I’m very excited to let HW readers know that today we’re unveiling the next step for Housing Wire as a publication — Housing Wire Magazine, the first independent monthly to cover all of mortgage finance. You can subscribe today for less than $10 an issue — $149 gets you a subscription through the end of next year (regular subscription price is $180 per year). So many thousands of you have followed the growth of Housing Wire since this site first began as a blog more than 18 months ago (yes, it’s been that long!). And many of you have asked how you can help, even offering up donations in this site’s early days. By subscribing to HW Magazine, you’ll be helping to offset the substantial printing and distribution costs that go with launching any print publication. And you’ll be helping put together a magazine that really matters for this industry. One that can help chart the course of public policy and legislation during a critical juncture in our industry’s history, as only an independent publication can do. So, what’s changing online? Absolutely nothing; if anything, we will be expanding well beyond what you now see, thanks to an intrepid group of investors now backing the growth of the Housing Wire franchise. But it’s what’s new in print that has me excited so much and so often, that I’ve been finding sleep hard to come by recently. The idea for the magazine is rooted in some pretty simple realizations: many trade publications have become too niched for their own good, either carrying currency with lenders, but not with investors and bond traders; or reeling in all of ABS, leaving MBS coverage in the dust as the secondary market froze up. Many have also utterly failed to cover the issues that matter, as well, choosing instead to run long-winded product advertisements penned by various marketing directors or principals of firms that are inevitably among the publication’s advertising base. That’s no way to run a true publication. Not one that’s worth reading, anyway. We’re setting what I think is a bold course to redefine what it means to be a trade publication, bringing our independent focus and hard-news approach into a magazine that anyone involved in buying, selling, trading or managing mortgages will find hard to put down; even those investing in financial firms with mortgage banking operations will find value each month. Each and every month, the magazine will bring readers market coverage you won’t find elsewhere:

• Issue-centric key features exploring vital — and sensitive — industry issues in-depth, including interviews with some of the industry’s foremost thought leaders and expert thinkers.
• Current statistics spanning primary and secondary mortgage markets, put into full historical perspective.
• An in-depth look at, and analysis of, housing trends in key local markets.
• Departmental coverage spanning the entire mortgage industry: primary and secondary mortgage markets, as well as servicing and default management.
• A look “behind the balance sheets” of key industry participants.
• Monthly commentary and opinion from some of the industry’s most knowledgeable voices and analysts.
• A look around the blogosphere, covering the minds and muses that make up where we think some of the best journalism in the industry lives.
• Much, much more — including quarterly special reports, and a distressed assets directory, the mortgage industry’s first.

In short, we’re taking the bold step of producing a next-generation publication for an industry undergoing immense and likely permanent change. I don’t think there has been a publication quite like this — EVER — and I’m unbelievably excited to finally be able to make it a reality. Our first issue will publish in September. For those subscribing right now, we’re offering an up-front $149 annual rate for the publication — and if you’ve read anything else in the industry, particularly in the secondary markets, you know that this price is a literal steal. So here’s the sales pitch: subscribe today, because that $149 rate won’t be around much longer. And thanks so very much for your support over the past year. all the best, Paul Jackson Publisher, Housing Wire P.S. — Multiple subscription orders are available by calling us at 817-745-4579, if corporate subscriptions are your sort of thing.