Greg Swan called housing bears "flying monkeys" right as Phoenix, Arizona peaked. I believe congratulations are in order. It's not easy to be that boldly inept.
Nevada led the nation in distressed sales with a staggering 57 percent share – Arizona and California weren’t far behind, at 49 percent and 44 percent, respectively.
Nevada went to bust from boom in a decade as population growth, once the fastest in the U.S., slowed to almost zero while homeowners struggled with plunging values and the nation's highest unemployment rate.
The situation is particularly bleak for homeowners in the Phoenix metro area, which the agency considers Maricopa and Pinal counties. There, prices declined in the last year by more than 15 percent, the biggest drop of any metro area in the nation.
The astonishing part is that the banking industry continues to maintain that it really didn’t do anything wrong, all it did was make some technical errors. That so grossly understates the degree of its recklessness and malfeasance as to be beyond...
The REO inventory increased 71% compared to Q4 2009 (year-over-year comparison).
The mortgage “settlement” trial balloon floated in the Wall Street Journal this evening is an offense to common sense and decency. Notice how the word “fraud” is pretty much verboten in the MSM; the latest code word for what went awry is “breakdown”.
Homes in the foreclosure process sold at an average 28 percent discount last year and may continue to drive down U.S. housing prices as the supply of distressed properties grows, according to RealtyTrac Inc.
The Commerce Department said sales tumbled 12.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted 284,000 unit annual rate after a downwardly revised 325,000-unit pace in December.
"In an era of record-breaking deficits, it's time to pull the plug on these programs that are actually doing more harm than good for struggling homeowners," Financial Services Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus said in a statement.
In short, this man, is confident that the government will do all it can in its power, regardless of the evidence, to assure that MERS and its members are allowed to proceed as they wish because of the potential financial costs.
“If we go from 1.2 to 2.5 million foreclosures, the system will come apart at the seams. Putting that many people out of their houses, causing that kind of destruction…because remember, we have hundreds of thousands of vacant houses…a vacant...
Obama Wants To Use Proceeds From $20 Billion Foreclosure-Gate Whitewash Settlement To Reduce Underwater Mortgages...
Like all of the NAR data, that's a bald faced lie. Sales were down 120,000 units month to month (30%) to 284,000, and I'm pretty sure even that's a lie. How they used a seasonal adjustment to turn that into a gain, I can't imagine.
And the distressed property share of home sales was an astounding 72 percent in the combined markets of Arizona and Nevada.
MERS (Mortgage Electronic Registration System) and the avoidance of mortgage recording fees Currently MERS is dealing with a storm in the foreclosure arena over whether or not a lender was legally able to foreclose on a mortgage in MERS name. This
Plank after plank of the mortgage recording company MERS’ business model has come under attack. To date, the results do not look good for the embattled company.
Robert J. Shiller, who helped develop the Case-Shiller Home Price Index, put himself in this last group. Mr. Shiller said in a conference call on Tuesday that he saw “a substantial risk” of the market falling another 15, 20 or even 25 percent.
In fact, 11 of the cities in Case-Shiller's 20-city index are at new lows for the cycle. These include Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas, Miami, New York, Phoenix, Portland, Seattle and Tampa.
Further, recall that during the peak and on into the worst of the housing decline, the NARs own chief economist at the time, David Lereah, worked tirelessly to spin the conditions of the housing market into the best light.
Prices are now falling again, and if the months-of-supply is substantially higher than originally thought (the NAR reported 8.1 months in December), then prices will probably fall further than many analysts expect.
Cleveland and Las Vegas have joined Detroit in being cities where home prices are lower than they were in January 2000.
The 2.4% decline in the 20-city composite was right in line. The 10-city composite fell 1.2%.
The National Association of Realtors, which issues the monthly existing home sales report that is closely watched by economists and financial markets, may have over-counted home sales dating as far back as 2007...
As more than $113 billion worth of home equity has vanished from South Florida’s housing market in the past five years, the number of homeowners with mortgages that are larger than the values of their properties has become enormous.
Obama should be punishing the big banks that sabotaged the American dream of home ownership -- instead he's giving them the whole enchilada.
First in muni land, he expects massive carnage, and is already setting up a fund to buy closed-end muni funds in the next year when they crash to 40% of their net asset values. What makes the muni market so crisis proone is the nature of investors...
In the sort of thefts that little people engage in, like holding up a store, the person who drives the car is an accessory and can be prosecuted. But white collar crooks can escape if they get their advisors to wink and nod...
Going forward, the bank is accepting FHA loan applications from borrowers with credit scores as low as 500, though they must come up with a 10 percent down payment and sport a maximum debt-to-income ratio of 31 percent.
Short answer: Not very well.
