Showing posts with label foreclosure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label foreclosure. Show all posts

Thursday, September 15, 2011

foreclosure listings


Invest NI by pilot-tim


You've without doubt seen all of them or read them. Glossy advertisements or four-color advances in periodicals and newspapers promising to teach you all the juicy information regarding successful property investing. And all you should do to learn every one of these real property investing surface encounters chuck russo secrets is to pay a rather high sum for a one-or two-day seminar.




Often these types of slick property investing seminars claim that you could make wise, profitable property investments with simply no money straight down (except, of course, the large fee you pay for the class). Now, how attractive is which? Make a benefit from real est investments you created using no money. Possible? Not most likely.




Successful owning a home requires cashflow. That's the nature of almost any business or investment, especially real estate investing. You put your money into something that you wish and plan will make you more income.




Unfortunately too few newbies for the world of real-estate investing believe it's the magical form of business exactly where standard enterprise rules do not apply. Simply set, if you want to stay in real-estate investing for greater than, say, a day or 2, then you are going to have to generate money to utilize and invest.




While it might be true which buying real-estate with no money down is easy, anyone who's even made a simple investment (like buying their very own home) understands there's a lot more involved in property investing that can cost you money. For example, what about any necessary repairs?




So, the number one rule people new to real estate investing must remember would be to have obtainable cash reserves. Before you choose to actually do any real-estate investing, save some funds. Having a little money within the bank once you begin real property investing surface encounters chuck russo can help you make more profitable real estate investments in rental properties, for example.




When real estate investing inside rental properties, you'll want in order to select only qualified tenants. If you might have no income when real estate investing inside rental attributes, you may be pressured to take a much less qualified tenant because you need somebody to pay you money so that you can take treatment of repairs or lawyer fees.




For any kind of real estate investing, meaning rental properties or even properties you get to re-sell, having money reserved can enable you to ask for a higher price. You can request a increased price from your real estate investment because you surface encounters chuck russo won't feel financially strapped as you wait for an offer. You won't be backed into a corner and forced to accept just any offer because you desperately need the money.




Another downfall of many new to real-estate investing is, well, greed. Make a profit, yes, but do not become therefore greedy that you simply ask for ridiculous local rental or resale rates on any of your real est investments.




Those new to real est investing must see property investing being a business, NOT a spare time activity. Don't think that real est investing is going to make you rich overnight. What business does?




It requires about 6 months to decide if real-estate investing in for you. If you've decided in which, hey I really like this, then give yourself a couple of years to really start earning money. It often takes at least five years to become truly prosperous in real estate investing.




Persistence could be the key to success in real estate investing. If you might have decided that property investing is for you, surface encounters chuck russo keep plugging away at it and the rewards will be greater than you imagined.












NEW YORK—The nation's top experts unanimously agreed Tuesday that the current struggles of the U.S. economy were no reason whatsoever to stop investing in print media, which they said was easily the safest and most profitable place to invest one's money.


Without exception, leading authorities across all relevant disciplines said that while traditional low-risk instruments such as CDs, bonds, and gold were still relatively secure investments, only the nation's beloved print media outlets could offer both the reliability and the potential for tremendous financial gain required for guaranteed peace of mind.


"Print media is far and away your best bet in this tough fiscal climate," said the nation's foremost economists. "Just put your money in and forget about it for 10 years, 20 years, 50 years, doesn't matter. No economic downturn on earth can touch it."


"There's no question about it," continued all economic experts. "If you're a nervous investor—and you should be in this climate—you should be pouring all your cash into your local broadsheet right this second."


One of millions of Americans who will always support print media no matter what new technology comes along.


Experts went on to tell reporters that not only is there no safer place to invest than print media, there's also no sector of the economy with more promise for growth. Urging investors to diversify their stock portfolio among national and regional newspapers as well as dailies and weeklies, they said print media will be a "bonanza" for shareholders, even as the economy as a whole flounders.


"Print media is a cash cow that will multiply an investment over and over," said the experts. "Other products fail, real estate bubbles burst, but print media is here to stay. The only retirement strategy anyone needs is as close as their local newsstand."


"People who invest in print media are going to see their holdings grow by leaps and bounds, and they'll probably ask themselves, 'How can this be real?'" continued the experts, every single one of whom described print media as "the closest thing there is to a money tree." "Well, trust us, it's real. You can expect to make a lot of money very quickly, and best of all, you'll do it by supporting a pillar of American society."


In explaining print media's remarkable appeal, the entire financial community said citizens rely, and will continue to rely, on printed newspapers to keep them not only informed about current events, but better prepared to function as the kind of knowledgeable citizens a robust democracy requires. Others pointed toward people's deep emotional attachment to print media and the loyalty readers have for the treasured publications as a financial guarantee. In addition, investors from every major financial firm strongly noted that newspapers are an integral part of the ongoing American story that is written each morning, chapter by chapter, on black-and-white newsprint by decent, hardworking men and women who live in the very communities their newspapers serve.


Not investing hundreds of millions of dollars in newspapers right this very second, they added, would simply be foolish.


"No matter how tough times get, people will never turn their back on their newspapers," said every media expert in the nation, adding that newspapers would likewise never, never, never take their readers for granted, because it is readers that the print media industry depends on, and the nation's newspapers and magazines have always, without fail, worked tirelessly to provide readers with the highest-quality product possible. "They wouldn't desert their trusted print media outlets like that. Besides, everyone knows that new media technologies come and go, and that newspapers are an indispensable part of our national identity that must be protected by all of us, and chiefly by shrewd investors or even ordinary business owners who take out a very reasonably priced quarter-page ad. Or something smaller. You'd be surprised how much mileage you can get out of even a tiny little classified."


"The weekly newspapers are, of course, the most vital," the nation's media experts added. "We'd really be lost without those."




