Category Archives: Real estate

Yes, Really, Truly, No Joke, That Schneiderman Mortgage Task Force is Gonna Get Someone….Soon!

I’m sure the banksters are quaking in their boots. Eric Schneiderman, the New York state attorney general whose joining a heretofore moribund mortgage fraud task force and withdrawing from opposition to the horrid mortgage settlement allowed the Administration to push the bank-friendy deal across the line, is now making noises that really, truly, he and his Federal best buddies are gonna nail some baddies really soon. From Reuters:

Mirable Dictu! Has Someone Noticed the IRS isn’t Enforcing Tax Laws in the Mortgage-Industrial Complex?

Reader Deontos highlighted a post on Reuters by two Brooklyn Law School professors, Bradley Borden and David Reiss, on a subject near and dear to our hearts, the abject failure of the IRS to take interest in widespread, probably pervasive, violations of REMIC, the part of the Federal tax code that governs mortgage securitizations.

The reason this matters is that this situation belies on of the Administration’s pet claims, that its hands were tied as far as addressing the foreclosure mess was concerned because it had no leverage over servicers. As we’ll discuss, in fact the Administration has a nuclear weapon in its hands that it is simply refusing to use.

Business Insider Solicits, Then Refuses to Publish, Story on Suspicious Foreclosure-Related Death of Sunny Sheu

We first posted on the suspicious death of Sunny Sheu in June 2011. Our brief overview of the situation:

Mortgage Settlement Monitor Hires Firm that Has Worked on Countrywide Matters

Sadly, there is a reason that the Obama Administration believes that any problem can be solved by better propaganda.

Quelle Surprise! Banks Getting Credit for What They Would Have Done Anyhow in Mortgage Settlement

Today, Joseph Smith, the official monitor for the Federal-state mortgage settlement entered into earlier this year with five major servicers, released a glossy initial report on program progress. Needless to say, my cynicism was piqued both by the glossy format of the document and the decision to release it well before the required date of second quarter 2013.

But the distressing part is the way the settlement is playing out according to script.

New Real Estate Train Wreck Coming: Securitized Rentals

No matter how bad things get, it turns out they can always get worse. Wall Street is about to foist a new “innovation” on investors that even the ratings agencies won’t touch.

Ezra Klein Deems Joe Stiglitz, Paul Krugman, and Elizabeth Warren (Plus Other Serious People) Not Credible

Ezra Klein demonstrated how far he’s has to descend into the Humpty Dumpty world of words meaning just what he chooses them to mean in order to defend failed Administration policies.

Our Coming Rentcropper Society

We are in the midst of a sea change in terms of the relationship of ordinary Americans to the housing market. Policymakers are not only in denial as to its magnitude, but are actively enabling courses of action that are likely to prove destructive.

Michael Olenick: Still Looking for a Housing Bottom

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

Every day a growing crescendo of housing cheerleaders posit the end of the foreclosure crisis. We’re flipping our way out of the mess that we flipped ourselves into, is their usual line of reasoning. I’ve looked at national data, local data, and even data on my own block here in Florida. I tried to make the evidence prove the market has found a genuine, sustainable bottom. There are clearly gimmicks giving a temporary boost, a great PR campaign that may or may not be coordinated, and some foreclosure flippers that may do well, until they don’t. But the evidence is overwhelming: home prices are anything but stable.

New York Times Publishes Apology for Obama’s Failed Housing Policies

On the one hand, the dismal failure of the Administration’s cosmetic responses to the foreclosure mess is so evident that the New York Times is willing to acknowledge it, via a first page article titled, “Cautious Moves on Foreclosures Haunting Obama.” On the other, what the story offers is a whitewash, not an analysis.

Washington Supreme Court Issues MERS Smackdown

While MERS has served to illustrate the utter recklessness of the securitization industry, in that its promoters apparently believed that they could implement it nationwide and simply force state law to comply. But as the banks have found out, the law is not always so obliging.

Brockton Saves $ and Protests Foreclosure Misdeeds by Moving $170 Million Account from Bank of America

Although consumer-level “move your money” campaigns are popular, the sad thing is that many individuals are only marginally profitable as checking/savings account customers. So transferring your account out does not have enough of an impact to make a difference (unless you do so in a way that makes branch staff uncomfortable, by doing it in person and describing their banks’ bad behavior. Enough of that might make a psychological difference). The key to retail customer profitability is cross selling, usually at the time of account opening. So the checking account is the gateway product for them to get customers to sign up for retirement accounts/brokerage, credit cards, and (hopefully sooner rather than later) mortgages.

By contrast, bigger customers who use multiple products are a sweet spot for banks.

Get Everyone You Know in Palm Beach County to Vote for Lisa Epstein for Clerk of the Court Next Tuesday

Readers may know I don’t do political endorsements. I’m making an exception because I’ve worked with Lisa Epstein and am extremely impressed with her knowledge, energy, and tenacity. And separately, readers may have come to recognize that county clerks and registers of deeds can be very important guards of the integrity of property records and legal processes. But only a very few, such as Jeff Thigpen in Guilford County, NC, and John O’Brien in Southern Essex County, Massachusetts, have bothered to investigate their own files and speak up about the large-scale problems they have unearthed.

Lisa is an oncology nurse who has become a self trained and formidable mortgage document and foreclosure procedures (as in abuse) expert.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Proposes New Safeguards for Mortgage Borrowers

The CFPB is proving to be tough minded on the mortgage front. The Wall Street Journal reports that it intends to require banks to consider a modification request before proceeding with a foreclosure: