Category Archives: Real estate

Big Defection in Attorney General Mortgage Settlement: 12 States Having Parallel Talks

At least when Penelope was resisting her suitors, it was clear what her objectives were. She was holding out on her belief that her husband Odysseus would return. And the suitors come off like real boors, so maybe she had also decided the single life was a better option than marrying any of them.

By contrast, it seems as if the Obama administration has completely lost the plot in what was formerly called the 50 state attorney general negotiations, and that appears to have fed directly into the news today of meetings of a breakaway group interested in concrete results.

Michael Olenick: 9.8 Million Shadow Inventory Says Housing Market is a Long Way From the Bottom

By Michael Olenick, founder and CEO of Legalprise, and creator of FindtheFraud, a crowd sourced foreclosure document review system (still in alpha). You can follow him on Twitter at @michael_olenick

“Shadow inventory,” the number of homes that are either in foreclosure or are likely to end up in foreclosure, creates substantial but hidden pressure on housing prices and potential losses to banks and investors. This is a critical figure for policymakers and financial services industry executives, since if the number is manageable, that means waiting for the market to digest the overhang might not be such a terrible option. But if shadow inventory is large, housing prices have a good bit further to go before they hit bottom, which has dire consequences for communities, homeowners, and the broader economy.

Yet estimates of shadow inventory, and even the definition of what constitutes shadow inventory property, vary widely.

More on Corruption in the Florida Attorney General’s Office: Staff Intervenes to Help Lender Processing Services When it is the Target of a Fraud Investigation

As hedge fund manager David Einhorn (known best for his public skepticism of Lehman’s accounting) apparently says regarding situations that don’t pass the smell test, “No matter how bad you think it is, it’s worse.”

Abigail Field’s post on how the Florida attorney general’s office befriends foreclosure fraudsters is an important, if nausea-inducing read. One of the striking sections that makes the extent of the corruption clear is a snippet toward the end. It show how the AG’s office acted to help Lender Processing Services do damage control, when it had LPS under investigation for foreclosure frauds.

Hatchet Job by Florida Inspector General to Justify Firing of Two Lawyers for Foreclosure Fraud Investigations

The usual stereotype of corruption on the US state level is that, depending on the day, Louisiana or Mississippi tops the list. But the cesspool created by the widening foreclosure crisis in Florida puts anything in kudzu-land to shame.

The object lesson is a statement issued by the Florida Office of the Inspector General concerning its decision not to investigate the firing (or more accurately, resignation under duress) of two lawyers in the attorneys general’s office, June Clarkson and Theresa Edwards, who believe they were canned for political reasons, namely, for being too aggressive in investigating foreclosure abuses. Note that these firings came shortly after they received exemplary performance reviews.

NY Fed President Dudley Crosses Swords With GSEs and Board of Governors on Housing/Mortgage Mess

A speech by New York Fed president William Dudley is a bit of a surprise, in that it acknowledges the severity of the deepening mortgage crisis and sets forth some specific policy proposals. I still find these recommendations frustrating, in that they are insufficient given the severity of the problem and also fail to come to grips with widespread servicer abuses (not just servicer driven foreclosures, but also what amounts to theft from investors, via schemes such as double charging fees to borrowers and investors, inflating principal balances, reporting REO as sold months later than the transaction closed, and getting kickbacks on third party charges). But they are more serious than other ideas from senior financial officials. Specifically, the Dudley advocates principal relief via a program of “earned principal reduction” which would allow for put options for all severely underwater borrowers who stay current on their mortgages for three years. But as we will discuss, this proposal is less meaningful than it sounds.

Quelle Surprise! Banks Plan to Fob off Some of the Costs of Multi-State Mortgage Settlement on Investors

Never underestimate the ability of banks to find new and creative ways to steal.

