Recent Articles
Sep 29, 2009 | No Comments | Sean Mills
From the Mortgage Insider, Matt Padilla
First the good news: all three types of foreclosure filings dropped in August in Orange County compared to July and compared to a year ago.
Banks seized 771 houses and condos, filed 1,982 auction notices (notice of trustee’s sale, or NTS), and filed 2,202 notices of default, reports ForeclosureRadar.com. Here’s a [...]
From the Mortgage Insider, Matt Padilla
First the good news: all three types of foreclosure filings dropped in August in Orange County compared to July and compared to a year ago.
Banks seized 771 houses and condos, filed 1,982 auction notices (notice of trustee’s sale, or NTS), and filed 2,202 notices of default, reports ForeclosureRadar.com. Here’s a chart of the filings going back to July 2007.
click to enlarge
However, there is a growing number of potential foreclosures as measured by notices of trustee’s sale not yet acted upon. Outstanding auction notices totaled 8,879 last month, up 6% from July and 90% from a year ago — that’s buying prescription drugs auction notices issued over the past year or so minus those canceled or foreclosed. Here’s a chart of outstanding auction notices:
click to enlarge
Foreclosures are being delayed by the Obama administration’s Making Home Affordable program, or HAMP, and its three-month trial period for loan modifications, said Sean O’Toole, head of ForeclosureRadar.
“If the HAMP trials succeed, foreclosures should begin to cancel at record rates, which has yet to happen,” O’Toole said. “If HAMP trials fail, foreclosure sales should increase, which also has yet to happen.”
Sep 24, 2009 | No Comments | Sean Mills
Sept. 23 (Bloomberg) — The crash in U.S. home prices will probably resume because about 7 million properties that are likely to be seized by lenders have yet to hit the market, Amherst Securities Group LP analysts said.
The “huge shadow inventory,” reflecting mortgages already being foreclosed upon or now delinquent and likely to be, compares [...]
Sept. 23 (Bloomberg) — The crash in U.S. home prices will probably resume because about 7 million properties that are likely to be seized by lenders have yet to hit the market, Amherst Securities Group LP analysts said.
The “huge shadow inventory,” reflecting mortgages already being foreclosed upon or now delinquent and likely to be, compares with 1.27 million in 2005, the analysts led by Laurie Goodman wrote today in a report. Assuming no other homes are on the market, it would take 1.35 years to sell the properties based on the current pace of existing-home sales, they said.
Helping to stoke speculation the housing slump has ended, an S&P/Case-Shiller index for 20 U.S. metropolitan areas showed the first month-over-month increases in values since 2006 in May and June, reducing the drop from the peak to 31 percent. Echoing other mortgage-bond analysts including those at Barclays Capital Inc., Amherst cautioned that a change in the mix of foreclosure and traditional sales over different parts of the year lifted prices in the period, as the distressed share shrank.
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Sep 23, 2009 | No Comments | Sean Mills
(Media-Newswire.com) – Los Angeles — A steep decline in California housing prices is undermining the effectiveness of the state’s property tax system that was created through Proposition 13 three decades ago, according to a study by University of Southern California professor Dowell Myers.
The study, which is based on comparative data from opinion surveys and housing [...]
(Media-Newswire.com) – Los Angeles — A steep decline in California housing prices is undermining the effectiveness of the state’s property tax system that was created through Proposition 13 three decades ago, according to a study by University of Southern California professor Dowell Myers.
The study, which is based on comparative data from opinion surveys and housing trends, finds a system under stress that is creating “severe generational inequity” magnified by recent dramatic losses in housing values.
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Sep 23, 2009 | No Comments | Sean Mills
Anyone who knows me personally has heard me speak about the shadow inventory of defaulted but NOT foreclosed homes awaiting some type of action from the bank. Just last week I posted numbers for homes going to auction in Orange County which detailed a relatively high number, 91% plus postponed, yet to be absorbed by [...]
