I have the perfect solution…Why not give the current homeowner a “short sale” price modification and call it a happy ending to all? Buyers are too wise nowadays.

Besides most future homeowners will have a defective title or will have an F in the past!

Here’s an example why it makes sense to work with the current owner:

LPS using their MN address purchased my home at auction for 75% discount put it on the market for about 80% and made a few grand from the highest contract that was accepted. It benefited no one!

Now if they use my solution not only will the investors save on the fees they payout to the foreclosure mills but also on the late fees the homeowner accrues…see isn’t this economic sense for everyone?

By John Gittelsohn and Kathleen M. Howley – Sep 15, 2010 12:14 PM ET

The slide in U.S. home prices may have another three years to go as sellers add as many as 12 million more properties to the market.

Shadow inventory — the supply of homes in default or foreclosure that may be offered for sale — is preventing prices from bottoming after a 28 percent plunge from 2006, according to analysts from Moody’s Analytics Inc., Fannie Mae, Morgan Stanley and Barclays Plc. Those properties are in addition to houses that are vacant or that may soon be put on the market by owners.

“Whether it’s the sidelined, shadow or current inventory, the issue is there’s more supply than demand,” said Oliver Chang, a U.S. housing strategist with Morgan Stanley in San Francisco. “Once you reach a bottom, it will take three or four years for prices to begin to rise 1 or 2 percent a year.”

Rising supply threatens to undermine government efforts to boost the housing market as homebuyers wait for better deals. Further price declines are necessary for a sustainable rebound as a stimulus-driven recovery falters, said Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist of Maria Fiorini Ramirez Inc., a New York economic forecasting firm.

Sales of new and existing homes fell to the lowest levels on record in July as a federal tax credit for buyers expired and U.S. unemployment remained near a 26-year high. The median price of a previously owned home in the month was $182,600, about the level it was in 2003, the National Association of Realtors said.

Fannie Mae Forecast

Fannie Mae, the largest U.S. mortgage finance company, today lowered its forecast for home sales this year, projecting a 7 percent decline from 2009. A drop in demand after the April 30 tax credit expiration “suggests weakening home prices” in the third quarter, according to the report.

There were 4 million homes listed with brokers for sale as of July. It would take a record 12.5 months for those properties to be sold at that month’s sales pace, according to the Chicago- based Realtors group.

“The best thing that could happen is for prices to get to a level that clears the market,” said Shapiro, who predicts prices may fall another 10 percent to 15 percent. “Right now, buyers know it hasn’t hit bottom, so they’re sitting on the sidelines.”

About 2 million houses will be seized by lenders by the end of next year, according to Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He estimates prices will drop 5 percent by 2013.

‘Lost Decade’

After reaching bottom, prices will gain at the historic annual pace of 3 percent, requiring more than 10 years to return to their peak, he said.

“A long if not lost decade,” Zandi said.

Continue reading….BLOOMBERG

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I know some people have this notion that somehow California real estate prices are going to miraculously recover simply by sheer determination and the belief in late night infomercial catch phrases. Instead of focusing on larger macro economic trends they will use limited data that doesn’t capture the larger emerging trend. We’ve all seen those TV ads yet data is going in a very different direction. Inventory is increasing in California. Prices are dropping. Problem loans are still filling the pipeline. These are facts and as stubborn as they are, they tell us a more provocative story about real estate in the state. That story revolves around the fact that a large shadow inventory is lingering and the artificial dams of government intervention are having a tougher time holding back the flood. Today, I wanted to focus on the higher end markets of Los Angeles County to show that contrary to a handful of anecdotal cases, overall there is a bigger trend emerging. The mid-tier market is now entering its correction.

Before we look at Santa Monica our targeted city today, I wanted to provide you with 35 specific examples of million dollar prime location foreclosures in Southern California. These are all in Los Angeles County:

Continue reading …Dr. Housing Bubble

Foreclosure Filings on Track to Hit 3 Million Homes. Repos Expected to Reach 1 Million in 2010

by Jann Swanson Mortgage News Daily

Default notices, auction sale notices, and actual bank repossessions were received  on a total of 1,961,894 homes, or one in every 78 households,  during the most recent six month period according to the Mid-Year 2010 U.S Foreclosure Market Report issued by RealtyTrac.

