I’ve known Jeff Appel for many years as one of the leading mortgage consultants and experts in the New York City metro area.  Jeff is a Vice President at Bank of America Home Loans and co-host along with Cathy Hobbs of Metro Residential that airs 11am Sundays on WPIX Channel 11 in the NYC metro area.

Last week Jeff invited me to speak on a panel he was moderating and I thought he provided some invaluable insights on the state of the mortgage environment for residential housing so I asked him to join me on The Housing Helix.

I really enjoyed speaking with Orest Tomaselli, CEO, National Condo Advisors, LLC about project approvals, reserve funds, Fannie Mae, FHA and shadow inventory.  National Condo Advisors, LLC, is comprised of real estate finance and legal professionals and provides expert consultation to builders, developers, homeowners’ associations, institutional investors, lenders, and real estate firms.

His other firm National Condo Inspections, LLC provides services such as reserve studies, phase I environmental site assessments, noise studies, and flood zone solutions.

He’s going to be busy for a number of years.

A while back, Erica Ferencik cold-called me to pitch her self-published novel as blog-worthy for Matrix called Cracks in the Foundation, a humorous story of real estate broker who has listed an outhouse for sale.  She is an active real estate broker in the Boston area (including the town I grew up in, the ‘ham).  She was a stand-up comedienne for 12 years as she describes, “in a prior life.”  She has ghost-written several novels, writes articles for magazines and websites, is a prizewinning screenwriter and has performed several radio pieces for WGBH (Boston NPR affiliate) for “Morning Stories.”

I thought it would be fun to have a conversation with her, and of course, it was.

I “peel the apple” with Ana Maria Sencovici of The Apple, Peeled and end up having a great conversation about helping the real estate broker move from salesperson to trusted advisor.  She and her business partner Marie Espinal launched their blog and newsletter at the beginning of the year.  Their focus is to provide content that their clients, who are real estate agents, can use to help them stay connected with the issues of today to be more effective.

Ana Maria is passionate about their mission (and I am paraphrasing) to elevate the level of discourse in the world of Manhattan real estate covering markets trends, real estate topics and developments with a transparent and objective lens.

I concur to the “core”.

I have a great conversation with Nicholas Retsinas, Director, Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. He and his staff just released The State of the Nation’s Housing 2010, a must read overview of the challenges facing the US housing market.

Here are other resources published by JCHS.

[click to open report]

I talk “dirt” with Jane Gladstein, President of Gladstein Development Group about the process of development.   Hint: it’s not all about bricks and mortar.

Jane is a 30 year veteran who has developed such notable projects as 255 Hudson, The Sycamore, Soho 25 and the award winning 505 Greenwich.

I have a conversation with Mark Willis, a Resident Research Fellow at the Furman Center for Real Estate & Urban Policy at New York University.

He is the co-author of Improving U.S. Housing Finance through Reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: Assessing the Options along with Ingrid Gould Ellen and John Napier Tye.  This white paper was completed as part of the What Works Collaborative, a foundation-supported partnership that conducts timely research and analysis to help federal, state and local housing policy-makers frame and implement evidence-based housing and urban policy agendas.

The paper is essential reading as we go through a period of financial reform.  The report is described as a timely assessment of alternative proposals for the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, ranging from nationalization to dissolution.  The paper explains the role Fannie and Freddie have played, explores the goals a healthy secondary market for both single- and multifamily housing should serve, and develops a framework to help understand and evaluate the various proposals for reform.

Last January I moderated a distressed property panel at the Inman Real Estate conference in New York.  One of the panelists was Travis Waller, a sharp real estate agent from New Jersey who spoke with great clarity on his specialty, distressed real estate.  In this podcast we have a great conversation via Skype on what life will be like after the end of the federal tax credit for first time and existing home buyers, how banks are coming to grips with property disposition, differences between short sale and foreclosure transactions, marketing distressed property, to name a few.

It’s great insight from someone who deals with distressed property first hand.  Follow Travis on Twitter.

