The report on Consumer Confidence showed a 9.6% drop from last month–meaning that people are less prone to spend money now than they were then. That’s not the case with existing home purchases, which are up 0.4% to 5.47 million units moved–the second highest level since the infamous 2007 boom. And Case Shiller reports that across the country, the average price of a home is up 5.7% from this time last year.
Speaking of infamous: Fannie Mae is set to return another $2.9 billion to the Treasury Department next month, which will bring the total amount that the agencies have returned to the government since the TARP bailout to $147.6 billion. Estimates of what the agencies actually received is around $86 billion, and that implementing the program cost taxpayers $187 billion. Meaning that it allegedly cost the government $100 billion to administer the cutting of two checks that total $86 billion.
