The New York Times, in “Loan Industry Fighting Rules on Mortgages,” tells us that the real estate creditors are fighting tooth and nail to gut new rules that the Fed intends to impose. The Times, apparently reflecting the sentiment of sources in the Fed, Capitol Hill, and consumer advocates, seems surprised at the vehemence of […]
Read more...As the housing/mortgage crisis has progressed, homeowner advocates and legislator have to get mortgage servicers to offer more loan modifications to struggling borrowers. Even though this housing recession has a far higher proportion of borrowers seriously underwater than past downturns, the logic of loss mitigation is still valid. It’s still better for the bank to […]
Read more...A MarketWatch story “Home prices aren’t tanking everywhere,” has the all the earmarks of being a National Association of Realtors plant. Note that it’s even told from the perspective of supposedly well-meaning (as opposed to commission-motivated) brokers trying to educate clients that the press is wrong, things really aren’t that bad. Here’s the gist of […]
Read more...With all the cheery talk about how our credit crisis is a thing of the past, mortgage rates, as reader Scott reminds us, are moving up again. From his message: You’ll recall that some time over the last month or so, bullish commentators noted that with mortgage rates falling, resets of ARMs were no longer […]
Read more...On a post yesterday on how well (or more accurately, how badly) various state efforts to rescue homeowners were faring, reader Richard Kline offered a suggestion. Note that while I still favor the apparently destined-never-to-see-the-light-of-day idea of permitting bankruptcy judges to write down mortgages to the current market value of the collateral (the rest becomes […]
Read more...I wish we had someone as well regarded as the Financial Times’ Martin Wolf giving the same message in the US. Wolf stresses that prosperity built on overpriced homes is illusory. He pans some ideas that are already being road tested in the US, and says attenuating an inevitable fall in prices is unsound. And […]
Read more...As the credit crisis progresses, the estimates of the total damage march relentless upward. Reader Scott passed along a note by Frank Veneroso, Market Strategist for the Global Policy Committee of Allianz Dresdner Asset Management, which gives a top-down and bottoms-up estimate of credit losses. Note that this estimate is based strictly on US consumer […]
Read more...We wrote last year that some states were getting into the “save the homeowner” act. While states and municipalities are in theory in a much better position to implement this sort of program, their efforts as of our last sighting (November) had yielded little in the way of results. Nevertheless, the proponents hoped that the […]
Read more...While it isn’t clear whether homeowners with the ability to pay abandoning mortgages is as widespread a problem as the press would lead one to believe (Tanta at Calculated Risk has been skeptical), Freddie and Fannie appear to be taking no chances. The Chicago Tribune reports on measures taken by the two government sponsored enterprises […]
Read more...Housing Wire provides this report: Maryland governor Martin O’Malley joined with local elected officials and consumer advocates last week to sign emergency legislation that targets troubled borrowers in the state. Perhaps the most immediate industry impact will be felt by just one of the three bills passed last week — the obscenely-long-named Real Property–Recordation of […]
Read more...Institutional Risk Analytics featured an interview with Joshua Rosner (hat tip reader bill) which focused on the outlook for the credit markets. We have a great deal of respect for Rosner; among other things, he co-authored a terrific paper, “Where Did the Risk Go? How Misapplied Bond Ratings Cause Mortgage Backed Securities and Collateralized Debt […]
Read more...We had read earlier of banks failing to foreclose in Dade and Broward counties because the marker was so glutted with properties for sale that there was simply no point. We heard yesterday of discussion in Cleveland of plowing largely vacant subdivisions back to farmland. A third indicator of the degree of real estate stress: […]
Read more...Louis Uchitelle, in “Unsold Homes Tie Down Would-Be Transplants,” points out that being unable to sell a house can keep people from taking jobs that require them to move. That problem is obviously now more acute given the moribund state of the housing market in many parts of the county. However, Uchitelle implies that the […]
Read more...The 1990-1991 recession hit New York City particularly hard, with deep cuts in Wall Street jobs. The city has become even more dependent on financial services, so a similar or deeper contraction in percentage terms would have an even greater impact. We’re getting a first whiff via the fall-off in apartment closings. One assumption have […]
Read more...According to the New York Times, Congress is suddenly keen to get a homeowner bailout program in place, and made a rare bipartisan show of a joint news conference, with the hope of tabling the bill as soon as noon Wednesday. Key elements: At a minimum, the bipartisan package was expected to include up to […]
Read more...