I sat down with Dottie Herman, President and CEO of Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate to talk about her journey from certified financial planner to one of the most successful real estate brokers in the United States.  Dottie leads an organization of 3,800 real estate professionals and 675 employees in more than 60 offices.  Its a candid and insightful conversation, and of course, fun and energetic.

We spoke right after our live weekly radio show “Eye on Real Estate” on WOR710 that Dottie hosts on Saturdays from 10am to noon along with her team of experts (including moi).

I have a candid conversation with Chris Meyers, COO of Houlihan Lawrence, the largest real estate brokerage firm in Westchester County, New York.  A family business, Houlihan Lawrence has 1,200 agents and 24 offices to service Westchester, Putnam and Duchess Counties.

We talk about many things including the housing market of the past 18 months, finding good agents and the introduction of social media to the real estate brokerage business.

I have a great conversation with Leah Caro, President and Principal Broker of Bronxville-Ley Real Estate and President of Westchester Putnam Association of Realtors. I met Leah when I was the keynote speaker at the last two annual Westchester Real Estate, Inc. awards luncheons.  She is a candid and knowledgeable real estate broker who is very active within her profession, currently serving as the Chair of the Professional Standards Committee for the New York State Association of Realtors, and is a Director in both the State and National REALTOR Associations among others.

Today I speak with Chris Williams, President and Chief Technology Officer of AIMSdashboard,

“Williams is a 15-year veteran of the IT industry, having served stints with Cisco Systems and PolyServe, a software startup acquired by HP. At one time he was co-owner of Carolina Appraisers, a real estate appraisal firm based in Raleigh.”

AIMS stands for “appraisal independence management system,” and “dashboard” is a software term meaning a control panel housing two or more applications.

His venture was enabled by introduction of the May 1, 2009 agreement between Fannie Mae and NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo known as the Home Valuation Code of Conduct.

AIMSdashboard is intended to help financial institutions take back control of the mortgage process through a software solution. Chris was very quick to point out that his company is a software company, NOT an appraisal management company.

Think lender pressure on appraisers is a distant memory?  Think again.  Here is some commentary on a new report that indicates appraisal fraud is up 50% over the past year.  It is laid out in Kenneth Harney’s excellent column in the Washington Post.

“Despite 2009 restrictions, mortgage and appraisal fraud spiked”

I also provide commentary on a recent episode with a bank client we now refuse to work with who pressured our firm to raise the appraised value of a property or they would not pay us for services already rendered.

In fact, they didn’t really understand what they were saying.

Last month I spoke to and interviewed Tony Pistilli, a certified real estate appraiser on the Minnesota Department of Commerce Real Estate Appraiser Advisory Board.  He’s got a possible solution to the current appraiser – appraisal management company conflict.  Its all about conforming to RESPA and preventing banks from shifting the burden to appraisers to pay for bank compliance.

Its the first logical solution I’ve heard.  The banks are essentially making the appraiser pay for their RESPA compliance by taking it out of the appraiser’s fee, often 50% of the stated appraisal fee.  The consumer is being mislead by the appraisal fee stated by the lender at time of mortgage application.

• - Appraisers and borrowers are paying for services the banks receive, not the bank.
• - Banks should pay for the services received from the AMC’s who manage the appraisal process.
• - Appraiser’s fees should be market driven.
• - Banks should be held accountable for the quality of the appraisal.

He’s been spreading the word through all the channels/usual suspects in the blogosphere.  Here’s my original post, including his article:

[HVCC and AMCs Violate RESPA?] Here’s a possible solution

His views seemed to have been picked up by the Appraisal Institute, the largest appraisal trade organization in the US, in their letter to HUD looking for clarification on RESPA and the disclosure of fees paid by consumers.  Here’s the FAQ on the new RESPA rule.

Last month I was a panelist at an Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM) conference covering lending trends.  I was matched up with 2 lenders and attorney Steven Einig.  I appreciated his take on the escalating foreclosure situation and his ability to articulate it.

I really enjoyed my conversation with Candace Taylor, writer for The Real Deal Magazine, one of the best resources for residential real estate news in NYC.  She covers real estate all day long and we speak about many issues including square footage discrepancies and getting people mad.