The manic depressive market wildly swings up and down on each new news story: The Fed is meeting at Jackson Hole on August 27 possibly to discuss QE3 (or not), and that news may pump up the stock market. But China's banks seem to be using Enron's accounting manual, Europe's banks need liquidity and are loaded with bad debt, and U.S. banks only temporarily TARPed over trouble. Gaddafi's regime in Libya appears over, but Libya's oil output may not fully recover for years. Venezuela wants banks to open their vaults and send back its gold, but Wells Fargo says gold is a bubble. Pundits say gold is a barbarous relic, but exchanges and banks are now using gold as money. The U.S. is headed for hyperinflation with skyrocketing stock prices, but on the other hand, we seem to be deflating like Japan and doomed to a deflating stock market for another decade. Whom do you trust and what should you do?



No one knows where the stock market or U.S. Treasury bonds are headed tomorrow, but in my opinion, here are some fundamentals to consider.



The Bad News Isn't Going Away



Until we have real global financial reform and restrain the banks, we won't have sustained growth. The stock market hasn't hit bottom. There's a crisis of confidence in banks and all currencies. We haven't taken effective steps to tackle the U.S. deficit through productivity. We haven't examined spending to eliminate fraud and waste, and we haven't addressed our need for more tax revenues by eliminating the Bush tax cuts (for starters).



Savers are punished by "stranguflation:" negative real returns on "safe" assets, declining housing prices, and rising costs of food, energy and health care. The Fed touts the falling cost of I-Pads, but how often do you buy one of those, and how often do you eat?



Good News (for Now)



The USD is still the world's reserve currency. Even though we devalued the USD, there has been a global flight to U.S. Treasuries pushing down our borrowing costs (yields). No one in the global financial community feels the U.S. has done its best to correct our problems, but severe problems in Europe, China's inflation, and Middle East unrest has money running to the U.S. Since we've devalued the dollar, we appear to be a bargain for foreign investors, even though they are terrified by our money printing presses and the potential for inflating commodity prices in the long run.



How did I play this? My own portfolio is currently more than 20% gold with some silver, and I bought out-of-the-money call options on the VIX when it was in the teens with maturities of 4-6 months. This is "short" stock market strategy, one could have also done well buying puts on the S&P a few months ago. In the first big stock market downdraft in August, I sold the options when the VIX hit the high 30's, and I'll buy more options again if the VIX falls again. Many investors are not comfortable with options, and this strategy isn't appropriate for everyone. The rest of my portfolio is chiefly in cash or deep value opportunities.



What Happens Next?



No one knows for sure, and anyone who tells you he or she does is selling snake oil. The situation is fluid. We tried to reflate our deflating economy. Our massive dollar devaluation may encourage investment, because it's protectionist. It reduces our cost of labor, among a few other "benefits." The problem is that the Fed has printed money, and we haven't done anything to position the U.S. for greater productivity. We're trying to inflate our way out of a problem without investing in productivity. This is a very dangerous way of attacking this problem. Even more "stimulus" would just be an attempt to inflate our way out of our long-standing deep recession. That's the foolish and unsuccessful strategy we've adopted so far. That could lead to runaway budget deficits (our deficit already looks intractable) and bring us to double-digit inflation. Even the European flight to US Treasuries may not save us from a deeper recession in that scenario.



If we don't overreact -- and we may have already overreacted -- our dollar devaluation results in our foreign trade situation first getting worse (as it has now) before it gets better. Now is the time (actually, we should have started years ago) to spend capital to increase U.S. productivity. The dollar's plunge relative to other currencies will eventually make us more competitive. This will be good for blue chip companies, in particular those that own real assets and manufacture items. The Fed and Washington may do anything, however, so one must watch the news.



What does this mean for the U.S. stock market? In my opinion, it is currently not good value and feels like the 1970s when we experienced a recession followed by inflation. One should consider staying mostly in cash and expect stocks become cheaper. One might miss an interim rally, especially if the Fed announces QE3 (more "stimulus" and money printing) or more bank bailouts, but that is like using Kleenex laced with sneezing powder. We will see stock prices even lower than they are today. The old paradigm dictated that stocks were a buy when P/E ratios were 13 or less (and many are well above that), dividends at 4%, and book values at 1.3 or less. (This excludes oil companies, which tend to trade at lower P/E ratios in general.) I believe we'll see much better deals in coming months. In 1978/79 P/E ratios sank below 7 for blue chip companies.



Should one buy U.S. Treasuries with long maturities? The long end of the bond market doesn't reward investors due to the potential of rising interest rates. If interest rates spike to double digits, then one can reassess the situation.



Long term investors should consider buying commodities or companies that own physical commodities. We're running out of key commodities especially related to agriculture and fertilizer. Washington's brand of the latter isn't the type we need.





Thursday, September 9, 2010

foreclosure help


Concerted efforts designed to prevent unnecessary foreclosures have reduced the amount of mortgage redefaults, says a group of state attorneys general and banking regulators. But the group also expressed concern that foreclosures continue to outnumber loan modifications.



According to a report issued by the State Foreclosure Prevention Working Group, a multi-state coalition, recent loan modifications are in fact performing better. Loan modifications may include reduced interest rates and other changes that result in smaller payments -- and in some cases, lower outstanding balances.



"Some analysts have predicted redefault rates as high as 75%, but today's report paints a brighter picture of the future," Washington Attorney General and working group member Rob McKenna said in a statement. "The newer modifications are holding up better, with fewer borrowers redefaulting."



Despite the progress noted in the report, McKenna says he's concerned that 6 out of 10 seriously-delinquent borrowers are not getting any help.



The report tracks loan modifications made by nine mortgage companies who were servicing 4.6 million loans as of March 2010. Banks -- which are regulated by federal agencies -- are not included in the report. Compared to loans modified in 2008, borrowers whose loans were modified in 2009 were 40% to 50% less likely to be seriously delinquent 6 months later.



The majority of loan modifications (89%) tracked by the working group for the first quarter of 2010 showed some reduction in payments, and nearly 78% lowered the monthly payment by more than 10%. Redefault rates were lower for loan modifications that reduced the principal balance by more than 10%.



However, only 1 in 5 modifications reduce the loan amount, and the vast majority increase the loan balance by adding servicing charges and late payments.



"When housing prices are low, the lender is going to take a loss if that home is foreclosed and surrounding home values will ultimately be impacted," McKenna said in a statement. "The underlying theory of a loan modification is to enable the lender to get the same value out of the home as if it had been foreclosed. The lender still takes a loss through the reduction of interest or principle. But the net result is better for the community and the borrower because, of course, a house is more than just an asset. It's a home."