These findings represent a 5 percent decline in filings from the last half of 2009, but an increase of 8 percent from the first half of last year.  Perhaps the good news is that the year-over-year change was almost totally due to a jump in bank repossessions, which were up five percent while default and auction notices were down 10.4 percent since the first half of last year.

In June there were a total of 313,841 filings, a decrease of nearly 3 percent from May and down nearly 7 percent from the previous June.  It was the sixteenth straight month where the total number of properties with foreclosure filings exceeded 300,000.

RealtyTrac’s report incorporates documents filed in all three phases of foreclosure, unfortunately the mid-year review did not break down the data into individual categories (but we’re building our own spreadsheet).

1. Notice of Default (NOD) and Lis Pendens (LIS). This is the first legal notification from a lender that the borrower on a mortgage loan has defaulted under the terms of their mortgage and the lender intends to foreclose unless the loan is brought current.
2. Auction — Notice of Trustee Sale and Notice of Foreclosure Sale (NTS and NFS); If the borrower does not catch up on their payments the lender will file a notice of sale (the lender intends to sell the property). This notice is published in local paper and contains information pertaining to the date, time and subject property address.
3. Real Estate Owned or REO properties : “REO” stands for “real estate owned” and typically refers to the inventory of real estate that banks and mortgage companies have foreclosed on and subsequently purchased through the foreclosure auction if there was no offer higher than the minimum bid.

During the second quarter of 2010 there were foreclosure filings on 895,521 properties, down from 932,234 in the first quarter, a decrease of 4 percent.  This is 1 percent more filings than in the second quarter one year earlier.

“The second quarter was a tale of two trends,” said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac. “The pace of properties entering foreclosure slowed as lenders pre-empted or delayed foreclosure proceedings on delinquent properties with more aggressive short sale and loan modification initiatives. Meanwhile the pace of properties completing the foreclosure process through bank repossession quickened as lenders cleared out a backlog of distressed inventory delayed by foreclosure prevention efforts in 2009.

“The midyear numbers put us on pace to exceed 3 million properties with foreclosure filings by the end of the year, and more than 1 million bank repossessions,” Saccacio continued. “The roller coaster pattern of foreclosure activity over the past 12 months demonstrates that while the foreclosure problem is being managed on the surface, a massive number of distressed properties and underwater loans continue to sit just below the surface, threatening the fragile stability of the housing market.”

As usual, Nevada, Arizona, Florida, California, and Utah topped the list of states in foreclosure activity.  In Nevada, one in 17 housing units (6 percent) received at least one foreclosure filing in the first six months of the year, down 6.2 percent from a year earlier and 13 percent from the last half of 2009.  In Arizona there were filings posted against one in 30 housing units, down 1.6 percent from the second half of 2009 and 1.88 year over year.  Florida follows with one in 32 homes in some stage of foreclosure, a decrease of 8.61 from the most recent half year and an increase of 3.4 percent from one year ago.

Other states with foreclosure rates ranking among the nation’s 10 highest were California (1 in 39 units), Utah (1 in 52), Georgia (1 in 56), Michigan (1 in 58), Idaho (1 in 59), Illinois (1 in 62), and Colorado (1 in 72.)

These were the thoughts MND shared regarding the May data. They are still very relevant…

Plain and Simple: The good news is it seems like the worst is behind us in terms of new defaults. Plus the modest decline in newly scheduled auctions helps out housing on the excess supply front as banks are choosing to hold onto their inventory instead of flood the market with distressed supply (which would drive prices even lower). Perhaps this is a factor of the expiration of the homebuyer tax credit? Now for the bad news. Over the past year, to give HAMP a chance to “work its magic” (which servicers have little incentive to do ) and to reduce the cost of maintaining the condition of foreclosed properties, banks were delaying the foreclosed home liquidation process. This allowed delinquent borrowers to stay in their houses and also allowed banks to avoid asset value write-downs. Unfortunately, with HAMP running out of qualified borrowers, that trend is starting to reverse course. Bank balance sheets are beginning to balloon with REO, shadow inventory is being converted to actual inventory!

This is a negative for two reasons. First it implies more people are being put out of their home and onto the street and second, at some point, the distressed homes banks are adding to their balance sheets will need to be put back up for sale. Once the housing market starts to pick up recovery momentum, banks will begin to slowly liquidate their inventory of foreclosed properties. Hopefully they will do so in a manner that does not greatly disrupt local supply/demand and push prices even lower (which would hurt their own cause). Growing “shadow inventory” is one of two reasons why the housing recovery will likely be a very long process (the other being long term unemployment).