The Wealth Report 2010 was released today by Knight Frank.  It is a much anticipated annual survey targeted at the high end consumer with great detail on global residential property trends. I have had an ongoing exchange of ideas and have followed their research for quite a while.  I was invited to provide commentary on the New York City market which is included in the report.  In this podcast I interview Editor Andrew Shirley and Liam Bailey, Head of Residential Research.  The interviews were conducted via Skype to their London offices so the quality is a bit lacking.  Nevertheless the quality of their conversation is terrific.

Download The Wealth Report 2010.

After moderating a foreclosure panel at the recent Inman Real Estate Connect conference in New York, I thought it would be great to have a conversation with one of the panelists, Phil Tesoriero principal of  Gelip Inc. Consulting.  A former New York City Firefighter, his experience includes rehabbing REO’s and distressed properties as an investor and contractor, working as a sales agent specializing in the sale of HUD and REO properties and owner of a real estate brokerage firm, Phil now helps real estate professionals with the sale and management of distressed real estate.

You can find out more about Phil’s services at TheBigForeclosureSecret.com (Hint: its all about short sales) and his new product ForeclosureGuard.net.

In this podcast I check in with Dave Perry, Director of Sales and Leasing for The Clarett Group, a real estate development company. I’ve known Dave for for a number of years and was always impressed me with his understanding of pricing.

I recently had the good fortune of getting to know the founder and owner of LINK Boston, Debra Taylor Blair.  Her firm built and operates the MLS system in Boston.  She also provides invaluable information to the public and the real estate community through her Conversation Series.

She and I are kindred spirits in the world of data and look forward to a better understanding of the Boston market.

Coming soon:  Matrix coverage of the Boston market.

I speak with Nancy Chemtob, a partner with Chemtob Moss Forman & Talbert, LLP a New York City law firm specializing in divorce, family and matrimonial law.  My firm has done a lot of work with Nancy and her partners over the years and admire her approach and candor.  Plus she’s fun to talk with.

The biggest asset in a divorce action is most often the real estate.  The housing market crunch of the past 18 months has played havoc with the divorce process.  What’s most interesting is the fact that divorce attorneys are often at the leading edge of a changing real estate market as their clients deal with the reality of market conditions within their strategy.

Note: I’ve got a new equipment set-up (again) and I am still wrangling with it so my audio track is a bit too loud.  But Nancy makes her presence heard.

I had a great discussion with Steve Wagner, an attorney who specializes in representing co-ops/condos, litigation and technology, among other areas.  I have worked with his firm Wagner Davis, P.C. over the years on some crazy cases.

Steve has a wealth of knowledge, but don’t get him started on grandfathering in co-ops.  Listen to find out why.

I have a great conversation with Ryan Slack, Founder and CEO of Green Pearl Events aka Green Pearl that specializes in real estate events for industry professionals across the US.  Ryan was a co-founder of Property Shark before he started Green Pearl Events.  He is all about delivering reliable information to his customers.

We cover a lot of ground including his background and some insights on social media I had never heard before.

Here’s a schedule of upcoming events hosted by Green Pearl Events.

Barry Ritholtz of Fusion IQ, the The Big Picture blog and author of the must-read Bailout Nation had previously sat down with me last June so I was long overdue in inviting him back.

He is a terrific speaker and is always guilty of providing nothing less than clear cut commentary on the economic world around us. Plus he likes it when I call him irreverent.

This time we talk strategic non-foreclosure, existing home sales, interest rates, going to zero and the dumbest smart people in the room.

After moderating 3 foreclosure related panel discussions at the Inman Real Estate Connect conference in New York yesterday, I sat down with Rick Sharga of RealtyTrac (who was one of my panelists) to discuss their foreclosure business and the trends they are observing. I interviewed Rick last fall and always find him to be an endless source of insight and clarity on the distressed asset market.  RealtyTrac released their most recent report yesterday so the timing was perfect.

