USDA loans have had a rollercoaster year in 2010 with a resurgence in interest for the program, followed by an abrupt lack of funding that halted the loan program for the better part of the spring and summer. It appears, however, that USDA loans are...

Many new investors may be surprised to hear that an incredibly strong correlation exists between real estate markets and the foreign-exchange (FX) market. The primary driver of both real estate markets and the FX Market is risk. When investors are willing...

The IRS has introduced Roth conversions to the people but does not target any specific income group and also given an option for three years in 2010 to pay taxes on the conversion. The investors or hoarders are showing a lot of interest of transferring...

The following is a guest post by Jeff Bowman of TheGreatLoanBlog . If you like the following post, show your appreciation with comments. Ten's of millions of luxury homeowners have adjusted from an ARM with a fixed rate period into a fully adjustable...

OK, so when I said "this coming Friday," I actually meant "a couple Mondays from now." Instead of a roundup, though, I wanted to start with something a little different: A request for help. The days of going it alone are over. While the mission and...

I'm bringing back the Accrued Interest blog this coming Friday, when we'll start a weekly feature of the best articles/discussions from the bond market, mortgage world, and financial industry. With a strong readership built over the years, this can...

This may not come as a surprise to many of you since I haven't written anything in a month, but this will be my last post on Accrued Interest. The reasons why I'm shutting it down are several. First, I have taken a much more expanded role at TheStreet.com....

Is it really different this time? In other words, is this recession really different from past recessions? I argue only in terms of magnitude. It was a bad recession, but it ultimately wasn't any fundamentally different. Will the recovery be muted? I...

Well, its forecast time. I'm going to do this over the course of four posts, I think. Maybe more. This first post is going to focus on what I see for general economic growth in 2010 assuming basic conditions that exist today persist into the new year....

My post from last week on debt generated some conversation about leverage and the value of arbitrage-free prices. Basically I'm arguing that if leverage (a.k.a. trading debt) is exceedingly expensive, then arbitragers won't be able to perform their...