Quelle Surprise! Fed Sees We Have a Big Mortgage Problem

It certainly is gratifying to see the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, via a paper released on Wednesday, “The U.S. Housing Market: Current Conditions and Policy Considerations,” (hat tip Calculated Risk) finally acknowledge that US has a mortgage/foreclosure mess that is not going to go away by virtue of QE or other efforts to goose financial asset prices. However, just as the Fed was late to see the global housing bubble (even the Economist was on to it in June 2005), so to is it behind the curve in its take on the housing problem. This paper at best constitutes a good start, when, pace Churchill, the Fed is at the end of the beginning when it really needs to be at the beginning of the end.

However, before we get to the housing/mortgage market issues, we wanted to focus on a political element of the paper which may be more important that its analytical content. The Fed is openly crossing swords with the FHFA.

Win for MBIA in Ruling Against Countrywide (Updated: Maybe Not Really)

Bloomberg reports that Countrywide took a major setback in a suit against it by bond insurer MBIA. MBIA has alleged (quelle surprise!) that Country misrepresented the quality of loans it had MBIA guarantee. From Bloomberg:

Michael Olenick: Is Shadow Housing Inventory Vastly Larger Than Widely Believed?

By Michael Olenick, founder and CEO of Legalprise, and creator of FindtheFraud, a crowd sourced foreclosure document review system (still in alpha)

The turn of the year is the time to make predictions and projections. I’m optimistic that the tide will finally turn for the American middle-class, suffering silently in a one-sided economic war. I don’t think this will be because of altruism, or even justice, but rather simple pragmatism. Specifically, I believe that parasitic financial institutions have pushed the boundaries so far that they’ve put their host, the middle-class itself, at risk. One new bit of information suggests the housing front is in more perilous shape than most pundits believe.

Extreme Predictions 2012

I tend to avoid the year end retrospective/forecast blizzard, although some of the more creative compilations can be fun.

However, some 2012 forecasts crossed my screen, and two were such striking outliers that I thought I’d call them to your attention and seeing if readers have come across other Extreme Predictions for the new year (aside from the Mayan end of the world sort).

Is the OCC the Most Corrupt US Bank Regulator?

As much as I’m fond of the name “Naked Capitalism,” I am beginning to wonder whether a more accurate description of this blog’s beat might be “Naked Corruption.” Our continuing discussion of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s foreclosure ~~whitewash~~ reviews serves as an object lesson.

Morgenson on the Sham of the OCC’s Foreclosure Reviews

Given that the ~~Office of Bank Boosterism~~ Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is the clear first among the highly competitive ranks of bank-friendly regulators, the fact that the OCC launched a program for borrowers to obtain restitution for financial harm suffered due to foreclosures seemed more than a bit sus.

Gretchen Morgenson does an admirable job of exposing the multiple shortcomings of this OCC program.

More MSM Criticism of Obama “Nothing Illegal Here, Move Along” Stance on Foreclosure Fraud

While quite a few bloggers, prosecutors, economists, and other experts have taken the Administration to task on mortgage-related abuses, the mainstream media for the most part has not seriously challenged the mind-numbing Obama claim that the banksters did nothing illegal.

Reuters refreshingly opposed that ~~bullshit~~ assertion frontally yesterday. In a piece pointedly titled, “The Watchdogs That Didn’t Bark,” reporter Scot Paltrow shows that the mortgage arena is a target-rich environment:

Michael Olenick: The Administration Likes Foxes in Charge of Henhouses – Proof that OCC Foreclosure Reviews Are a Sham

By Michael Olenick, founder and CEO of Legalprise, and creator of FindtheFraud, a crowd sourced foreclosure document review system (still in alpha)

“There Goes the Neighborhood,” which ran on 60 Minutes last Sunday, is a must-see piece. Scott Pelley walks through a pillaged house in Cleveland, slated for demolition in a county neighborhood stabilization program. This abandoned house is owned by Structured Asset Investment Trust 2003-BC11. An investor reports lists the property as “in foreclosure” despite no court filing. Ohio is a judicial foreclosure state, so a foreclosure filing requires a lawsuit, but there isn’t one.