Hint: 2010-2011 = Peak Foreclosure

In this podcast I get to speak with Ben Jones, founder of The Housing Bubble Blog.  With a background in business, economics, and accounting, he’s been a prolific blogger/analyst of the housing bubble and crash since late 2004 and is considered the go to reference source for bubble conversation.  His site continues to draw a rabid readership who come there to lurk, exchange ideas, vent, call out spin and identify those in the real estate industrial complex.

In 2009, Mr. Jones was recognized by Inman News as one of the 50 most-influential people online in real estate. He also owns a property preservation, management, and investment company in Northern Arizona.

I get to speak about more than masonry (sorry Teri) with Teri Rogers, who writes for the New York Times real estate section and is co-founder and the content engine behind BrickUnderground:

“an online resource that enables New York City homeowners to leverage their collective intelligence—exchanging ideas, asking questions, and getting answers about the art and science of home-owning in New York City.”

She broke the story on the Twittering doorman and provides practical everyday information and forums for vertical dwellers.  Check it out.

In this podcast, I have a conversation with Lakshman Achuthan, the co-founder and managing director of the Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI), an independent organization focused on business cycle analysis and forecasting.  ECRI maintains business cycle chronologies for 20 countries around the world other than the U.S.

Lakshman is the managing editor of ECRI’s forecasting publications and regularly participates in a wide range of public economic discussions.  ECRI’s U.S. Weekly Leading Index is widely followed.

He is a member of Time magazine’s board of economists and the New York City Economic Advisory Panel (where I met him) and serves as trustee on a number of non-profit boards.  He is the co-author of Beating the Business Cycle: How to Predict and Profit from Turning Points in the Economy published by Doubleday.

In this podcast, I got to catch up with Jerry Feeney, a terrific real estate attorney who specializes in representing buyers and sellers in residential real estate transactions as well as institutional lenders in the New York City metro area.  He brings a wide range of experience to the table, including a stint with the SEC, working for law firms specializing in litigation and real estate, before establishing his own firm.

A most importantly, he succinctly answers a legal terminology question that keeps me up at night.

Hugh Kelly joined me today for the podcast.  I’ve known Hugh for quite a while and greatly admire his insights.

Hugh is an Associate Clinical Professor of Real Estate in New York University’s Masters Degree Program in Real Estate Investment and Development. He heads his own consulting practice, Hugh F. Kelly Real Estate Economics, which serves national and international real estate investment and services firms, governmental organizations, law firms, and not-for-profit agencies. Prior to establishing this consultancy, he was chief economist for Landauer Associates, where he worked for 22 years until early 2001.

Hugh also serves as the President of the Board of Brooklyn Catholic Charities’ affordable housing development corporation, which has built and manages 3,000 units of low-income family, seniors, and special needs housing. He is a member of the Counselors of Real Estate, the National Association of Business Economists, and the American Philosophical Association. He has spoken to virtually every major real estate organization in the United States, as well as to audiences in Canada, the U.K., France, the Netherland, and Germany.

We served together on the New York City Council Finance Committee Economic Advisory Board and our firms have worked together on several consulting projects.

Hugh provides perspective on affordable housing, his recent Ground Zero consulting, MBA programs and their relationship to the credit crunch among others.  He’ll join me again in the near future to expand the discussion on affordable housing.

I get to have a conversation with Neal Elkin, President of Real Estate Analytics, LLC whose Moody’s/REAL CPPI Reports tracks the commercial real estate space.  I’ve followed Neil’s efforts with Moody’s Investor Service since its inception.

On a side note, I find the correlation of their metrics with the residential market fascinating.

I had been looking forward to my conversation with Ardell for a while.  She is an associate broker with Sound Realty in Seattle Washington and blogs at Rain City Guide and on her eponymous site ARDELL’s Seattle Real Estate Blog.

She and I have known each other for years, having attended and participated in various real estate forums and connected online.  She is always a thoughtful, candid and deliberate speaker.

One of the masters of social media, Ardell has created brand awareness well outside the Seattle Housing market.

For this conversation we Skype, and thanks to the Internet (a series of tubes), the sound level varies a bit – but stick with it because she has great insight on buyer agency, calling a bottom, social media and Redfin.

