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.

Housing opinion likely to annoy everybody

Mortgage market commentary

May 11

Housing's a drag, not a killer

Mortgage market commentary

May 4

How much worse can housing get?

Mortgage market commentary

Apr 27

Too-good-to-be-true loans end an era

Mortgage market commentary

Apr 20

Conflicting data ties mortgage forecast in knots

Mortgage market commentary

Apr 13

Rates rise even as economy looks 'wobbly'

Mortgage market commentary

Apr 6

Bernanke's take on economy

Testimony puts scare into bond market

Mar 30

Housing is weak, but not collapsing

Mortgage market commentary

Mar 23

Housing to be a multiyear economic drag

Mortgage market commentary

Mar 16

This week's dirt in mortgage markets

Commentary: Long-term rates rising quickly

Mar 9

Too little equity, stagnant prices bring trouble

Mortgage market commentary

Mar 2

Wall Street most at risk in housing downturn

Mortgage market commentary

Feb 26

Housing is 'wild card' for Fed

Mortgage market commentary

Feb 19

Trouble seen in piggyback second mortgages

Mortgage market commentary

Feb 9

Housing reality: neither bubble nor bottom

Mortgage market commentary

Jan 26

Commentary: 'Housing risk ain't over'

Bubble babble is dead, but we haven't turned the corner yet

Jan 22

Oil, retail sales add grease to housing

Mortgage market commentary

Jan 12

Forget a rate cut any time soon

Mortgage market commentary

Jan 5

Iraq and housing's impact on economy

Mortgage market commentary

Dec 28

Housing still far from hitting bottom

Mortgage market commentary

Dec 15

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