TheStreet.com TV Recap: Bank on E*Trade

With shares trading around $13, E*Trade (ETFC Quote) is a stock people should consider buying here, Jim Cramer said Tuesday on TheStreet.com TV's Wall Street Confidential Web video.

CEO Mitch Caplan survived, said Cramer, by moving his company into mortgages. "He's an incredibly honest man; he's a got a great franchise," Cramer said. "His mortgage business did what everybody else's mortgage business did, it got hurt." However, Caplan has addressed it head on, he said. "Your money's safe at E*Trade."

The financial institution's covenants are in order, unlike those of the homebuilders, Cramer continued. "I don't know if I'm a buyer of the homebuilders because they might be in violation of their covenants as they mark down their properties, but E*Trade is not in violation," he said.

Switching the topic to New York real estate, he pointed to private player Manhattan Mortgage, which he described as the one mortgage company in New York for almost anyone who needs a mortgage of more than $1 million. What's amazing, Cramer explained, is that business is up big.

"August was a huge month in New York and the spreads are still very tight," Cramer said. "That's how I know the market's really healthy. I don't care where the price is, but the spreads are tight."

If people want to buy a property that's listed for $1.8 million, they'll purchase it for $1.8 million and be able to sell it for $1.79 million, he explained. "The health of a market is the bid and the ask."