If you’d rather not, Ardell has created a transcript of the conversation.

I sit down with Bob Knakal, the founding partner and Chairman of Massey Knakal Realty Services, who sell more commercial properties in New York City than any other firm.  In 2009, Real Estate Forum magazine named Mr. Knakal one of the top 10 investment sales brokers in the United States.

He’s also a prolific commentator on the commercial real estate economy.  Check out his blog StreetWise which is an initiative of his firm and GlobeSt.com as well as his weekly commentary in the New York Observer’s Commercial Observer. His recent State Shouldn’t Make a Whole New Ball Game of Mitchell-Lama is mandatory reading (no, not because of the Yankees World Series analogy).

I have long admired his market insights and his hair. We have a great conversation.

Jonathan Butler is the publisher of the essential Brownstoner.com which is a blog et al about Brooklyn.  He started out as an anonymous blogger looking to write about his Brooklyn brownstone in Clinton Hill – then removed his mask – and his blog morphed into Brownstoner Media LLC.  Some of his efforts include Brooklyn Flea, his Brooklyn flea market in both Fort Greene and under the Brooklyn Bridge, a services directory, a renovation guide, renovation blogs, and recently, a URL shortener/twitter aggregator.

The interview is done via cell phone in the middle of a construction site, which is, I suppose, the story of Jonathan’s entrepreneurial business life.

I had a “fantastic” conversation with Dr. Bill Rayburn who is the co-founder, Chairman & CEO of FNC, Inc. Their value proposition has been on collateral side of mortgage origination. He’s a fascinating industry leader who pulls no punches.

I speak with my friend and colleague Michael McPartland of the Citi Private Bank. He’s the managing director of residential real estate at their Citi Global Wealth Management group.

The discussion focuses on “lending” versus “originating.”

I get to catch up with a long time colleague and real estate veteran John Heithaus, Senior Vice President of Sales, Marketing and REALTOR® Alliances at SentriLock.

He has twenty-nine years of experience in corporate relocation management and residential real estate. His career includes executive positions with Merrill Lynch Realty, Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage and Relocation, Monster.com and Prudential Real Estate & Relocation.

John’s entrepreneurial ventures include co-founding very successful startups and emerging businesses: Virtual Relocation.com (acquired by Monster.com); Certified Closing Network (acquired by First American Corporation), TAOW Productions, and Superstar Factory Productions.

John is one of the most forward thinking, creative and energetic people in real estate, and he plays a pretty mean guitar.

In this podcast, I have a conversation with my good friend Joseph Ferrara, an attorney with over 25 years experience in real estate, intellectual property and entertainment law. He is consultant to the real estate industry on marketing, social media and branding.  Joe is an endless source of new ideas and likes to shake the tree. He runs the Sellsius Real Estate Marketing Blog, which focuses on real estate marketing, social media, new technology, trends, tips and how-tos. He runs The Clozing, a real estate news aggregator and is starting up New York Real Estate Advocates, a real estate brokerage concept for attorneys.

It is always great to speak with Joe.

In this podcast, I have a conversation with Justin Fox, economics and business columnist for Time Magazine and author of the book The Myth of the Rational Market: A History of Risk, Reward, and Delusion on Wall Street.

As publisher Harper Collins says about the book:
“Chronicling the rise and fall of the efficient market theory and the century-long making of the modern financial industry, Justin Fox’s The Myth of the Rational Market is as much an intellectual whodunit as a cultural history of the perils and possibilities of risk.”

Here’s his interview on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

I first became acquainted with Justin by stumbling on his blog The Curious Capitalist which takes complex economic issues and translates them into everyday speak.

[Click to expand]

[Audio Quality Alert] What began as a 30-minute interview was cut to 18 minutes because of a random recurring podcast issue I have been trying to resolve: audio distortion. About 18 minutes into the interview I had to cut it short. My sincere apologies to Justin. But I got an idea and I set out this past weekend to solve the mystery. I am happy to report: problem solved going forward – I explain how at the end of the podcast – so much for myth of the rational podcast.

