Some housing bubble reports from Wall Street. "William Lyon Homes announced today preliminary new home orders, closings and backlog information for the three and six months ended June 30, 2006. New home orders for the three months ended June 30, 2006 were a decrease of 52% as compared to the three months ended June 30, 2005. New home orders for the six months ended June 30, 2006 a decrease of 41% as compared to the six months ended June 30, 2005."

"The Company's number of new home orders per average sales location decreased to 11.2 for the three months ended June 30, 2006 as compared to 27.5 for the three months ended June 30, 2005. The Company's cancellation rate for the three months ended June 30, 2006 was 32%, compared to 13% for the three months ended June 30, 2005."

"The Company's backlog of homes sold but not closed was a decrease of 46%. William Lyon Homes is primarily engaged in the design, construction and sale of single family detached and attached homes in California, Arizona and Nevada."

From Reuters. "The U.S. mortgage-backed securities market languished on Tuesday, with yield spreads versus comparable Treasuries ending mostly unchanged from the previous session as scant demand offset moderate supply from originators."

"With the summer doldrums in full force, the mortgage bond market is in a particularly vulnerable position right now since many of the market's main participants are sidelined awaiting a clearer picture on where the U.S. Federal Reserve is headed."

"Investors out of Asia have been quiet for several months and Wall Street dealers hold hefty inventories. On top of that, demand from banks, large holders of mortgage bonds, appears to be fading."

"Barclays Capital recently downgraded its recommendation for mortgage bonds to neutral from a tactical overweight. The overweight stance was driven by expectations of real-money buying after June's Federal Open Market Committee meeting and expectations that greater clarity about the Fed would help the sector."

"'Neither factor seems valid anymore,' the company said in recent research."

"The Mortgage Bankers Association released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending July 7. The Market Composite Index was an increase of 1.0 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from 561.0 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 29.1 percent compared with the previous week and was down 36.3 percent compared with the same week one year earlier."

From Inman News. "In a conference call with reporters Tuesday, Freddie Mac's chief economist Frank Nothaft offered some insight into when and why people refinance their mortgages."

"Not only are fewer families refinancing, but they are doing so for different reasons. Freddie Mac's surveys reveal that back in 2003, just 20 percent of families refinanced to cash out some of the equity in their homes. The rest were moving to lock in low interest rates or shorten the terms of their mortgages."

"'That's very different today,' Nothaft said. 'In the first half of this year, close to 90 percent of those who refinanced also engaged in cash out.'"

"Interest rates on some $500 billion in first-lien ARMs, or approximately 6 percent of all mortgage debt, will reset in 2006, Nothaft said. Factor in variable-rate home equity and second-lien loans, and the total amount subject to repricing this year is nearly $1.2 trillion, or about 15 percent of outstanding loans."