Housing Doom

Victoria Grant Socks It To The World (& sideswipes the FRBNY)

John M. — Wed, 16 May 2012 20:25:18 +0000

In many ways we seem to have entered into one of the more dystopian Orson Scott Card novels, and quite a few commentators don’t think this kid’s for real … But on the other hand back in ’06 my 13-year-old niece held her own in a lecture hall in Cambridge MA with a couple of hundred MIT and Harvard types in attendance, so you never know Related posts:YOU ARE HERE — Obama to relive 2nd Grant Administration Ground Zero Canada: Ottawa to Detoxify Original World...

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Pets In Foreclosure Get Their Own Shelter

twist — Sat, 12 May 2012 07:01:23 +0000

For an animal lover like me, it’s heartbreaking to see how many animals are abandoned when their owners go into foreclosure. It happens more often than you might imagine. An organization called Lost Our Home Pet Foundation started in Phoenix as a resource for realtors who keep finding abandoned pets in foreclosed homes. They have taken in 2000 animals in the past four years as well as starting a “pet food bank” to try and help people in difficult financial situations be...

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Foreign Cenbank Holdings to May 9, 2012

John M. — Sat, 12 May 2012 01:51:28 +0000

After a day of Whale Watching it’s simply awesome how the powers that be always seem to circle the wagons and keep the status quo together (how’s that for cliches? ). Anyway, the Fed’s own holdings of MBS remained stalled, rising but by just $0.006 billion while foreign central bank holdings of US obligations swung to a $1B / day drain. This week’s Reuters report1 is, as usual, based on the weekly update from the NY Fed’s H.4.1 table site.2 Here is Doom’s...

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Florida Supreme Court To Consider Whether “Foreclosure Do-Overs” Should Be Allowed

twist — Thu, 10 May 2012 07:01:24 +0000

I remember playing games out on the playground with all the neighborhood kids back when I was small. It always seemed that there would be some annoying kid who couldn’t stand it when things didn’t go his way and it looked like he was likely to lose. If he struck out or a ball went out of bounds he would demand that most annoying and juvenile of solutions– the “do-over”. Lenders, who have been playing for high stakes since the robo-signing scandal, aren’t...

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Being Coy: MSM Sees Housing Bottom

John M. — Wed, 09 May 2012 19:11:18 +0000

Perhaps this old Doom friend could have chosen a better graphic on the 20th anniversary of Westray BL/BW (5/9 ’12): “Housing Bottom? Fannie Mae Won’t Seek Tax Dollars” Evidence is mounting that U.S. home prices are finally hitting bottom, and now comes the best news yet: Fannie Mae says that for the first time since 2008, it won’t need money from the Treasury Department to balance its books. The last time we checked the Fed was holding just south of $848 billion of MBS....

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Crack of Doom: Fun With Godzilla’s Bathtub

John M. — Mon, 07 May 2012 15:12:42 +0000

About a year ago, and much to the bemusement of the majority of our housing market readers, I spent much time speaking to the aftermath of 3/11. By the summer this series was pretty much exhausted, as you can see from this feeble Aug ’11 effort. But if the story went underground the danger has continued, as perhaps best summarized in this short YouTube (which because of Mr. Matsumura’s pronounced accent requires close attention before you realize the dire implications): This...

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Foreign Cenbank Holdings to May 2, 2012

John M. — Fri, 04 May 2012 07:01:15 +0000

OK, how do you do it? With half a year to the election you’ve settled on Gov Coke vs Pres Pepsi and after a refreshing six months of full contact TASTES GREAT!! battling LESS FILLING!! you’re guaranteed of a result that changes, well, nothing. Heck even if the recent mischief with delegates turns out to be the first faint sign of democracy waking from its coma you’ve got to remember that the real POTUS is still Doc Dudley and unless something totally unexpected happens (e.g....

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Florida: When The Owner Who Walks Away Is The Bank

twist — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 07:01:14 +0000

We’ve had a few debates here on how ethical it is for a homeowner to walk away from their home and mortgage. Homeowners, however, are not the only ones who sometimes find it to their advantage to walk away. In south Florida, there have been thousands of cases where a lender starts to foreclose– then backs out rather than get stuck with property maintenance: A months-long Sun Sentinel investigation of property code violations involving abandoned homes uncovered case after case in...