Frankenstein real estate market – $3.5 trillion in commercial real estate debt and $10.3 trillion in residential real estate debt. Will we reach a 50 percent underwater market where 25 million Americans sit in homes worth less than their mortgage?

The real estate market has morphed into a beast that is largely sinking the overall economy into the ground.  If we combine the commercial real estate market ($3.5 trillion in debt) with residential outstanding mortgages ($10.3 trillion) we arrive at a figure that nears the annual GDP of our country.  What makes the figure even more troubling is the amount of leverage found in the real estate market.  Many of these loans will default yet banks are maintaining the notion that at some point par value will be reached; for many the par value scenario is the worst case they have mapped out, and this is highly optimistic.  We have created a real estate Frankenstein that now has a mind of its own and will do everything it can to stay afloat going forward, even at the expense of the real economy.  In fact, the real estate monster thinks it is the economy.

There is a flip side to housing values falling which seems to be ignored since most of the mainstream rhetoric is guided by the FIRE (finance, insurance, and real estate) experts.  The most obvious benefit is those looking to buy their first home don’t need to put themselves into so much debt that they risk their entire financial future for a home.  The next subtle change is the amount of money diverted from housing related spending to other sectors of the economy.  This last change will take time to sink into the overall economy but there is definitely a benefit of moving away from an economy highly dependent on Wall Street finance and real estate.

If we look at the current nationwide situation, the amount of distressed loans is stunning:

I think that the above disaster in distressed mortgages is causing very little reaction because we have somehow adapted to the current shocking situation.  Over 10 percent of all U.S. mortgages are at least one payment behind and another 4 percent are already in the process of foreclosure.  This figure is incredible given the entire mortgage market is made up of over 51 million active mortgages.  In 2007 if you were to tell someone that prices in California would fall by 50 percent (even 10 percent) many would have ignored you.  Now, it is standard practice for the market.

As a country we are much too reliant on real estate.  Commercial real estate is the next tragic saga in the RE bubble bursting with prices already falling by 42 percent.  At one point, CRE values in the U.S. were up to $6.5 trillion (now this was a rough generous estimate at the time).  Today, CRE values are down closer to $3 to $3.5 trillion; this is roughly the same amount of CRE loans outstanding.  This has pushed defaults through the roof:

The exponential rise is cause for serious concern.  There is little energy or political will to bailout the enormous CRE market.  This probably won’t stop the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury to game the system yet again and put taxpayers on the hook.  They created this massive monster and now want the public to fight it off with pitchforks.  The above chart is disturbing and the amount of bank failures we are seeing is directly related to the above trend.  Many smaller banks are deep in the trenches with CRE debt and much of this is now going bad.  How many strip malls do we really need?  Maybe having 20 Taco Bells in a one mile radius probably isn’t such a good idea.  Many of the commercial projects were built in the anticipation of sky high residential prices to justify their absurd underwriting expectations.  The above results have no excuse and are largely a reflection of massive delusional speculation in all things real estate.

Now that expectations are coming more into line and the fantasy world of Alt-A, subprime, and option ARM loans are behind us, most people have to qualify to get a loan with actual real income which many are now finding less of.  Banks lending virtually all government money, are now beholden to stricter (aka basic due diligence) in order to give out loans.  Yet if we look at the negative equity situation, the real estate monster grows scarier:

Over 20 million mortgage holders are underwater.  It is amazing that a few years ago, Deutsche Bank estimated that at the ultimate trough of the housing market, nearly half of all mortgages would be underwater.  This “doomsday” scenario seemed extremely farfetched.  Today, another 10 percent nationwide price decline would put us there.  Even without prices declining further, having 20 million Americans underwater is not a good sign going forward.  You figure over 7 million people are one payment behind or in foreclosure.  But what about the other 13 million?  This enormous group is basically a large cohort of renters but in a worse financial situation.  They are stuck.

Continue reading…DoctorHousingBubble

By DinSFLA 6/30/2010

When Fannie Mae announced that she was going to start to penalize people who walk away from underwater mortgages it created a fire storm of angry individuals.

She said it would step up efforts to pursue deficiency judgment—seeking to recoup the difference between the loan balance and the net proceeds of the foreclosure sale—against so-called “strategic” defaulters in states where such suits are allowed. Fannie also will lengthen to seven years, from five, the amount of time borrowers who go through a foreclosure must wait before getting a new loan.

