Category Archives: Real estate

Quelle Surprise! GAO Finds Foreclosure “Request a Review” Materials Too Complicated for a Lot of Borrowers

Readers may remember that one of the outcomes of the robosigning scandal was that mortgage servicers entered into consent decrees with the OCC and other regulators in early 2011.

One component of the OCC program was “independent” foreclosure reviews that would be offered to borrowers to determine if they had been harmed by a foreclosure and provide restitution. The servicers were required to do “outreach” to borrowers who might have suffered to give them the opportunity to request a review. You have to understand that this was never a good faith effort, even though HUD secretary Donovan trumpeted these assessments as an important part of “social justice.”

Is Schneiderman Giving a Pass on Possible Illegal Lobbying on Redevelopment Effort Favored by a Major Donor?

An alert reader pointed to a new post by Norman Oder, who has been following the so-called Atlantic Yards project, a $4/9 billion proposed “redevelopment” for part of Brooklyn proposed by Bruce Rattner of Forest City Development.

How the Fannie and Freddie Could, But Won’t, Cut the Housing Gordian Knot

The ongoing, still unresolved issue of the mortgage mess is that irresponsible, unaccountable, self-serving “agents” called servicers manage foreclosures and mortgage modifications. Pretty much anyone who has looked at the problem argues that mortgage modifications to viable borrowers would lead to lower losses to investors and less damage to the housing markets than the Mellonite “Liquidate real estate” program in place now.

The reason we seem unable to get off this destructive path is servicers are paid to foreclose, and not to modify, hence they have set themselves up pretty much only to foreclose.

Quelle Surprise! State Legislatures Aren’t Buying Bogus Mortgage Settlement

The Obama Administration’s full-bore effort to push a bank-favoring mortgage “settlement” over the line earlier this year has led to a rearguard action that appears to have caught the mortgage industrial complex and its allies flatfooted.

Quelle Surprise! Fed Economists Side Firmly With Bank Criminality Over the Rule of Law

Although Dave Dayen already gave a well-deserved shellacking to a remarkable piece of bank PR masquerading as “insight” at Reuters, “Evidence suggests anti-foreclosure laws may backfire,” it merits longer-form treatment as a crude macedoine of anti-homeowner messaging.

Michael Olenick: Irrational Exuberance, Housing Edition

By Michael Olenick, creator of FindtheFraud, 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

… how do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions…
– Alan Greenspan, Dec. 5, 1996

In any context except a Gay Pride parade grown men wearing short skirts and carrying pom-poms look out of place. But if they’re cheering the artificial rise of housing prices we’ve seen lately, they seem to be not only accepted but welcome.

Another Schneiderman Con: Proposes Likely-to-go-Nowhere Foreclosure Fraud Legislation

Having sold out the possibility of getting a decent settlement for homeowners for a seat in Michelle Obama’s box at the State of the Union address and a star turn on a Potemkin mortgage fraud task force, Schneiderman appears to be an adept student of the Obama strategy of preferring empty gestures to substance, since they generate good PR and take a lot less effort.

Michael Olenick: How Servicers Lie to Mortgage Investors About Losses

By Michael Olenick, creator of FindtheFraud, 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

A post last week reviewed a botched foreclosure for a mortgage loan in Ace Securities Home Equity Loan Trust 2007-HE4 dismissed with prejudice, meaning that the foreclosure cannot be refilled; a total loss for investors. Next, we reviewed why the trust has not yet recorded the loss despite the six month old verdict.

Satyajit Das: The Spanish “Bailout”, Whoops – “Assistance”!

On 11 April 2011, then Spanish Finance Minister Elena Salgado stated: “I do not see any risk of contagion. We are totally out of this.” A little over a year later, Ms Salgado and her party are no longer in power and Spain is well and truly in it.

Alabama Appeals Court Reverses Decision on Chain of Title Case, Ruling Hinges on Question of Bogus Allonges

In a unanimous decision, the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals reversed a lower court decision on a foreclosure case, U.S. Bank v. Congress and remanded the case to trial court.

Michael Olenick: How Banks and Their Lawyers Win at the Expense of Investors and Homeowners

By Michael Olenick, creator of FindtheFraud, 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 focus of news stories on mortgage abuses often focus on the immediate victims, the borrowers, but that’s far from a complete tally of the losers. And they also typically fail to look hard enough at the winners and the way they are able, again and again, to burn everyone but themselves.

Barney Frank: Obama Rejected Bush Administration Concession to Write Down Mortgages

Here’s Barney Frank, in an exit interview recently in New York Magazine, revealing unwittingly that Obama during the transition rejected a Bush administration concession to write down mortgages. Here’s what Barney said.

The mortgage crisis was worsened this past time because critical decisions were made during the transition between Bush and Obama. We voted the TARP out. The TARP was basically being administered by Hank Paulson as the last man home in a lame duck, and I was disappointed. I tried to get them to use the TARP to put some leverage on the banks to do more about mortgages, and Paulson at first resisted that, he just wanted to get the money out. And after he got the first chunk of money out, he would have had to ask for a second chunk, he said, all right, I’ll tell you what, I’ll ask for that second chunk and I’ll use some of that as leverage on mortgages, but I’m not going to do that unless Obama asks for it. This is now December, so we tried to get the Obama people to ask him and they wouldn’t do it.

Michael Olenick: WhaleMu – JP Morgan’s Next Surprise?

By Michael Olenick, creator of FindtheFraud, 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

In an admittedly strange twist of timing JP Morgan, the same JP Morgan that just announced a surprise $2 billion loss caused by the “London Whale,” became the first and only of 26 banks disclosing subprime investor data to flip me the digital bird, refusing access to the public loan-level performance data for their Washington Mutual loans.

Watching Icon of the Left Eric Schneiderman Morph into Administration Water Boy Tom Miller

Bear with me while I tell you a story from the 1980s.

More on Frontline’s Astonishing Whitewash of the Crisis

As readers may know, a recent post, “Frontline’s Astonishing Whitewash of the Crisis,”discussed the first half of the Frontline series, “Money, Power & Wall Street.” Producers Mike Wiser and Martin Smith sent a letter taking issue with this review, and I made an exception to my usual practice and posted their missive.

The major dispute is over whether their series lets the financial services industry off too lightly.