Anyone who knows me personally has heard me speak about the shadow inventory of defaulted but NOT foreclosed homes awaiting some type of action from the bank. Just last week I posted numbers for homes going to auction in Orange County which detailed a relatively high number, 91% plus postponed, yet to be absorbed by the market either via purchased at auction or sold as an REO by the bank once foreclosed. I know of a few people who have seen their home go to foreclosure only to sit out in the twilight zone or sold immediately with no rhyme or reason on either to the average Joe. This article does a pretty good job of summarizing my conerns with this inventory. -Sean
Debra and Arthur Scriven were served notice in June 2008 that their mortgage lender, a unit of Citigroup Inc., was preparing to foreclose on their home. Fifteen months later, the Scrivens are still in their home near Columbia, S.C., and battling to stay there, even though a dispute with the lender over how much they owe prompted them to stop making regular payments last year.
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Sep 18, 2009 | No Comments | Sean Mills
I was in my doctor’s office the other day sitting in his waiting room before my appointment and I came across this article. Considering I have been spending a little extra time in the city where “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas…” (sorry couldn’t help myself), this article seemed right up my alley and [...]
I was in my doctor’s office the other day sitting in his waiting room before my appointment and I came across this article. Considering I have been spending a little extra time in the city where “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas…” (sorry couldn’t help myself), this article seemed right up my alley and my readers alley to boot. Funny thing to me about this article is the write up on the Realtor who is seeing a hay day for business, her twisted point of view is what got us in this current economic setting. She is telling her clients to buy a new home and dump the old one after the new home closes so the bank is left to clean up the mess. The typical “whats in it for me” attitude is on display and she is even proud to tell the staff writer she did herself. I guess this is the new world order of the US and the younger generation of BMW driving, cell phone using, ipod listening, work avoiding vultures we are raising. Stop me if I have gone too far…-Sean
Less Vegas: The Casino Town Bets on a Comeback
So Vegas has made its bet. This recession, it clearly believes, is just another business cycle. It will end, sooner rather than later, and the world will go right back to gambling on slot machines and real estate and tasting menus and double-digit corporate earnings. In fact, Wynn bet me $100, an amount I had to spend several minutes explaining to him, that the U.S.’s GDP growth will be positive by April 2011. In the meantime, he and the other people who run Vegas believe the deck will get reshuffled and new players will sit down at the table as casino owners, but the game itself won’t change. Americans, they think, will continue to get economically better off. It sounds a little hollow, especially looking at this city in the desert that creates nothing, the world’s greatest ghost town in waiting. But a lot of people have gone broke betting against the people who run Las Vegas. Besides, the Las Vegas people have no choice but to bet things will go back. They’re all in.
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Sep 16, 2009 | No Comments | Sean Mills
As the chart illustrates there is more pain to come on the horizon in relation to resetting buying drugs online without prescription loans but this time in the upper end of the spectrum. The average loan at this level is four times the value of the sub-prime loans that were made. -Sean
As the chart illustrates there is more pain to come on the horizon in relation to resetting buying drugs online without prescription loans but this time in the upper end of the spectrum. The average loan at this level is four times the value of the sub-prime loans that were made. -Sean
Sep 11, 2009 | No Comments | Sean Mills
CNBC article
I was fighting traffic on my way in to work today, when I heard a headline on the radio, something to the effect of, “Good news on the housing front! Foreclosures are moderating, potentially signaling an end to the housing crisis.”
This is why people don’t trust the news. Headlines.
Yes, the number of properties in [...]
CNBC article
I was fighting traffic on my way in to work today, when I heard a headline on the radio, something to the effect of, “Good news on the housing front! Foreclosures are moderating, potentially signaling an end to the housing crisis.”
This is why people don’t trust the news. Headlines.
Yes, the number of properties in the U.S. that received foreclosure filings in August was .47% smaller than that same number in July (less than 1%).
July’s number, by the way, set a new record.
So we are less than 1% off the record.
If you look inside the numbers you find that the fall was largely due to a 13% drop in REOs, which are the final stage of foreclosure when the bank takes the property back at the courthouse auction.
All other foreclosure notices, like defaults, bank notices or auction notices, together rose 3%, and they make up a much larger share of total filings.