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Foreign Cenbank Holdings to April 25, 2012

John M. — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 22:25:37 +0000

The Fed’s own holdings of MBS swung to a $7.565 billion shrinkage, reversing over a third of last time’s big increase. Meanwhile the foreign central banks’ treasuries number floated up to a fresh all time high while the agencies number relaxed just back to a level we haven’t seen since the Shoot the Moon era of May 2007. This week’s Reuters report1 is, as usual, based on the weekly update from the NY Fed’s H.4.1 table site.2 Reuters is back to semi-automated...

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Phoenix: The Strange Case of the Missing New Listings

twist — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 14:22:13 +0000

If you’ve read anything at all about housing this year, you’ve read that the housing market is “improving”. Offered up as evidence is the fact that inventories have been falling across the nation. Clearly buyers are snapping up properties again, right? Sales have improved in a number of markets — for example in Phoenix sales were down only about 10% YOY in March which is still above the lows of the bust years – but that’s not the entire picture. For some reason new listings (not...

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Foreign Cenbank Holdings to April 18, 2012

John M. — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 14:16:12 +0000

The numbers for this week have the feel of a monster truck rally with large smelly vehicles spinning their wheels furiously while mostly going in circles without any particular direction indicated. The Fed’s own holdings of MBS surged up $18.568 billion, bringing the holdings of America’s largest (and most “solvent”) unintentional housing GSE back up to late October 2010 levels. Treasuries swung to a new all time record, but that improves on last August by less than $12B...

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Buy, Foreclose, Rinse and Repeat

twist — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 07:02:05 +0000

There’s all kinds of investors these days who see themselves as the latest Donald Trump of foreclosures. A number of them use “Email blasts” to market their latest “fix-and-flips”. L graciously pulls some of the more interesting ones out of his spam trap and sends them on to us. Here’s one of them: So what’s interesting about it? It’s just another “conventional” sale, right? Not this baby. It’s not only flipped– but...

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Zandi: Housing To Start Its Comeback Next Year

twist — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 07:01:17 +0000

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moodys and frequent “talking head” says that housing will start to make a comeback next year. Why? [Thanks L!] First he likes the prices: “House prices are now low enough relative to incomes that single family housing is about as affordable as its ever been in the data we have going back to World War II,” Zandi says. And then there’s the “fear factor”: Demand to buy homes will also increase when potential buyers get a...

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The Golden Age of Foreclosure Squatters is Over?

John M. — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 10:25:27 +0000

For the past couple of years, “foreclosure squatters” have been able to stay in their homes without making a mortgage payment. In the first quarter of this year, the average time between the first missed payment and foreclosure was 370 days. Now that the banks have agreed to the $26 billion dollar settlement though, there are many who believe that “the golden age of foreclosure squatting” has come to an end. My personal feeling is that it is likely that...

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Foreign Cenbank Holdings to April 11, 2012

John M. — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 22:52:41 +0000

The Fed’s own holdings of MBS was unchanged this week and rose, but by a mere $0.007 billion, the week before. Treasuries were flat, but gained a big hunk the previous week while agencies have been experiencing a modest sell-off. This week’s Reuters report1 is, as usual, based on the weekly update from the NY Fed’s H.4.1 table site.2 Here is Doom’s updated CSV version3 of the agencies and treasuries foreign central bank holdings data set. The treasuries number slipped...

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The “Housing Bottom Dance” continues

twist — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 07:01:50 +0000

Every since Robert Toll gave his famous “dancing on the bottom” comment about housing back in 2006, we’ve seen hundreds of articles with sunny predictions of green shoots and market bottoms. You’d think the media would cease to print them, but bottom articles remain a staple of real estate reports. Yesterday Reuters proclaimed Home prices close to bottoming, to rise in 2013. They at least decided to sound somewhat dubious about it: [Thanks L!] (Reuters) – The...

