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Did you keep your bomb shelter around after the 50s? You might need it for shelter from this economic storm - the one that all the pundits claim is "over" when in fact we are simply sitting in the eye of a Cat 5 hurricane...
What made her think the market would come back when rates were going higher, availability of credit was down, incomes were down, unemployment was up and willingness and availability of people to spend was down, she had no answer.
The bulk of recent foreclosures was on prime, fixed-rate loans, extended to the most credit-worthy borrowers and the bedrock of home ownership in America.
One out of four defaults on mortgage loans is “strategic,” a new study says, due to a mortgage’s value exceeding the value of a house even if the homeowner can afford to pay.
Enjoy
Homeowners start to default once their negative equity passes 10% of the home’s value. After that, they “walk away massively” after decreases of 15%. About 17% of households would default — even if they could pay the mortgage...
There have been bad housing markets before, but never in post-World War II history has the market for new homes suffered as badly as it has in this decline.
Today several us showed up for the case of Eason v. Indymac bank. I was, for the first time in my life, impressed by a judge. Judge Buttrick was actually concerned with following the law and doing the right thing. In court? I had never seen that done before and if you know who I am you understand that I have seen a lot of trials and been involved in more than my share. I was almost speechless afterwards. The judge was biased toward doing the right thing and reaching a fqair conclusion. He did not even appear to be concerned that the banks might not like him. What the hell did I just write?
About 73 percent of all existing houses and condos sold in the Las Vegas-Paradise area were foreclosures last month, up from 56 percent a year earlier, and such sales accounted for 51 percent all existing-home transactions in California..
American homeowners have lost 65.8 percent of the increase in equity they acquired since the start of the housing bubble in January 1996.
Why was I so naive as to have expected this Democratic president to not do the bidding of the banks when the last president from that party joined the Republicans in giving the moguls everything they wanted?
To sum up, it would seem that a lot of banks are looking at intensified control and exploitation of their middle-class customers in the US and beyond as a way to recover some of their recent losses. I find this very disturbing.
The Census Bureau reports New Home Sales in May were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of 342 thousand. This is essentially the same as the revised rate of 344 thousand in April.
There's a widespread belief that banks are purposely limiting the flow of foreclosure homes onto the market, which helps prevent home prices from sliding even further but could prolong the market's long-term recovery.
An emailer asks: “Why do you diss the monthly numbers when they are improving?” Well, because they are not really improving, if you understand the seasonality associated with them.
Existing-home sales fell 3.6% from May 2008. Sales in May 2009 rose 2.4% from April to 4.77 million. Once again, the prior monthly number was revised downwards (4.68 million down to 4.66 million).
The point that offends me deeply is that our state government… and by state government I mean you, Arnold, flat out lied to us.
The rub is that FHA loans allow borrowers to buy a home with as little as 3.5% down. And with the ability in some cases to use the government’s $8,000 tax credit toward down payment, some folks can grab a house for 0% down.
This is a good example of house prices still falling in real terms after a housing bubble, until sometime after the unemployment rate peaks.
When I ran this report, there are 348 homes in Pasadena that are in pre-foreclosure. What does this mean? It means these places have those infamous notice of defaults I keep talking about which will hit the market like a tsunami...
If you are underwater on your house and take a deal like this, you are as dumb as a box of rocks and have just consented to being bent over the table and violated repeatedly. That our government would propose "allowing" such a thing is fomenting financial rape upon The American Public
Several states and the District of Columbia are tracking down smokers who buy cheaper cigarettes out of their jurisdictions and have even begun tax-collection procedures that can end in liens put against the offender’s property.
"They’re probably going to default at a rate that makes subprime look like a walk in the park," warned Rick Sharga , senior vice president for RealtyTrac, a foreclosure research firm in Irvine, Calif.
Mortgage application volume fell for the fourth consecutive week, fueled by a drop off in demand for refinancing, according to the MBA.
It’s tough enough when a homeowner can’t pay their debts and loses a home to foreclosure. It’s even more mind-boggling though when they are notified that it will happen for a previous owner’s debt...
Prices for more expensive homes may not bottom out until 2012, and ultimately result in peak-to- trough declines in excess of 60 percent (compared to 40 percent nationally).”
It was predictable that some people would confuse activity with price (remember there will probably be two bottoms). And it was predictable that some people would get confused when the median price started to flatten out...
Of course, Housing Starts did not “soar” as Bloomberg claimed; you soar high into the sky, and a move from ankle to knee level does not qualify. This was not, as the WSJ asserted, a “Surge in Home Construction.” Rather, it was a bounce off of record lows
