Smith Business Close-Up: The Housing Market– What’s the Prognosis?

Thursday, August 20, 2009, 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, August 23, 2009, 7:30 a.m.
Monday, August 24, 2009, 4:30 a.m. 

The real estate market has been in a downward spiral for the past year. Have we finally hit bottom?

In this edition of Smith Business Close-Up with the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, Clifford Rossi, managing director of the new Center for Financial Policy, shares his insight and prognosis for the real estate market.

Rossi is a Tyser Teaching Fellow and managing director of the new Center for Financial Policy, launching this fall at the Smith School. He has nearly 25 years experience in banking and government, having held senior executive roles in risk management at several of the largest financial services companies. His most recent position was Chief Risk Officer for Consumer Lending at Citigroup where he was intimately involved in TARP funding and stress tests performed on Citi. He also helped start a statistical arbitrage unit at Citi and helped integrate market and credit risk analytics across Citi’s mortgage portfolios. While there he was responsible for overseeing a $200 billion global mortgage portfolio with 700 employees under his direction. He also served as Chief Credit Officer at Washington Mutual (WaMu) and as Chief Risk Officer at Countrywide Bank. Previous to these assignments, he held senior positions at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and worked for a number of years at the Treasury Department and Office of Thrift Supervision working on key policy issues affecting depositories. Before permanently joining Smith, he served as an adjunct professor for eight years and has a number of publications on banking industry topics.