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These Three Banks Are the Best Play on Housing

By Jim Cramer

About this article:
What do you buy when housing prices are going up but rates are stable? Do you buy Toll Brothers ? Lennar ? How about Hovnanian ? Who owns the most homes, isn't that what you want, someone who is the biggest homeowner? OK, I have three of them: Wells Fargo courtesy of the reckless lending of Golden West, with that ridiculous "pick and no pay" plan; Bank of America , courtesy of its Countrywide acquisition, which was awful and has been a huge drag to the company but is now a drag no longer; and JPMorgan , where it looks like Jamie Dimon bought the stupendously horrible Washington Mutual and wrote the home portfolio right about to where it was before the index bottomed. Now these banks should trade as proxies of the house price index because of their vast repository of foreclosed properties. I knew...

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