The Office of Thrift Supervision and the Office of the Comptroller of Currency reported a similar reduction in redefault rates in its Mortgage Metrics Report for the first quarter of 2010. Of the 590,000 modifications made in 2009, nearly 52% were still current (i.e. homeowners were making payments on time) at the end of the first quarter of 2010, the agencies reported. By comparison, only 27% of loan modifications made during 2008 were still current.



McKenna and his office have trying to help homeowners by cracking down on unethical lenders and fraudsters, pushing for the modification of unaffordable mortgages, urging changes to bankruptcy rules, and seeking state-federal collaboration on bank regulation.



The Washington Attorney General's Office also granted $920,000 of its Countrywide/Bank of America settlement payment for local foreclosure prevention programs that provide counseling and pro bono legal services.



The State Foreclosure Prevention Working Group consists of 12 state attorneys general (Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and Washington), bank regulators for New York, North Carolina, and Maryland, and the Conference of State Bank Supervisors. The group was founded in 2007 and has issued four previous reports.

Demand: fewer new households

Household creation depends on the state of the economy. The combination of high unemployment, weak wage and salary growth, and tight credit has led to a decline in household growth over the past few years. The two main surveys of household formation from the Census Bureau – the Housing Vacancy Survey and Current Population Survey – show that about 500,000 households were created annually over the past three years compared to an annual average of about 1.2 million during the first half of the decade (Figure 6). How can we explain such a notable drop in household formation?

Moving in with the folks

The obvious answer is to look at homeownership rates, which have tumbled to 66.9% from a peak of 69.2% in 4Q04. This translates to a loss of nearly 2.5 mn homeowners. Most of these homeowners became renters, which means they remain a household, but not all. As can be seen by the surge in the rental vacancy rate to 10.6%, it seems that there was not a perfect shift from homeowners to renters (Figure 7). This begs the question: what happened to these former households? There was doubling up among economically stressed households; in other words people moved in with friends or family. Many of these former homeowners were probably foreclosure victims (Figure 8).

As Figure 8 shows, household formation can also decline if there are fewer young households created to replace the aging homeowners. Given the nearly 10 point surge in the unemployment rate among 16 to 24 year olds from the trough to peak during this cycle, it seems like this was a considerable factor. A recent paper sponsored by the Research Institute for Housing America estimates that the probability of a young adult forming a household declines by 4% during a recession, and up to 10% if unemployed. In addition to the slowdown in “headship rates” domestically, there was a drop in household formation from immigration. According to the Office of Immigration Statistics at the Department of Homeland Security, the number of unauthorized immigrants decline by 1.0 million from 2007 to 2009 compared to a net gain of 1.3 million from 2005 to 2007.

Household growth to improve, but with a lag

Household formation will naturally pick up as the economy improves, but if our forecast for a sluggish recovery is realized, household growth will also be lackluster. The main factor influencing household growth will be the state of the labor market. The above-referenced paper finds that the unemployment rate must fall by 2pp from current levels to return to normal rates of household formation of about 1.2-1.4 million a year. We do not expect the unemployment rate to reach the mid-7% range until 2013, implying another two and a half years of sluggish household formation of about 800,000 a year. This is also when we expect the pace of foreclosures to slow notably, which means that fewer households will have to double-up.

Looking ahead to 2013 and beyond, we use forecasts from the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University. They present two possible trajectories for household growth: 1) an average of 1.48 million annually through 2020 assuming net immigration returns to the 2000-05 pace and headship rates at 2008 levels; and 2) an average of 1.25 million annually through 2020 assuming the same 2008 headship rates but slower immigration. We believe the latter is more likely and use this as our baseline forecast (Figure 9).

Renters will take market share

Although we expect household formation to start to improve in 2013, the homeownership rate should still fall further, suggesting that most of the gain in households will be due to an increase in renters. This is because there is still a considerable number of homeowners with mortgages in some stage of delinquency that are likely to end in foreclosure. Based on data from the Mortgage Bankers Association, there are about 5.5 mn seriously delinquent mortgages currently outstanding.

A recent paper by economists at the NY Federal Reserve (Haughwout, Andrew, Richard Peach, Joseph Tracy. “The Homeownership Gap”, Federal Reserve Bank of New York Current Issues in Economics and Finance, Volume 16, Number 5, May 2010) attempts to quantify the effective lower bound for the homeownership rate. They make the assumption that underwater borrowers (negative equity), who currently account for about a quarter of mortgage holders, will transition to renters over time. Subtracting these underwater borrowers yields an “effective homeownership rate” of 61.6% (Figure 10). This would be a record low in the data which goes back to 1965. We do not expect such a precipitous drop because not all underwater homeowners will become renters. Indeed, a recent study by Trulia.com and RealtyTrac found that 59% of respondents would not go into foreclosure simply because of negative equity. We believe it is more likely that the homeownership rate will bottom at 65%, returning to mid-1990s levels.

It is plainly obvious why the demand-side is so often ignored in polite conversation: it is the consumer-driven aspect of the house price variable, over which neither the Fed, nor the Treasury, nor the FHA has any authority, and which is a function purely of expectations of the future. Alas, those right now are lously and getting worse. We expect that Demand-side housing economics will take on progressively more importance in the future, as it becomes obvious that no amount of Supply-side tinkering will prevent another 20% drop in prices.

And speaking of Supply, this is also a critical factor, if much more prevalent in the daily media. Alas, that in itself does not make the problem any easier to resolve.


eric seiger

Rory O&#39;Connor: &quot;<b>News</b> Bias&quot; and the Media Battle Over the Meaning <b>...</b>

Like the "Global War on Terror" spawned by the attacks, the ongoing struggle to interpret 9/11 now appears to be a war without end.

Betaworks and The Times Plan a Social <b>News</b> Service - NYTimes.com

Betaworks, a technology incubator in New York, is teaming up with The New York Times to introduce a social news service.

Small Business <b>News</b>: In The Trenches

Small business owners are in the trenches everyday creating businesses that change the world or their little corner of it. Starting a small business involves.


