I have a great conversation with Kelly Roark, Vice President of Interactive Sales & Development at Scripps Network Digital.  We touched on the following chart which trends ratings against new home sales.

[Click to expand]

Kelly was a great sport to come back for a second interview after one of the audio tracks in the first podcast didn’t cooperate.

In this podcast, I have a conversation with Larry Sicular, Principal of Lawrence Sicular & Associates and Editor & Publisher of The Stamford Review, a real estate and public policy journal.

Larry has taken a different route in bringing real estate and other key topics into the fold. His journal is contrarian to current convention by presenting high quality long form articles which also provide possible solutions to the issues discussed.

I had a fascinating conversation with Dustin Luther, founder of 4realz Speaking and Consulting and Rain City Guide Blog.

Dustin is one of the first people I “met” outside of New York as a result of my own blogging efforts that I began in 2005. He has a wealth of knowledge and insights on social media strategies that he applies to a medium that continues to change and evolve.

I really enjoyed my interview with Rick Sharga, Senior Vice President of RealtyTrac who was very gracious in accommodating me despite a packed schedule during his New York stay.  

Rick is the foremost expert on the state of the US foreclosure market. I have been a long time reader of their blog ForeclosurePulse.

He was able to keep on topic despite the din of jackhammers outside our building and a few digital squelches. I hope you enjoy the conversation.

I was fortunate to have Jason Bram, Senior Economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York join me for the podcast.  We covered a lot of ground including regional employment, securities industry employment versus all other employment, the rent versus ownership ratio and confidence versus sentiment.

Jason referenced a few charts during the discussion including the forward looking Index of Coincident Economic Indicators.

Note: The views expressed here are those of the interviewee only and not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or the Federal Reserve System.

I sat down with Rob Hahn, managing principal of 7DS Associates, the strategy, marketing, and technology consulting firm.  I first knew Rob as many people do, as Notorious Rob, the blogger who writes about marketing, technology, and real estate.

Using his extensive background in law, social media, brokerage, data, technology (and gaming), he’s got an interesting take on everything, including the real estate brokerage model.  Smart, inventive and funny work notoriously well together helping firms gain insight to see their way out of the economic paper bag of the next several years.

Update: Here’s an article Rob just wrote for Inman News: A real estate client in name only which covers some of the issues we discussed.

In this podcast I have an engaging conversation with Dawn Doherty, Vice President of Strategic Development for StreetEasy, the real estate search engine that covers New York City, Northern New Jersey and The Hamptons of both sales and rental properties.

If you listen closely, you can actually hear the jackhammers on the street below and our brief foray into electrical engineering.  Fun!

I had a good conversation with my friend and colleague Dan Green, a loan officer with Waterstone Mortgage in Cincinnati who provides a very lucid font line depiction of the state of mortgage financing, despite his characterization of me as being Bobby Flay-like.  

He runs a very well-written blog called The Mortgage Reports and a service called Bring the Blog. I have always found him to be in front of the technology curve.  

Back in early 2008, Dan created one of the best videos on how the tightening of underwriting guidelines left many people stranded.  I think it is required viewing.

In this podcast I speak with Joseph Palumbo, SRA, Director of Valuation and Appraisal Management, Weichert Relocation Resources. He manages a nationwide vendor network and an in-house staff of certified review appraisers.

We talk relocation industry, USPAP, HVCC, today’s appraiser and finding $5 in both your pockets.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Stuart Elliott, the Editor-In-Chief of The Real Deal Magazine.  Together with Publisher Amir Korangy, The Real Deal pushes out a lot of content on the residential and commercial real estate markets in New York City and South Florida, making their publication a must-read.

“The trend is your friend…until it ends.”

In this podcast I speak with Dr. Kevin Gillen, a vice president at Econsult and Research Fellow with the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute for Urban Research.  Kevin produces the seminal housing market report for Philadelphia.

He is releasing his Philadelphia regional report shortly and will introduce a new housing market report on the Jersey Shore in the coming months.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Holden Lewis, a long-time reporter for Bankrate.com.  He’s a prolific blogger of all things mortgage related at Mortgage Matters. You can follow him on Twitter.