So here is my solution, grab a pen and write this down:

• Homes have lost not a little but an enormous amount of it’s value up to 70% in some areas.
• In my opinion it is going to take more than 7 years to see any hope in Real Estate stabilization.
• Who wants to buy today when we read about possibly 8 million shadow foreclosures that will ultimately bring down the market further to dust?
• We the tax payers are the owners so who the hell asked us if this is appropriate? Were any of us invited to this meeting and discuss this? Did we have a say in this like we never do? DISCLOSURES?
• What about the possible millions that were denied a modification from no fault of their own? Oh but the Obama Administration admitted this too…too…too…late 🙁 Who will be responsible for those who were improperly foreclosed on?
• With the taxes and insurance sky rocketing, it only makes sense to rent for a while.
• Deficiency Judgment? Do you realize what this little pot you stir will cause?? Hmmm think about it.
• Credit who wants credit? We don’t even know where our own money is being used.
• Who do we have to contact to foreclose on Your “arse” Fannie??? After all you are owned by us… Do not bite the hand that feeds you!

You see the threat really has no impact.

Trust is earned my friends and we have absolutely none at the moment.

The evil thing here is that instead of going after the true Run A Ways “the banks” who stole the cash you go after the ones who feed you and behind our back you feed them???

Image source: The Simpsons “Angry Mob”

This is exactly what is going on with these Scams. Just as in this post I made prior this homeowner tried to do all they can to work with their lender to get help, modify and pay them current market value. Instead they foreclosed.

In this case they owed about 300K, according to tax records LPS, yes Lender Processing Services inc. came in and purchased it for $74,100 at the auction. Now the  home is pending sale for $59K. Sold it for less in a matter of a month??? Okkkaaaay?

How does this make ANY kind of sense? I can only see it making FRAUD sense…these homeowners vouch not to give up contacted the listing agent about the scam as well as mentioning Law Offices of David J. Stern the foreclosing firm for the lender. This does not make ANY sense what so ever and we need to continue exposing this fraud!

David Lazarus June 24, 2010 | 10:56 pm Los Angeles Times

Consumer columnist David Lazarus says banks should end their one-size-fits-all policies and help more homeowners who are in foreclosure.

Take the Fontana woman he writes about In his latest column. She wasn’t obligated to meet the mortgage obligations her husband left when he was killed in a car accident. But she wanted to stay in the home and tried negotiating lower payments with the bank.

Should the bank do more to  help her?

Published: Thursday, 10 Jun 2010 | 2:43 PM ET

By: Diana Olick

CNBC Real Estate Reporter

Another day, another report on the state of our nation’s housing market. Today it’s the monthly foreclosure report from RealtyTrac, saying that while total foreclosure activity is decreasing, the number of homes being repossessed by the banks hit a new record high.

“Lenders appear to be ramping up the pace of completing those forestalled foreclosures even while the inflow of delinquencies into the foreclosure process has slowed,” writes the company’s CEO James J. Saccacio.

This report comes on the heels of a Bank of America executive yesterday saying that the company, which took over the slings and arrows of Countrywide Financial a few moons ago, would start to push short sales and other foreclosure alternatives over taking the homes back onto its books. But will it matter?

“Although the ramping up of short sales is occurring, it won’t be enough to offset all the loans coming through foreclosure,” Bob Caruso of Lender Processing Services tells me. “It’s great that everybody’s ramping up, but the volume is still coming through so heavily that the short sales will only be a fraction of the loans coming through.”

Caruso cites the government’s Home Affordable Modification Program as a continuing driver of more foreclosures, because it’s just putting off the inevitable.

“The HAMP program has already piqued and is coming down. Less and less loans are eligible for HAMP because the government made the criteria really tight. They made it almost like threading a needle,” adds Caruso.

That, he says, is because while the program gets borrowers down to a 31 percent debt to income ratio for the mortgage, it doesn’t factor in all the other debt that borrowers are carrying (see blog May 17). He says too many Americans have “debt management issues,” to put it nicely.

Now while I was mulling that, I saw a report from my colleague Steve Liesman on new Federal Reserve data showing “Americans extinguished their mortgage debt in the first quarter at the fastest pace in nearly 40 years, either by paying it off or defaulting.” He goes on to say, “As a result, the report showed that household net worth climbed by more than a trillion dollars to $54.5 trillion, the highest level since the fourth quarter of 2008.”