Thursday, September 2, 2010

foreclosure victims


Down With Tyranny uncovers the photo above, and lays out what’s new in the David Rivera alleged domestic abuse scandal. The photo, by the way, shows Rivera with the alleged victim’s mom. Drip, drip …

From the DWT blog:


There’s growing chatter in Miami political circles these days that one of its most influential and controversial politicians is about to fall from grace. Reliable sources tell me that several major South Florida media outlets will soon be reporting that Miami GOP Chair and candidate for Congress, David Rivera, has a repeat domestic violence record dating back to 1994 and was caught lying about it to the press, something first reported here at DWT early last month.


This story’s impeding breakthrough into the mainstream media is sure to cause trouble for conservative rising star Marco Rubio. David Rivera is a self proclaimed “disciple” of Marco Rubio and served as his protégé and strong arm in the Florida Legislature. The two Florida politicians own a house together that went into foreclosure last month. Rubio headlined a fundraiser for Rivera last month in Washington DC and the two have traveled to Las Vegas and Los Angeles together for fundraisers.


Rubio, the bright shiny object of both the Tea Party and FOX News, embarrassed by the Sharron Angles, Ken Bucks and Rand Pauls, will be placed in an awkward spot when it is made public that his best friend has been accused of Domestic Violence and furthermore that he has put forward the absurd excuse that it is merely a case of mistaken identity.


There’s plenty more, including details and timeline, at DWT. Most potentially damning:


A firsthand source told me that the NRCC asked Rivera of his domestic violence past in April, and he told them it’s a case of mistaken identity. Both the Miami New Times and the Miami Herald have also asked Rivera about his domestic violence record and he denies even knowing the woman, Jenia Dorticos. Given Rivera’s history of being caught red-handed lying to reportersabout the company he keeps (and just about everything), I dug a little deeper and here’s what I discovered.


• David Rivera the Republican politician is the only David M. Rivera that ever comes up when you conduct a public records search on the Miami Dade County public records website where you can find his mortgage deed, etc.


• Several of the victim Jenia Dorticos’ friends have refuted Rivera’s claim that he doesn’t know her and say the two dated in the 1990′s.


• Rivera is photographed with Dorticos’ mother at a fundraiser in April headlined by Scarface star Steven Bauer (“Manolo”). (above)


• Rivera has been dodging reporters now for 14 days and has kicked them out of recent Republican events and offices.


• Marco Rubio (again, Rivera’s closest friend) and David Rivera’s attorneys have been intimidating and threatening South Florida media outlets with a $10 million law suit if they report this story. Of course, if Rivera’s legal team wanted to, they could demand an injunction, but that would then force the state attorney’s office and Rivera to turn over all evidence related to this case in court.


Again, drip drip …



Demand: fewer new households

Household creation depends on the state of the economy. The combination of high unemployment, weak wage and salary growth, and tight credit has led to a decline in household growth over the past few years. The two main surveys of household formation from the Census Bureau – the Housing Vacancy Survey and Current Population Survey – show that about 500,000 households were created annually over the past three years compared to an annual average of about 1.2 million during the first half of the decade (Figure 6). How can we explain such a notable drop in household formation?

Moving in with the folks

The obvious answer is to look at homeownership rates, which have tumbled to 66.9% from a peak of 69.2% in 4Q04. This translates to a loss of nearly 2.5 mn homeowners. Most of these homeowners became renters, which means they remain a household, but not all. As can be seen by the surge in the rental vacancy rate to 10.6%, it seems that there was not a perfect shift from homeowners to renters (Figure 7). This begs the question: what happened to these former households? There was doubling up among economically stressed households; in other words people moved in with friends or family. Many of these former homeowners were probably foreclosure victims (Figure 8).

As Figure 8 shows, household formation can also decline if there are fewer young households created to replace the aging homeowners. Given the nearly 10 point surge in the unemployment rate among 16 to 24 year olds from the trough to peak during this cycle, it seems like this was a considerable factor. A recent paper sponsored by the Research Institute for Housing America estimates that the probability of a young adult forming a household declines by 4% during a recession, and up to 10% if unemployed. In addition to the slowdown in “headship rates” domestically, there was a drop in household formation from immigration. According to the Office of Immigration Statistics at the Department of Homeland Security, the number of unauthorized immigrants decline by 1.0 million from 2007 to 2009 compared to a net gain of 1.3 million from 2005 to 2007.

Household growth to improve, but with a lag

Household formation will naturally pick up as the economy improves, but if our forecast for a sluggish recovery is realized, household growth will also be lackluster. The main factor influencing household growth will be the state of the labor market. The above-referenced paper finds that the unemployment rate must fall by 2pp from current levels to return to normal rates of household formation of about 1.2-1.4 million a year. We do not expect the unemployment rate to reach the mid-7% range until 2013, implying another two and a half years of sluggish household formation of about 800,000 a year. This is also when we expect the pace of foreclosures to slow notably, which means that fewer households will have to double-up.

Looking ahead to 2013 and beyond, we use forecasts from the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University. They present two possible trajectories for household growth: 1) an average of 1.48 million annually through 2020 assuming net immigration returns to the 2000-05 pace and headship rates at 2008 levels; and 2) an average of 1.25 million annually through 2020 assuming the same 2008 headship rates but slower immigration. We believe the latter is more likely and use this as our baseline forecast (Figure 9).

Renters will take market share

Although we expect household formation to start to improve in 2013, the homeownership rate should still fall further, suggesting that most of the gain in households will be due to an increase in renters. This is because there is still a considerable number of homeowners with mortgages in some stage of delinquency that are likely to end in foreclosure. Based on data from the Mortgage Bankers Association, there are about 5.5 mn seriously delinquent mortgages currently outstanding.