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We’re Back!

twist — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 03:03:55 +0000

Sorry we’ve been MIA this week. We’ve been down for a few days for some technical improvements. Many thanks to our admin for getting us back online! Related posts:Op-Ed Friday: "Fatal Error" On The Sidebar WSJ Video Interview of Robert Shiller About That Disappearing And Reappearing Sidebar… Related posts:Op-Ed Friday: "Fatal Error" On The Sidebar WSJ Video Interview of Robert Shiller About That Disappearing And Reappearing Sidebar…

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Pink Slime is Nothing: Foreign Cenbank Holdings to March 28, 2012

John M. — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 12:57:20 +0000

Adulteration kills trust, although sometimes the time lag can be significant. Doom can hardly wait for the end-of-world interregnum when, as Tim’s last act as SecTreas, he tries to kick that cement filled can forward one last time with another Xmas eve press release. The Fed’s own holdings of MBS shrank again, this time by a hearty $14.474 billion and foreign central banks were buying treasuries at a bit above $1 billion / day. All’s right with the world, it would seem. This...

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Lousy Housing Market A Threat To Civilization?

twist — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 07:01:51 +0000

The National Association of Realtors has been known to make some “interesting” claims. Back in 2006 they launched a campaign which said It’s a great time to buy or sell a home. [I guess they were half right at the time.] This year they are launching another campaign with a Rally to protect the American Dream. Apparently we should get behind them this time as they fight to save civilization as we know it. If you thought housing was just about a place to live, read this from...

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Shiller: You May Not Live To See Housing Recover In The Burbs

twist — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 07:01:03 +0000

I read Yale economist Robert Shiller’s Irrational Exuberence back in 2006. He wrote it in 2000 and espoused this wacko idea of home prices falling significantly. Shiller is one of the co-founders of the Case-Shiller index that tracks home prices. His theories on the housing market have come in and out of favor in the last few years, depending on the current views of the media. I’ve been accused of being a perma-bear, but I’ve thought the single family housing market...

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Bank of America Launching “Rent in lieu” program

twist — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 07:01:38 +0000

One of the options for homeowners facing foreclosure is to do a “deed in lieu”. A deed in lieu is where a borrower hands the deed back to the lender rather than be foreclosed on. Bank of America is launching what sounds like a “rent in lieu” program. [Fannie Mae, by the way, has a similar program.] Borrowers give back the deed and stay on as renters: [Thanks L!] The pilot program works like this: homeowners would give the title of their homes to Bank of America in...

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Foreign Cenbank Holdings to March 21, 2012

John M. — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 23:32:01 +0000

The Fed’s own holdings of MBS shrank, but just by $2.625 billion and foreign central banks’ aggregate holdings of US obligations swung to a half-$B-a-day selloff after last week’s big buying splurge. This week’s Reuters report1 is, as usual, based on the weekly update from the NY Fed’s H.4.1 table site.2 This week we’ve got a byline, and from one of Reuters’ real reporters no less. Maybe he’ll actually read what he’s writing; at least he...

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Robo-Signer Gets $4M Tab For Halloween Party

twist — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 07:01:35 +0000

Remember the New York foreclosure mill that had the Halloween party last year mocking the foreclosed and homeless? [Here's the video if you don't.] The “robo-signers”, the Steven J. Baum law firm, have settled. The tab for their “humor”? Four million dollars. [Thanks L!] BUFFALO, N.Y. – A New York law firm that was harshly criticized after pictures surfaced from a company Halloween party where people dressed as homeless has agreed to pay $4 million in a...

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Household Formation Isn’t “Pent Up”, It’s Stretching Its Seams And Getting Comfortable

twist — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 07:01:24 +0000

Robert Frost said that home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. Given the ongoing state of the economy, a lot of folks have have opted to go home. Retired parents whose investments have taken a hit have moved in with kids, unemployed young adults have moved in with parents, laid off workers have moved in with siblings, and all sorts of other combinations. According to Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, that means...

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Canadian Home Prices Rising At “Unsustainable” Rate

twist — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 07:01:34 +0000

Back in 2008, I wondered how sustainable the rise in Canadian home prices was, but the market has continued to rise. Concerns are rising though, as evidenced by two pieces from the Globe and Mail yesterday. One was this opinion from Bank of Montreal’s CEO Bill Downe: “We took a long, hard look at the Canadian housing market and concluded … there was a legitimate concern that house prices – particularly in the largest cities – had been rising at a rate that was simply unsustainable,”...

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