Well now you know what I started to think then … is that more evidence that defaulting borrowers are juicing consumer spending with their excess cash?? (see blog April 12) Steve tried to do a lot of very confusing math on it, but then he looped in Mark Zandi, of Moody’s Economy.com, who had the following reaction:

“I don’t think the fed’s mortgage debt data sheds much light on the issue. What matters for consumer spending growth is the cash being freed up by so many households not making a mortgage or rental payment. That mortgage debt is declining is suggestive that there are lots of these households, but it doesn’t suggest much more than that.”

Okay, so here’s what I learned today: Despite a slight drop, really a flattening, in new foreclosures, the pipeline is still so full that bank repossessions and freeloading borrowers are going to mess with the fundamentals of our economy for a good long time to come.

Your email:

Boy have these Banks really shot themselves! This is what WILL destroy AMERICA!

Foreclosure Glut: Is ‘Shadow Inventory’ Really a Threat?

Millions of New Foreclosures Will Stifle, Not Crush Housing Market, Say Economists

By DALIA FAHMY

Every once in a while, the term “shadow inventory” makes it into the business headlines. Invariably, stories warn of a looming flood of foreclosures that will drag the housing market down as soon as homeowners begin to feel optimistic again.

But what is shadow inventory — and is it really such a big threat?

Different experts have different definitions. Some only include homes that have already been repossessed by banks and are awaiting distressed sales. Others include those whose owners are long-overdue on mortgage payments, while others still count homes whose owners would like to sell but are waiting for conditions to improve.

8 Million More Foreclosures May Be Waiting

“The definition of shadow inventory has gotten out of control,” says Rick Sharga, senior vice president at RealtyTrac, an online market for distressed homes.

As a result, estimates of homes in the shadows vary widely between 2 million and 8 million. By comparison, approximately 5.5 million homes are expected to change hands this year, of which about a third are in some kind of distress.

High estimates usually include include repossessed homes that have not yet been listed for sale, homes that have been moved from the delinquent bucket and into foreclosure, and homes that are more than 60 days delinquent.

“Theoretically you could say up to 7 million homes are in the pipeline, but not all of them will go into the market and if even if they do, not all of them will hit at once,” says Sharga. Given the current pace of sales, Sharga believes shadow inventory could be cleared by the end of 2013, at which point the housing market can begin a real recovery.

Shadow Inventory Can Be Lethal

The problem with shadow inventory is that it does not simply represent additional supply. It’s supply of the worst kind: distressed homes that are often in hard-hit regions, often in a state of disrepair. Homes in foreclosure have more power to drag down real estate prices and keep them depressed for years to come.

“If you can buy a cheap foreclosed home next door to a normal home, many people will choose to buy the discounted home,” says Celia Chen, housing analyst at Moody’s Economy.com. She estimates that 4.6 million homes are currently waiting in the shadows, almost a whole year’s worth of housing supply.

Shadow Inventory Stuck In Limbo

Like many other analysts, Chen believes we still have a long way to go before real estate prices begin recovering. Some expect a recovery to begin in the middle of next year, others don’t see it coming for several more years.

There are many reasons that shadow inventory is so difficult to gauge.

For one thing, financial institutions that own distressed mortgages are not saying exactly how many homes they hold. Firms have generally been releasing their supply of distressed homes slowly into the market for fear of crushing prices.

Another problem is that nobody knows exactly how many homes will make it out of the government’s “Home Affordable Modification Program.” Chen estimates that only 45 percent of the 1.2 million loans that are aiming for a modification will actually succeed, while the rest will likely end up in foreclosure.

While these numbers certainly are cause for concern, the good news is that this shadow inventory is unlikely to cause a shock to the system similar to the initial crash.

No Nuclear Event in Housing

“Much as during the arms building between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, neither one ever launched a nuclear attack for fear of causing complete destruction,” says RealtyTrac’s Sharga. “You’re not going to see a nuclear event happen in the housing market either.”

Esmael Adibi, economics professor at Chapman University says shadow inventory is actually a good thing bcause it means that financial institutions – primarily lenders and investors who own the delinquent mortgages – are holding on to the inventory instead of dumping it into the market.

Adibi says financial institutions are not only holding on to their inventory in order to avoid crushing the market, but also because they believe they might get a better deal once prices have recovered slightly.

“Can you imagine if all those homes ended up in the market now?” he says. “Things would be much worse.”