A recent paper by economists at the NY Federal Reserve (Haughwout, Andrew, Richard Peach, Joseph Tracy. “The Homeownership Gap”, Federal Reserve Bank of New York Current Issues in Economics and Finance, Volume 16, Number 5, May 2010) attempts to quantify the effective lower bound for the homeownership rate. They make the assumption that underwater borrowers (negative equity), who currently account for about a quarter of mortgage holders, will transition to renters over time. Subtracting these underwater borrowers yields an “effective homeownership rate” of 61.6% (Figure 10). This would be a record low in the data which goes back to 1965. We do not expect such a precipitous drop because not all underwater homeowners will become renters. Indeed, a recent study by Trulia.com and RealtyTrac found that 59% of respondents would not go into foreclosure simply because of negative equity. We believe it is more likely that the homeownership rate will bottom at 65%, returning to mid-1990s levels.

It is plainly obvious why the demand-side is so often ignored in polite conversation: it is the consumer-driven aspect of the house price variable, over which neither the Fed, nor the Treasury, nor the FHA has any authority, and which is a function purely of expectations of the future. Alas, those right now are lously and getting worse. We expect that Demand-side housing economics will take on progressively more importance in the future, as it becomes obvious that no amount of Supply-side tinkering will prevent another 20% drop in prices.

And speaking of Supply, this is also a critical factor, if much more prevalent in the daily media. Alas, that in itself does not make the problem any easier to resolve.


make money from home jobs

Forclosure Victim? by Lisa Nail aka Flossy


























Tuesday, July 27, 2010

foreclosure listings


penis enlargement

Fwix Aggregates Hyper-Local <b>News</b> for Nearby and Relevant Stories

Fwix is a news aggregation service focused on dishing the dirt on hyper-local news stories to help you stay on top of what's happening right in your backyard. Fwix is available both in the US and select countries abroad.

New Leak Found on Gulf Coast « Liveshots

The Coast Guard is responding to a new oil leak on the Gulf Coast. This spill involves a well in.

eBook <b>News</b>: Wylie/Amazon; Penguin Earnings; Copyright Office <b>...</b>

eBook News: Wylie/Amazon; Penguin Earnings; Copyright Office Announcement & e-Books. + Authors Guild on the economics of the Wylie/Amazon agreement – a 300% increase in author income?; may give Amazon too much power (via TeleRead) ...



hud-foreclosures by IM Coach


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Fwix Aggregates Hyper-Local <b>News</b> for Nearby and Relevant Stories

Fwix is a news aggregation service focused on dishing the dirt on hyper-local news stories to help you stay on top of what's happening right in your backyard. Fwix is available both in the US and select countries abroad.

New Leak Found on Gulf Coast « Liveshots

The Coast Guard is responding to a new oil leak on the Gulf Coast. This spill involves a well in.

eBook <b>News</b>: Wylie/Amazon; Penguin Earnings; Copyright Office <b>...</b>

eBook News: Wylie/Amazon; Penguin Earnings; Copyright Office Announcement & e-Books. + Authors Guild on the economics of the Wylie/Amazon agreement – a 300% increase in author income?; may give Amazon too much power (via TeleRead) ...


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hud-foreclosures by IM Coach


Thursday, July 15, 2010

foreclosure law

In the polarization of politics, parsing words of politicians has become a fine art form by opponents to score points as if the public has a mental scoreboard in their heads.


I’m drawing from memory here as most voters would on criticism tossed at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate

Banking chairman Chris Dodd.


After passage of the health reform legislation, Pelosi said we won’t know what’s in the law until it plays out in real time.


After the joint conference agreement on the pending financial reform package, Dodd said he hoped the new regulations would work.


That’s how I understood what they were trying to say.


The Republican attack machine framed it differently. They suggested Pelosi didn’t bother to read the health legislation. And Dodd was dabbling in some unproven experiment for heavy-handed governmental interference of the capitalist system.


Both pieces of legislation are 1,500 to more than 2,000 pages thick. Not in a million years am I so altruistic that I believe all 535 House and Senate members read every word of both legislative proposals.


Nor do I believe every subsection of each law will work as intended.


Laws are not set in concrete. They can be amended. They can be improved to meet the test of pragmatism. They can be dropped as failures. Awkwardly, it takes Congressional action to do that.


During the 1992 presidential campaign, the one proposal Ross Perot advocated I subscribed to was that each law passed by Congress have a two to five-year sunset clause to determine if it was working.


Now that’s a reasonable concept rather than the Republican battle cry to repeal the health reform law because they don’t like the one section, of hundreds, that mandates purchase of insurance coverage. Some opponents, such as former Alaska half-Gov. Sarah Palin, I presume would not settle for less than a repeal of the entire legislative act.


As for the financial reform legislation, no one other than a cheer-leading President Obama, who does not have a vote, is so bold as to predict passage, especially in the Senate.


What Dodd maybe was referring to as a “hope,” is based on what a battalion of lawyers will write as specific regulatory rules applying to each subsection of the massive legislation overhauling our financial industry how it conducts business.


How that plays out is anyone’s guess. Here are two analysis that may help in determining the prospective winners and losers.


What I object to is that the financial reform package exempted Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which were instrumental in creating the housing market collapse.


The Congressional Budget Office says Fannie and Freddie will end up costing taxpayers more money than the historic bailout of the financial industry.


Congress voted in 2008 to effectively place the two mortgage giants in a federal receivership by taking over 80% of its paper holdings.


So far the tab stands at $145.9 billion, and it grows with every foreclosure of a three-bedroom home with a two-car garage. The CBO predicts that the final bill could reach $389 billion.


Rather than being in the lending business, Fannie and Freddie are just as active in the foreclosure end of it.


Every 90 seconds in the first quarter of this year the two giants foreclosed on a home they financed and guaranteed to pay back investors.


By the end of March they owned 163,828 foreclosed homes, about the same number of total households in Seattle.


“Our business is the American dream of home ownership,” Fannie Mae declared in its mission statement, and in 2001 the company set a target of helping to create six million new homeowners by 2014. The New York Times, reporting from Casa Grande, about an hour’s drive from Phoenix:


Fannie and Freddie increased American home ownership over the last half-century by persuading investors to provide money for mortgage loans. The sales pitch amounted to a money-back guarantee: If borrowers defaulted, the companies promised to repay the investors.

Rather than actually making loans, the two companies — Fannie older and larger, Freddie created to provide competition — bought loans from banks and other originators, providing money for more lending and helping to hold down interest rates.