I’ve been following Holden’s work for years. He’s also interviewed me in the past so it’s nice to switch things around a bit.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Sami Inkinen, Founder and COO of Trulia.com. He was nice enough to drop in while he was in New York. We talk about how Trulia began, why it works and touch on some of their products such as the groundbreaking Trulia Voices.

As an added bonus, we talk about the merits of swimming with sharks…literally. [Update] Of course its “shark week” on the Discovery Channel.

I couldn’t make Real Estate Connect San Francisco 2009 this year for the first time in a while, but if you do, take a minute to visit with some Trulians.

It was great to speak with Dr. Sam Chandan, President and Chief Economist of Real Estate Econometrics and an adjunct professor of real estate at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

I had a fun time interviewing Ali Rogers of CBS MoneyWatch where she writes a column Ask The Agent.  She’s a very smart chronicler of issues related to housing.  A few years ago, she authored a book: Diary of a Real Estate Rookie to good reviews and wrote a column for Inman News for three years of the same name.  She is also into the Twitter thing and is a successful real estate agent.

I often tell her – she’s no “Rookie”.

I speak with Michael Simonsen, Co-Founder, CEO, Altos Research.  His firm publishes real-time real estate housing data for buyers, sellers, brokers, agents, appraisers, media, Wall Street and others based on listing information.  Altos Research also publishes a free monthly National Housing Report.

His firm also runs a great blog.  Mike is active on Twitter and has a lot to say about they way we think of housing statistics and trends.

Their mission is to answer the question:  What is the Real Estate Market Doing Right Now?

In this podcast I speak with Scott Spector, AIA, a principal of the Spector Group, a leading architecture and design firm that was founded in 1965. Scott is a very energetic and engaging person and I really appreciated the opportunity to have him join me on the podcast.

My guest is Nicholas Retsinas, Director, Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.  I’ve followed his work for many years and I am grateful he agreed to be interviewed for this podcast.

The interview focuses on the report recently released by the Joint Center for Housing Studies that is full of great information called:

The State of the Nation’s Housing

Here are other resources published by JCHS.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Vicki Been, who among other positions is a Professor of Law at New York University School of Law and Director of the Furman Center.

Great discussion on foreclosures and homeownership.

She and her team do important housing policy work at the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy.

Check it out.

They also produce a must-read publication called State of New York City’s Housing and Neighborhoods.

She was incredibly patient with me before the interview while I struggled with a software glitch, and to top it off, my microphone decided to sound scratchy midway during the interview (her mic was fine).  Despite this, she’s agreed come back in the future.  Phew!

I spoke with Ellen Harnick, Senior Policy Counsel of the Center for Responsible Lending about the initial testimony being made in Congress on the formation of a Consumer Protection Agency for financial products.  Ellen is my first repeat guest, a wealth of information and she has a great way of explaining what is going on.  She has offered to check in periodically as consumer policy develops in Washington. Here is some of her previous congressional testimony.

Here’s a recent piece she wrote in the Washington Post blog “The Hearing” called The Case for a Consumer Protection Agency.

I made another attempt to Skype since Ellen is in North Carolina and I’m in NYC – this time there wasn’t the crazy lag when capturing the audio.  Progress in technology is measured in baby steps, my friends.

I spoke with Matt Woolsey, Senior Reporter, Forbes Magazine, Forbes.com about his article covering the luxury housing market nationwide in the current edition of Forbes Magazine called:

The Other Shoe in Real Estate

I speak with my good friend Noah Rosenblatt, creator of the award winning Manhattan real estate economics blog UrbanDigs.com, Manhattan real estate broker and former day trader.

I spoke at length with Michael Falsetta, EVP of our commercial real estate valuation firm Miller Cicero, a 17 year expert on the Brooklyn new development space.

As a native Brooklynite, he’s got a lot to say about the most populous NYC borough.

He recently started a blog, 21Elephants.com covering the residential new development market in Brooklyn.

As an added bonus, I got some details about the world record for riding every mile of NYC subway system (in about 25 hours).

