebanksters]

Perfect!

[honestann]

Wow, that's just brilliant, and amazing... and typical.  I hadn't seen that before.  Guess that's cuz I don't have a TV.  This needs to be played over and over and over again on mainstream media until regular folks realize what absolute, complete, utter predators enslave them.  Thanks for the link.

[V4Vendeta]

So, the sociopath test for prospective members of the MBA is, to make sure they are sociopaths?

[ilene]

apparently. 

[V4Vendeta]

Love to get my hands on the application form.

[MrBinkeyWhat]

Gees, you think it is all BS? /sarc NOT

[4shzl]

Nice work, Lee.

[NOTW777]

http://www.mrc.org/bmi/articles/2011/Mini_Ponzi_Scheme_Takes_Down_NJ_Dem...

[covert]

the scams and envy are just getting started, putting Your Liberty at Risk.

http://expose2.wordpress.com

[metastar]

Is it mathematically feasible to use the old non-smoothed data series combined with the latest smoothed data point to determine the latest actual numbers?

[TheMerryPrankster]

If you've got the original data and the smoothed numbers, you could reverse engineer the modeling process being used so that you can "back" the original data out of the current smoothed model, assuming they haven't changed their modeling.