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...Right now, the one thing that really stands out to the advantage of the industry is affordability, and if interest rates were to move up sharply from here, that would meaningfully cut into affordability," says Bob Curran, a managing director at Fitch Ratings...
Initial reactions to the plan are mixed. Bob Curran, managing director of Fitch Ratings, calls it a step in the right direction. He says principal reductions will likely be more effective in modifying loans than past efforts that involved only interest-rate cuts and extensions of loan terms. "The loan-modification effort has not been very successful to this point in time," he says. However, he believes that only a small fraction of troubled homeowners will qualify for the program. "It will probably help some additional portion of the public, but I'm not sure it's enough to make...
Many developers have already slashed prices and chopped overhead, leaving little room for further cutting, notes Bob Curran, a managing director at Fitch Ratings. "It comes down to how desperate the builders and developers are to do something like this - to take 20% off the top - when many have already cut things to the bone," he says...
Unemployment is the wild card in all of this, and that's where the outlook gets murky and experts' crystal balls differ. Karen Ghaffari, a managing director at Fitch Ratings, expects unemployment to peak in the second quarter at 10.4% before slowly starting to decline. "It will average 10.2% for the year," which will impact consumer spending and confidence, she says. Howard Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz & Associates, a retail-consulting and investment-banking firm, is even more bearish, predicting unemployment will hit 11% before it peaks. "I think we're in for a very rough year...
...Myners even said the country risks becoming a pariah state. Both Britain and Holland hinted that they may block a $10 billion International Monetary Fund rescue package for the country, and Iceland's Scandinavian neighbors shelved a $2.6 billion loan they had promised Reykjavik. On top of all that, Fitch Ratings lowered Iceland's credit grade to junk status last week. (See the worst business deals...