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Sep 11, 2009 | No Comments | Sean Mills
Home prices in the US could fall by another 25 percent because of high unemployment and another leg down will come for stocks, banking analyst Meredith Whitney told CNBC Thursday.
“No bank underwrote a loan with 10 percent unemployment on the horizon,” Whitney said. “I think there is no doubt that home prices will go down [...]
Home prices in the US could fall by another 25 percent because of high unemployment and another leg down will come for stocks, banking analyst Meredith Whitney told CNBC Thursday.
“No bank underwrote a loan with 10 percent unemployment on the horizon,” Whitney said. “I think there is no doubt that home prices will go down dramatically from here, it’s just a question of when.”
Local governments and states are chronically under-funded and “most states are under water,” adding to the problem of low private consumption, she said.
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cnbc.com
Meredith Whitney
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“If you look at the drivers for unemployment I don’t see that reversing very soon,” Whitney said.
If consumers were to decide to spend, “that would be a game-changer,” but it would be an unnatural thing to do in a recession, she said.
“A lot of themes are constant, which is the US consumer and the small business doesn’t have any credit, credit is still contracting,” Whitney said.
Consumer debt and consumer credit have dropped according to the latest figures which also show that people have been spending more from their debit cards than from their credit cards.
“Obviously that doesn’t bode well for spending,” Whitney said.
She said another leg down was coming for stocks but that Goldman Sachs [GS 176.50 
1.63 (+0.93%) buy prescription drugs without a prescription 
] still has “gas in the tank” and she kept her ‘buy’ on its stock.
“Goldman is taking a lot of the place that Lehman left,” she said.
But banks are not going to see their earnings rise too much from now on, she warned.
“Banks are taking advantage of what the government is doing by artificially inflating asset prices so they can ride a steep yield curve and they’re going to have a third quarter that reflects that,” Whitney said.
Their shares are unlikely to be uplifted by these results as it happened in mid-July, because then they were under-valued, she added.
Sep 9, 2009 | No Comments | Sean Mills
New York Times article highlights the pain which is still on the horizon for real estate and the economy. Worth the time just to skim this.-Sean
Edward and Maria Moller are worried about losing their house — not now, but in 2013.
The New York Times
Edward and Maria Moller and their son, Isaac, at their [...]
New York Times article highlights the pain which is still on the horizon for real estate and the economy. Worth the time just to skim this.-Sean
Edward and Maria Moller are worried about losing their house — not now, but in 2013.
Edward and Maria Moller and their son, Isaac, at their La Mesa, Calif., home, which was financed with an interest-only loan.
That is when the suburban San Diego schoolteachers will see their mortgage payments jump, most likely beyond their ability to pay.
Like millions of buyers during the boom, the Mollers leveraged their way into a house they could not otherwise afford by taking out a loan that required them to make only interest payments at first, putting off payments on the principal for several years.
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Aug 21, 2009 | No Comments | Sean Mills
Another great read from Mish, it is still amazing the type and Buy Generic Cialis Online speed which we now get information on important topics like this. To think people are still buying and flipping in California and Arizona with this type of inventory lingering. It feels a lot like musical chairs only with [...]
Another great read from Mish, it is still amazing the type and Buy Generic Cialis Online speed which we now get information on important topics like this. To think people are still buying and flipping in California and Arizona with this type of inventory lingering. It feels a lot like musical chairs only with real estate I hope no one you know gets caught standing when the music stops again..-Sean
Brace for a Wave of Foreclosures, the Dam is About to Break
A summary of Second Quarter 2009 Negative Equity Data from First American CoreLogic shows that Nearly One-Third Of All Mortgages Are Underwater.
• More than 15.2 million U.S. mortgages, or 32.2 percent of all mortgaged properties, were in negative equity position as of June 30, 2009 according to newly released data from First American CoreLogic. As of June 2009, there were an additional 2.5 million mortgaged properties that were approaching negative equity. Negative equity and near negative equity mortgages combined account for nearly 38 percent of all residential properties with a mortgage nationwide.
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