Lou Barnes

Contributor

After five years as Marketing Manager of a mountaineering clothing and equipment manufacturer and retailer (a great way to enjoy your 20s), Lou Barnes built 45-broker, two-office Spruce Real Estate in Colorado from 1978-83, spending most of his time guiding the firm through extremely high interest rates. The world of money was more fun for him than real estate, and Barnes sold Spruce and joined investment banking ranks for five years as Managing Partner of RCM Government Securities, a broker-dealer working on the early flow of mortgages to Wall Street and their related derivatives. Two of those years involved work on the heart of the savings and loan meltdown -- one of the "consultants" commuting to Texas, Arkansas and other Southwestern garden spots (fortunately, he spoke the language: his family were Okies), he was asked to figure out how deep the hole was going to be. He wrote one of the earliest accurate estimates of the ultimate cost in 1986, and was one of the first to address the necessary asset workouts. Some people thrive in a career on airplanes, and Barnes was not one of them. In 1988 the homebody began another career as a mortgage banker in Boulder, just in time to catch the terrible peak of foreclosures afflicting the greater "Oil Patch" and "Savings and Loan Belt." The firm, Boulder West, survived and thrived as a small mortgage bank -- very old-fashioned, strictly "A" paper, and based on long-term relationships with Realtors and past clients. Even with that strength, Boulder West closed in 2009, and Lou and many of his colleagues joined far-larger Premier Mortgage Group. As a marketing tool and for sanity, Lou has written a weekly column on the financial markets every Friday for 20 years.

TRIDisaster

The CFPB's attempt to simplify lending has backfired

Jan 25

Exhausted markets got a break last week

By spring or summer, we may look back at January as the Great 2016 Head-Fake

Jan 25

Stock market tips for real estate agents: 9 things to disregard, and 1 to remember

Big shifts in the stock market had clients -- and, therefore, real estate agents and brokers -- worried yesterday. Oil dropped to its lowest price point since 2003 (below $27 a barrel), and stock sell-offs around the world led to some wild fluctuations. Big shifts in the stock market had clients -- and, therefore, real estate agents and brokers -- worried yesterday. Oil dropped to its lowest price point since 2003 (below $27 a barrel), and stock sell-offs around the world led to some wild fluctuations. So what's it mean, and what should you tell clients?

Jan 21

10 things every Realtor should know about China's economy

What happens in China this year could be more important than what happens here

Jan 18

Mortgage rates down 1/4 percent since first of year

The prospect of even gradual rate hikes may be the trigger for this stock sell-off

Jan 15

Mortgage applications jumped 21.3% yesterday -- really?!

How to parse the numbers you saw about mortgage purchase applications

Jan 14

Foreclosure starts drop to 10-year low

November 2015 saw the lowest total foreclosure starts since Black Knight began tracking data

Jan 12

Mortgage rates went down this week; here's why

The disconnect between markets, data and the Fed has widened

Jan 8

Mortgages fall close to 4.00%

Bad news takes rates down, and that’s (mostly) good for mortgages and real estate

Jan 4

How rising interest rates and China's growth will affect US market in 2016

In our racket, the Fed is paramount

Jan 4

What real estate agents should care about in 2016

Let's not pretend that we can predict the future, but here are 10 things to think about next year

Dec 30

Opinion

'Winter sales are down,' and it's December Fool's Day

Slower sales in December are normal, not cause for alarm

Dec 29

Boomers' home equity has repercussions for millennial buyers

Be careful: Reverses have a place, but it’s a far narrower window than the usual

Dec 28

4 things you need to know about existing-home sales data

Annualized, adjusted data can be tough to decipher

Dec 23

Interest rates have lifted off: This week in the market

We have liftoff. The long and short of it follow -- short first. The immediate reaction to the Fed’s first hike in 1- years, from a band “0 percent to .25 percent” to .50 percent: The prime rate moved mechanically to 3.50 percent, rising in lockstep as it will after each future increase in Fed funds.

Dec 18

Millennial homebuying intentions: The good and the bad

We have seen two new reports in the last 48 hours about the homebuying intentions and behavior of younger households presently renting.

Dec 18

Interest rates went up -- so what's next?

There will be 3 more rate hikes in 2016, and the Fed funds rate will be about 1.25 percent at the end of next year

Dec 16

The Fed: 9 things every real estate agent needs to say to clients

Protect your buyers and sellers from the yelling by giving them straight facts

Dec 15

The financial world would prefer to remain in fetal curl, but events intrude

The big deal next Wednesday: Fed hints at the future pace of tightening