They paid no heed to predator lenders requiring no money down, balloon payments nor financial statements

from new home buyers’ ability to pay.


The result is Fannie and Freddie today are the nation’s largest landlords.


The two companies together accounted for 17% of real estate sales in Arizona during the first four months of the year, almost three times their share of the market during the same period last year, according to an analysis by MDA DataQuick.


It costs the government about $10,000 to sell each foreclosed house and recoup less than 60% of what the homeowner failed to pay after a resale at deflated market values than the original mortgage purchase price.


Some sales are to investors who “flip” the houses for quick profits after the government repaired interior damage and maintained its yards.


As to the maintenance costs, just the cost of contracting mowing an empty foreclosed property costs $80 per month. The Times:


That’s a monthly grass bill of more than $10 million.

All told, the companies spent more than $1 billion on upkeep last year.


To ensure more new homeowners buy the foreclosures, Fannie and Freddie agreed to sell to nonprofits using taxpayer grants from the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program.


Chicanos por la Causa, which won $137 million under the program in partnership with nonprofits in eight other states, plans to buy more than 200 homes in Phoenix in the next two years. It plans to renovate them to sell to local families.


Another gimmick:


Fannie Mae last summer announced that it would give people seeking homes a “first look” by not accepting offers from investors in the first 15 days that a property is on the market. It also offers to help buyers with closing costs, and prohibits buyers from reselling properties at a profit for 90 days, to discourage speculation. Fannie Mae said that 68.4% of buyers this year had certified that they would use the house as a primary residence.


Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is our problem because Congress bought them for us without our asking.


Cross posted on

I’m not quite certain how to calibrate journalism American Banker style, but I found this article, “Challenges to Foreclosure Docs Reach a Fever Pitch,” (sadly, subscription only, e-mailed by Chris Whalen), to be both interesting and more than a tad disingenuous.


The spin starts with the headline, it’s a doozy. The “challenge to foreclosure documents” message persists throughout the article, and it’s perilously close to a misrepresentation:


Because the notes were often sold and resold during the boom years, many financial companies lost track of the documents. Now, legal officials are accusing companies of forging the documents needed to reclaim the properties.


On Monday, the Florida Attorney General’s Office said it was investigating the use of “bogus assignment” documents by Lender Processing Services Inc. and its former parent, Fidelity National Financial Inc. And last week a federal judge in Florida ordered a hearing to determine whether M&T Bank Corp. should be charged with fraud after it changed the assignment of a mortgage note for one borrower three separate times…


In many cases, [plaintiff attorney] Kowalski said, it has become impossible to establish when a mortgage was sold, and to whom, so the servicers are trying to recreate the paperwork, right down to the stamps that financial companies use to verify when a note has changed hands…


In a notice on its website, the Florida attorney general said it is examining whether Docx, an Alpharetta, Ga., unit of Lender Processing Services, forged documents so foreclosures could be processed more quickly.


“These documents are used in court cases as ‘real’ documents of assignment and presented to the court as so, when it actually appears that they are fabricated in order to meet the demands of the institution that does not, in fact, have the necessary documentation to foreclose according to law,” the notice said..


Yves here. Let’s parse the two messages:


1. Note how the problem is presented as one of “documentation”, implying it is not substantive.


2. Because everyone knows mortgages were sold a lot, (which is clearly mentioned in the piece) the idea that some somehow went missing (or as the piece suggests, the “documentation” is missing even though the parties are presented as if they know who really owns the mortgage) is presented as something routine and not very alarming.


OK, let’s dig a little deeper. Even though the media refers to “mortgages”, under the law there are two pieces: the note, which is the indebtedness, and the mortgage (in some states, a “deed of trust”), which is the lien against the property. In 45 of 50 states, the mortgage follows the note (it is an “accessory”) and has no independent existence (as in you can’t enforce the mortgage if you don’t hold the note. You need to have both the note and the mortgage. This is a bit approximate, but will do for this discussion).


Now, the note is a bearer instrument if it is endorsed in blank (as in signed by current owner but not specifically made payable to the next owner, which was common for notes that were sold). It isn’t some damned “documentation”. Remember the days of bonds, when you had the real security, or stock certificates? This is paper with a hard monetary value, the face amount of the note (as long as it’s current, anyhow).


So now go back and look at that little extract. This “oh business was so busy we mislaid a lot of paper” isn’t some mere filing error. It’s like saying you left an envelopes full of cash in the subway on a regular basis. In the late 1960s back office crisis on Wall Street, when the volume of stock trading overwhelmed delivery and settlement infrastructure, a LOT of firms went out of business, in the midst of a bull market.


OK, now the second item with the article finesses is the sale of mortgages versus the role of the servicer. For the overwhelming majority of first mortgages, and I believe about 50% of second mortgages and HELOCs, the servicer is working for a trust that holds the notes pursuant to a securitization.


The standard documentation for a RMBS calls for the trust to gave a certification at closing that it has all the notes and it has to recertify that it has all the assets at two additional future dates, usually 90 days out and a full year after closing.


So this “notes were flyin’ around, yeah we lost track” is presumably impossible if we are discussing securitizations. Or put it another way: it means the fraud here is much more extensive than servicers making up documents ex post facto. It means the fraud extended back into how the securitization took place (as in what investors were told v. what actually happened).


And before you say these reports are exaggerated, my limited sample and my discussions with mortgage professional (not merely plaitiff’s attorneys but mortgage industry lifers) suggests the reverse.


But what about the second claim in the headline, that this activity has reached a “fever pitch”? Wellie, that’s a distortion too, perhaps to energize those who would be enraged by visions of deadbeat borrowers staying in houses due to fancy legal footwork. Trust me, there are FAR more overextended borrowers living in “free” housing due to banks slowing up the foreclosure process than due to legal battles.


First, the story is ONLY about Florida, despite the hyperventilating tone. And Florida is way ahead of other jurisdictions. There is a group of lawyers that are sharing G2 on these cases, and there are also a fair number of sympathetic judges. Note some states (Minnesota in particular) have both extremely pro bank laws and a business friendly bar. So it’s misleading to make sweeping generalizations; you need to get a bit more granular, which this article fails to do.


