Category Archives: Real estate

Quelle Surprise! HUD and Obama Whoppers About Mortgage Settlement, FHA Finances, Housing Market Remedies Coming Home to Roost

We took a very dim view of some of the Administration’s less-than-credible claims about its much-touted backdoor bank bailout, which was more popularly known as the mortgage settlement. And a rash of news reports tonight have caught the Administration out in its deceptions. From a March post, Memo to Shaun Donovan: Your Nose is Getting So Long You Need to Get a Hacksaw:

Michael Olenick: Schadenfreude Alert – Banks Paying Extortionate Fees for Foreclosure Reviews

By Michael Olenick, a regular contributor on Naked Capitalism. You can follow him on Twitter at @michael_olenick

Every time it appears that the OCC foreclosure reviews have hit bottom they sink further into the morass.

Michael Olenick: How Fannie Enriches Private Equity Investors at Taxpayer and Homeowner Expense

By Michael Olenick, creator of NASTIACO, a crowd sourced foreclosure document review system (still in alpha). You can follow him on Twitter at @michael_olenick or read his blog, Seeing Through Data

There’s a strong argument that the competing goals of HERA, minimizing loss while promoting affordable housing, are impossible. But doing the opposite, increasing losses while discouraging affordable housing, is even harder, yet Fannie has done that.

Latest Obama Headfake: Threat to Replace Favorite Housing Scapegoat, FHFA’s Ed DeMarco

The October surprises are now coming fast and furious as Obama’s lead is slipping in most polls and on Intrade. So empty gestures to boost turnout in his heretofore spurned Democratic party base are the order of the day.

I’m a day behind on this item, but nevertheless thought it was so cynical as to merit special notice.

Some Smart Money is Already Exiting the Single Family Rental Landgrab

Reuters describes how one of the funds that was first to get on the “buy single family homes out of foreclosure and rent them” bandwagon has decided to exit.

Marcy Wheeler: Eric Holder Rewards the Teams that Gave Torturers and Mortgage Fraudsters Immunity

By Marcy Wheeler. Cross posted from emptywheel

As TPM’s Ryan Reilly noted yesterday, among the awards Attorney General Eric Holder gave out at yesterday’s Attorney General’s Award Ceremony was a Distinguished Service Award to John Durham’s investigative team that chose not to prosecute Jose Rodriguez or the torturers who killed their victims.

Michael Olenick: Mortgage Industrial Complex Continues Its Push Against Rule of Law

By Michael Olenick, creator of NASTIACO, a crowd sourced foreclosure document review system (still in alpha). You can follow him on Twitter at @michael_olenick or read his blog, Seeing Through Data

The meaning of the word “chutzpah” varies by context. In criminal court, it might refer to murdering one’s parents then asking for leniency because the perpetrator is an orphan. In family court, it might be invoked when abandoning a child, then pleading the child has been alienated from the parent who left.

We now have a property court usage: perpetrating a massive, well documented fraud then complaining that court bottlenecks – which exist solely because of fraud perpetrated by bank lawyers – cause expensive delays.

Home Appraisers: A Market Failure?

There’s an interesting sign of homebuyer champing at the bit to lever up again with all the “housing has bottomed” talk in a New York Times article last week, “Scrutiny for Home Appraisers as the Market Struggles.” The headline signals the new complaint about appraisers: they aren’t rubber stamping deals entered into by willing buyers and sellers! They are therefore holding back the housing market!

While this frustration among housing enthusiasts is a squeaky wheel in the housing market that probably does warrant comment by the Grey Lady, there are more serious market failures in appraisal land that also deserve attention.

So Where is Schneiderman? Computerized Robosigning Has Made Its Debut

In case you had any doubts about the wisdom of state-level actions to strengthen homeowner rights, the discovery of a new type of abuse, computerized robosigning, should put them to rest.

Even Schneiderman’s Staff Shows Doubts by Voting with Their Feet

Last week, we saw a host of commentators rush to defend the mini October surprise of a sign of life from the heretofore moribund Mortgage Task Force, in the form of a filing by Eric Schneiderman against JP Morgan for fraud charges under New York’s Martin Act, even though we and others took a dim view of the suit. And even though a bit more information has come out, it doesn’t change our view that this and parallel cases (which the Mortgage Task Force has said it will launch) will be settled quietly, well after the election, perhaps even after Schneiderman’s current term expires, for comparatively little.

Do We Really Need Freddie to Subsidize Rental Investors?

Just because the banks are on one side of an issue does not always mean they are wrong, just that they might be right for the wrong reason.

Schneiderman Suit Against JP Morgan: A Rehash of Other Lawsuits, Likely to Produce Meager Settlement

It looks like Eric Schneiderman is living up to his track record as an “all hat, no cattle” prosecutor. Readers may recall that he filed a lawsuit against the mortgage registry MERS just on the heels of Obama’s announcement that he was forming a mortgage fraud task force. The MERS filing was a useful balm for Schneiderman’s reputation, since it preserved his “tough guy” image, at least for the moment, and allowed his backers to contend that he had outplayed the Administration.

By contrast, we were skeptical of the suit, both in timing and in substance, and thought it had substantial hurdles to overcome. Indeed, despite invoking an impressive-sounding $2 billion in lost recording fees and other harm, the suit settled for a mere $25 million.

Schneiderman has churned out another lawsuit that the Obama boosters and those unfamiliar with this beat might mistakenly see as impressive.

Mirabile Dictu! Schneiderman Files Fraud Suit Against JP Morgan Over Bear Stearns MBS

Wellie, on schedule, we have our October surprise.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Eric Schneiderman has filed against JP Morgan for mortgage securitizations created and sold by its Bear Stearns subsidiary. I don’t yet have a copy of the claim and will update the post when I get it.

The article indicates that the Bear suit will serve as a template for other mortgage-securitization-related litigation against major originators.

Blatant Violation of Mortgage Settlement Elicits Predictable Limp-Wristed Response From Mortgage Monitor

Gretchen Morgenson has a good piece up today which again proves that no matter how bad you think the mortgage settlement is, it’s worse.

Quelle Surprise! Mortgage Settlement Monitor Advocates Going Easy on Servicers Since We Don’t Dare Ask Them to Spend Money to Meet Their Contractual Obligations

The mortgage settlement looks to be every bit as bad as cynics predicted. The most exacting and detailed reporting on the settlement terms came from attorney Abigail Field, who undertook the painful process of reading the entire agreement and making sense of what the detailed terms meant. And the latest word from the settlement monitor Joseph Smith is yet another confirmation of the settlement process as enforcement theater.