Category Archives: Real estate

Just 83,000 Homeowners Get First-Lien Principal Reductions from National Mortgage Settlement, 90 Percent Less Than Promised

Yesterday, the National Mortgage Settlement monitor, Joseph Smith, released his final crediting reports, confirming that all five banks (Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citi, JPMorgan Chase and Ally, now known after bankruptcy as Residential Capital, or ResCap) have now satisfied the consumer relief portion of the foreclosure fraud settlement. The banks were required to spend $20 billion in “credited” relief (some actions received less than a dollar-for-dollar credit). Smith exults that the gross relief provided totaled over $50 billion, and that “more than 600,000 families received some form of relief.”

What the mainstream media reports on this don’t tell you is that the $50 billion number is wildly inflated: for example, it includes $12 billion in deficiency waivers in non-recourse states, which the IRS confirmed have no value whatsoever. But I didn’t know just how inflated these numbers were, and how empty the promises, until I went through them.

Why the Justice Department Inspector General Report on Mortgage Fraud Matters

Hello, folks! As Yves is off explaining the world to Washington, I’m manning the controls for a couple days.

This allows me to ensure that NC has that whole Justice Department IG report on mortgage fraud covered. I know that Yves heaved the written equivalent of a sigh at the news, and she wasn’t wrong. Nothing tangible is likely to happen for the borrowers victimized by the abusive practices that DoJ willfully neglected to prosecute. And there’s surely a seat being kept warm at Covington & Burling for Eric Holder’s post-government career; this won’t hurt him a bit.

But because I don’t feel the coverage so far has plumbed the depths of this corruption, and because it’s still happening, it’s not worth going silent just yet. It’s probably spitting into the wind, yes, but I’ve got the time and the spit, so I want to note a few things.

New Lawsuit Alleges That Wells Has a Manual for Mass Fabrication of Foreclosure Documents

Catherine Curan of the New York Post has an important new story on a Federal lawsuit that looks to have unearthed a smoking gun about systematic document fabrication at Wells Fargo.

Don Quijones: Round Two Of The Global Financial Sector’s Takeover Of Spain

Few have it quite as bad as the tenants of a growing number of social housing projects in Spain who are finding out their new dodgy landlords hail from Wall Street.

17 Million Reasons Rent Control is Efficient

Wealthy investors love to talk about the sanctity of contracts until little guys assert their rights. Then the idea that they might have to fork over a lot of dough to get the other side to give up its right is presented as an offense against nature.

Philip Pilkington: Could a Russian Intervention in the Ukraine Burst the London Property Market?

Yves here. It’s remarkable how much of London has turned into a ghost town thanks to the influx of serious foreign money. When I worked for a few months in London, in 1984, it was Mayfair that was the destination for Saudi money, and it clearly had far too little in the way of street […]

Wolf Richter: The Smart Money Quietly Abandons The Housing Market

Some savvy investors were warning the single family home rental market was overheated nearly a year ago. Now it looks like more and more are realizing that party is over.

New Mexico Supreme Court Issues Important Pro-Homeowner Ruling Based on Standing, State Home Loan Protection Act

It’s gratifying to see that some jurists are still able to be offended by banks who come to court assuming they can foreclose on borrowers based on their say-so.

Rental Income Falls 7.6% in Three Months in Blackstone’s First Home Lease Securitization

A Blackstone deal in the runup to the financial crisis, its acquisition of Equity Office Properties Trust from Sam Zell in early 2007 was recognized at the time as a sign of a market peak. Is history about to repeat itself with Blackstone’s rental securitization?

Pimco, Blackrock Mulling Suing Ocwen Over Abusive Servicing

Funny what a difference a few days makes.

Better Markets Sues Department of Justice and Eric Holder Over JP Morgan Settlement

The public interest group Better Markets today filed suit against the Department of Justice and Eric Holder, alleging that the so-called $13 billion settlement that the Federal government entered into with the nation’s biggest bank was improper due to its secrecy and lack of third-party review.

New York’s Benjamin Lawsky Rattling Banks With Currency, Servicing Probes

It’s been so long that America has had a regulator that is serious about regulating that it’s hard to remember how they operate.

The Supreme Position of the U.S. Dollar in New Financial Innovations and Instruments

New financial innovations and instruments contributed to halting the declining trend of the dollar as a debt-financing currency and reversed the falling role of the dollar in the 2000s.

Quelle Surprise! Bond Investors Notice that Servicers Let Houses Fall Apart

Investors cry crocodile tears over subprime blight even though it helped line their pockets.

Congressmen Call for Hearings on Risks of Rental Securtizations

Private equity firms have been playing residential landlord for only a few years, but the impressive amount of capital they’ve deployed in this strategy means they’ve had significant impact in the markets they’ve targeted. Needless to say, that impact does not look to be very positive. A Congressman has called for hearings on rental securitizations out of concern that this structure could make this already not-too-good-looking situation much worse from the perspective of tenants and communities.