Second, the “fever pitch” headline also conveys the impression that this is an epidemic, ergo, these cases are widespread. While it is hard to be certain (this activity is by nature fragmented), at this point, that looks to be quite an exaggeration. The vast majority of borrowers, when the foreclosure process moves forward, don’t fight. They lack the energy and the resources. And when the borrower prevails, the case is typically dismissed “without prejudice”, meaning if the servicer and trustee get their act together, they can come back to court and try again.


Most of the battles against foreclosure appear to fall into one of two categories:


1. The borrower can afford the mortgage, but has fallen behind due to what he thinks is a servicing snafu. I can give you the long form, but the way servicers charge extra fees is in violation of Federal law and is designed to put the borrower on a treadmill of escalating fees. And they do not typically inform the borrower that fees have compounded until 6 or more months into the mess, and by that time, the arrearage can be $2000 or more. The borrower is unable to fix the servicing error, the fees continue to escalate, and the house goes into foreclosure.


2. The borrower has filed for a Chapter 13 bankruptcy, but the trustee is fighting the bankruptcy stay and trying to seize the house.


So why this alarmist American Banker article? Even if the numbers of successfully contested foreclosures are not (yet) large, the precedents being set are very detrimental to the foreclosure mills, the servicers, and the trustees. Moreover, the costs of fighting these cases can quickly exceed the value of the mortgage. So it would not take much of an increase in this trend to wreak havoc with servicer economics, and ultimately, the losses on the trust, particularly on prime mortgages, where the loss cushions were considerably smaller than on subprime.


I suspect the real reason for alarm isn’t the “fever pitch,” meaning the current level of activity. It’s that a state attorney general is throwing his weight against the servicers, and what he is uncovering is every bit as bad as what the critics have been saying for some time. That may indeed kick up anti-foreclosure efforts in states with open-minded judges to a completely new level.




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Friday, July 9, 2010

foreclosure homes

For example, the "official" unemployment figure is about 14 percent in the state of Michigan right now.  But if you actually believe that 86 percent of able-bodied workers in the state of Michigan are employed, then perhaps you would be interested in an offer to purchase the Golden Gate Bridge as well.


Elliott Parker, an economist at the University of Nevada, Reno says that the record-setting unemployment numbers in Nevada are just part of a larger trend.... 


"Nevada has been losing jobs since March 2008, and we are continuing to do so."


But where the state of Nevada and the city of Las Vegas have really been hammered is in the housing industry.


It is estimated that a whopping 65 percent of all homes in the state of Nevada are underwater.


Let that sink in for a bit.


65 percent of all home owners with a mortgage in the state of Nevada owe more than their homes are worth.


Talk about an implosion.


Nationally, the number of homes that are "underwater" is about 24 percent.  That is an all-time record for the entire nation, but it doesn't come anywhere close to the nightmare that is unfolding in Nevada and in Las Vegas.


And the number of foreclosures taking place in Nevada is absolutely breathtaking.


According to RealtyTrac, Nevada is still ranked number one for foreclosure filings.  In fact, one out of every 79 Nevada homes received a foreclosure filing in the month of May alone. 


Nevada’s foreclosure rate is now five times the national average.


By just about any measure, the economy of Nevada is a complete and total disaster.


A reader recently sent an email describing the economic horror that is unfolding in Las Vegas.  No matter what you may think about the city, the truth is that it is sad to see any great U.S. city fall to pieces like this....


"Las Vegas is a goner. The homeless population is out of control. The real estate is far worse than I have seen in the media (no surprise there). The towers of condos are ninety five percent vacant with zero activity. The streets and parks are in decline. Local governments are busy making cuts and fighting unions. When I ride the streets they are deserted, a big change from 2006. The major casino companies have all but moved the casinos out of Nevada. Rooms and restaurants have been closing for years, even while they finished the new projects. The entire town is a skeleton staff providing substandard service and decaying properties. I still work for one of the majors which is in bankruptcy. When the next wave hits there is nowhere to cut. It will be a game of dominoes with the Wynn properties the only ones left standing. I see the ninety nine cent breakfast making a comeback. The bullet train a day late and a few billion dollars short."


So is there any hope for Las Vegas?


Well, if the U.S. economy gets back up off of the operating table and roars back to life there is little doubt that millions of Americans would once again soon be flying there to gamble away their discretionary income.


But the truth is that any "revival" that is going to happen in Vegas is going to be very short-lived.


The U.S. economy as a whole is caught in a death spiral, and we are about to see a repeat of the housing crash that devastated Las Vegas so badly the first time around.


No, there really isn't any way that the death of Las Vegas can be avoided.  Just like the U.S. economy as a whole, it is inevitably doomed.  The numbers don't lie.


The grand total of all government, corporate and consumer debt in the United States is now equal to 360 percent of GDP.  That is a far greater level than the U.S. ever approached during the Great Depression.


The entire U.S. economy is a house of cards built on a gigantic pile of debt and paper money, and it is only a matter of time until it all comes crashing down.


But of course that isn't stopping the U.S. government from spending even more money and getting us all into even more debt.


According to a recent Treasury Department report to Congress, the U.S. national debt will top $13.6 trillion this year and climb to an estimated $19.6 trillion by 2015.


But as many of you who have experienced this on a personal level know, getting into continually increasing amounts of debt never ends well.


So do any of you have a tale to tell about the city where you live?  Do you find yourself caught in the middle of an economic nightmare?  Feel free to leave a comment telling us what is happening in your area of the United States....


Don't Miss: 20 Cities That Have Completely Missed The Recovery




"That's a very good thing," said Thomas Lawler, an independent housing economist in Virginia. But he noted that even with that positive trend, "you are highly likely to see an acceleration in the number of actual completed foreclosures."



Lenders are offering to help some homeowners modify their loans. But many borrowers can't qualify or they are falling back into default. The Obama administration's $75 billion foreclosure prevention effort has made only a small dent in the problem.



About 25 percent of the 1.2 million homeowners who started the program over the past year had received permanent loan modifications as of April. About 23 percent of those enrolled dropped out during a trial phase that lasts at least three months. Many more are in limbo.