Professor Robert Shiller took time out from his busy schedule when he was in New York to pay me a visit and let me interview him for The Housing Helix Podcast.

I invited him after I read his recent Op-ed piece in the New York Times, Why Home Prices May Keep Falling.

Dr. Shiller is well known for many things, including his New York Time’s bestselling book: Irrational Exuberance and his widely referenced monthly state of the housing market tool, The Case-Shiller Index. But he also continues to write about the housing market, having released two books over the past two years:

Last year’s The Subprime Solution: How Today’s Global Financial Crisis Happened, and What to Do about It

and this year’s

Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism

I hope you enjoy his insights.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Barry Ritholtz of Fusion IQ and The Big Picture weblog.  He’s a wealth of information and never pulls any punches in his characterizations of the current economic mess we find ourselves in.

The Big Picture is the leading financial weblog with must-read content and it boasts a huge following (self-included).

Barry recently released a terrific book: Bailout Nation: How Greed and Easy Money Corrupted Wall Street and Shook the World Economy. I highly recommend it.

This week I speak with Dan Gross, a senior editor and columnist at Newsweek and he writes the “Moneybox” column for Slate.  Dan covers economic topics in his columns and has written a number of books with the most recent available as an eBook  titled “Dumb Money: How Our Greatest Financial Minds Bankrupted the Nation”

Here’s how Dan described the book’s message on the Colbert Report.

Keywords and phrases from Dumb Money:

• [BSH] Bourgeois Suburban Heaven
• Stray hedge fund managers scrounging for food
• Trumpensfreude

We also talked about the second home market and wondered whether the commercial real estate market was the next shoe to drop.

John Cicero has more than twenty five years of commercial real estate valuation experience and is my business partner and managing principal in our firm Miller Cicero, LLC, a commercial real estate appraisal firm covering the New York City region.

John talks cap rates, market trends of various types of commercial properties, his recent market report for Massey Knakal and the political movement in Albany that is of great concern to income property investors in New York state.

Don’t fret, John bifurcates everything to those outside the cap rate mainstream.

This week, I have a conversation with economist Dr. Kevin Gillen, Vice President of Econsult and is affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania as a Research Fellow in its Institute for Urban Research, through which he publishes his quarterly updates on the current state of Philadelphia’s housing and condominium markets.  He’s been sharing his research each quarter with the readers of my other blog, Matrix for which I am grateful.

In the podcast we cover his Philadelphia Housing Indices, as well as the three key economic hurdles facing the Philadelphia’s housing market:

1. Problems with the accuracy and proposed redistribution of tax assessments

2. The controversial 10-year tax abatement

3. Political turmoil relating to the building trades and the associated above average cost of construction.

Much of his commentary is in the context of the US housing market.

Note: I am still experiencing a lag in the audio capture via the combination of Skype and WireTap Studio so there are moments where it sounds like I am interrupting the answer.   Please overlook this – I’ll figure it out eventually and it doesn’t detract from the clarity that Kevin provides to a complex housing situation.

This week I was lucky to interview Ellen Harnick, Senior Policy Counsel, the Center for Responsible Lending. She has testified in front of Congress on more than one occasion regarding lending and consumer issues.

I’m a novice at using Skype in a podcast so the quality was a little dicey at times with delays – like we were speaking via satellite – but it seemed to improve throughout the interview (after all, the Internet is a series of tubes).

Ellen and I have spoken at length on prior occasions about US lending practices. I find her to be someone who can listen to my experiences – the insanity that appraisers are faced with – and understand the ramifications (plus not get frazzled by my incessant interruptions).  She provides a great perspective from the consumer side and is passionate and knowledgeable about the subject matter.

Here’s a transcript of her recent appearance on NewsHour with Jim Lehr.

The crisis started, actually, with these very tricky mortgages that had confusing terms and some of their costs were obscured. And as those mortgages started to fail, we saw foreclosures rise.

This week I host my first interview on The Housing Helix with the Godfather of blogging, Lockhart Steele, founder of the Curbed Network.

Fun!