Among states, Nevada posted the highest foreclosure rate in May. One in every 79 households there received a foreclosure notice. However, foreclosures there are down 16 percent from a year earlier.



Arizona, Florida, California and Michigan were next among states with the highest foreclosure rates. Rounding out the top 10 were Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Utah and Maryland.



Las Vegas continued to be the city with the nation's highest foreclosure rate, but activity there was down 18 percent from a year earlier. And nine out of the top 10 cities with the highest foreclosure rates posted annual declines. The exception was the Vallejo-Fairfield area in California, where foreclosures were up 1 percent from a year ago.



Foreclosed homes are typically sold at steep discounts, lowering the value of surrounding properties. That's a concern for local communities, and a drag on the economic recovery.



In recent months, home prices have started to sink again after stabilizing last summer. Economists at Goldman Sachs predicted in a report last week that prices will fall about 3 percent nationally over the next year, with the largest declines in cities where mortgage defaults are rising.



"The housing market remains plagued by enormous excess supply," wrote Goldman economist Sven Jari Stehn.








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Friday, July 2, 2010

foreclosure list


Foreclosure Mediation Programs Succeed Across The Country — Will Pawlenty Give Minnesota’s A Chance?


Today, across the country, mortgage mediation programs aimed at helping struggling homeowners stay in their homes are getting underway. Programs are launching in Maryland, as well as Florida’s 6th and 10th judicial circuits — encompassing Pasco, Pinellas, Hardee, Highlands, and Polk counties — while Cook County, Illinois is beginning a huge round of outreach for its burgeoning program.


In all, “the number of jurisdictions with foreclosure mediation programs is nearly double the number a year ago, with jurisdictions in 21 states now offering foreclosure mediation or negotiation programs.” Not on this list, however, is Minnesota, where Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) saw fit to veto a program last year.


The Minnesota state senate recently passed the bill again, sending it to the state House, so Pawlenty could very well get a second shot soon. And there’s simply no reason for him to oppose the program, as mediation — during which a bank meets face-to-face with a borrower, often in the presence of a judge and housing advocates, to try and forge a mortgage modification or other arrangement that prevents a foreclosure — is one of the most successful methods of helping struggling borrowers stay in their homes.


Connecticut’s mediation program, for instance, has kept 60 percent of its borrowers out of foreclosure. Philadelphia’s success rate is also 60 percent, while Nevada claims an 85 percent success rate:



About 80 percent of homeowners at risk of losing their homes don’t engage in any efforts to negotiate with their lender. And those who do so on their own often run into a bureaucratic mess, including hours on hold, lost records, and customer service representatives who know nothing about the borrower’s situation. Mediation helps to ensure that situations like that don’t happen.


“These new protections empower our fellow Marylanders, putting them on a more equal footing with mortgage companies that too often can’t be bothered to pick up the phone before beginning a foreclosure proceeding against a Maryland family,” said Governor Martin O’Malley (D). And lest Pawlenty think this is a purely partisan issue, it has also won the praise of Gov. Jodi Rell (R-CT). “Clearly, mediation is an effective tool homeowners can use to ward off foreclosure,” she said. “This program is a beacon of hope for hard-pressed homeowners and a real alternative for lenders.”


In mediation, there’s no requirement for a lender to accommodate a borrower, but it’s often the case that preventing a foreclosure is in the best financial interest of both the borrower and the lender. As CAP’s Andrew Jakabovics and Alon Cohen wrote, “the simple act of participating in mediation consistently yields solutions short of foreclosure that are acceptable to both sides.” Hopefully, should the Minnesota legislature do the right thing and create a program, Pawlenty will allow it to stand.





Michael McNamara, Vice President, Research and Analysis for SpendingPulse, observes Consumer Takes a Respite as Spending in Many Sectors Declines.

The momentum in consumer spending that was building through the first quarter, seems to be taking a breather in the second quarter of 2010, at least so far. Financial volatility in the capital markets and ongoing macroeconomic issues could account for this shadow cast over the recovery in consumer spending. Some sectors seem to be responding to specific disruptive events, such as the expiration of the Federal housing tax credits, where previously we'd noticed a beneficial "echo" effect on housing related categories such as Furniture and Furnishings.

In addition, Memorial Day occurring a week later than it did last year, could have pushed some spending into June, 2010. Nevertheless, we continue to see strength in pricing, and in most categories, we are registering solid increases in the SpendingPulse Price Index, indicating that inventories continue to be aligned to demand, and retailers have not had to return to steep discounting.
Price Wars

In response to Michael McNamara's statement "retailers have not had to return to steep discounting" I counter with Foreclosure Life Raft; Price Wars at Walmart; Electrical Demand Drops Two Straight Years, First Since 1949.

Wal-Mart, Target, Costco, others are clearly in the midst of price wars hoping to capture market share.

YouTube Commentary From McNamara

Here’s a short YouTube video with additional commentary from Michael McNamara.



Factors in Spending Respite

McNamara discusses several factors in the spending respite.

  • Some Memorial Day sales falling into June instead of May. This may benefit June sales.
  • Financial market volatility impacts big ticket items and durable goods.
  • The end of $8,000 housing tax credits pushed forward big ticket spending items like furniture and appliance.

Spending Trends

Interestingly, apparel sales and footwear showed a significant decline although online apparel sales were up 20-30% depending on category.

Furniture sales were down 9% compared to a year ago. This was in spite of a mini-rush to buy housing ahead of the expiring tax credit. Perhaps we see a bump in furniture and appliance sales in June or July after some of those home purchases close, but that will be the last hurrah in my opinion.

Luxury retail spending showed an increase of 9.7% compared to May of last year. Luxury sales reflect a recovery in the financial markets as opposed to the real world job loss recovery that most experience.

Moreover, comparisons for luxury sales going forward start to get harder going forward.

Finally, McNamara notes that "eCommerce growth is moving well ahead of brick and mortar sales at +13.7% year over year". Sales tax avoidance anyone?

Expect to see more weakness going forward as housing tax credits expire and other stimulus efforts diminish just in time for the November elections.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
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