Some housing bubble news from Wall Street and Washington. Marketplace, "The SEC has released a report on the agencies that gave high marks to subprime securities. Kai Ryssdal: 'Christopher Cox is the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Today, the SEC released its report on credit rating agencies and their role in the subprime mess. Moody's, Standard & Poor's, and Fitch are the big ones you've heard of.'"

"'There are ten of them in all, though, and they've been criticized harshly for giving top ratings to some of the complicated mortgage-backed securities that tanked after the housing bust.'"

"Amy Scott: "This is the SEC's first annual report on the credit rating agencies since Congress gave it express oversight in 2006 and a couple of things stood out to me. One was that the report describes just the sheer volume of these complicated deals that these agencies were rating.'"

"'In one email that's quoted in the report, analysts were concerned about whether they should be rating one of these deals and one said that the firm's model for rating the bond didn't capture half of the deal's risk but that it could be structured by cows and we would rate it.'"

"Ryssdal: 'Great.'"

"Scott: 'The report also finds that the rating agencies failed to disclose significant aspects of the ratings process, they failed to adequately monitor the ratings after they'd been issued -- you know, to make sure a Triple-A was still really a Triple-A -- and some of the most interesting reading in this report concerns conflicts of interest.'"

OpRisk and Compliance. "Credit rating agencies rushed through ratings for in-demand complex structured products, while failing to effectively divide their analysis from the business side, according to Christopher Cox, chairman of the SEC."

"'The public will see that there have been significant problems. There have been instances in which there were people both pitching the business, debating the fees and were involved in the analytical side,' said Cox."

"Cox said ratings analysts were deluged with requests that were highly profitable to the agencies and their clients, and 'the volume of work taxed the staff in ways that caused them to cut corners, that caused them to deviate from their models.'"

From Reuters. "Taiwan financial firms have suffered losses of T$42.572 billion ($1.4 billion) since August 2007 in investments related to U.S. subprime products, the island's top financial regulator said on Wednesday."

"'The Financial Supervisory Commission will supervise financial companies to improve their risk control,' said Gordon Chen, chairman of the commission, told a news conference."

From Newsday. "The scaleback at IndyMac is the latest aftershock from the subprime mortgage collapse. Early last year, a hedge fund that had bought IndyMac mortgages as investments, hired Melville-based Continental Home Loans on a trial basis to call hundreds of borrowers to see whether they could work out options on delinquent loans."

"But more than 90 percent of the loans were beyond saving, said Michael McHugh, head of Continental, and the trial ended two months later. IndyMac then tried to turn itself around by building up its retail business, where it had more control over who could get loans."

"'Trying to switch to retail was like turning an aircraft carrier around in a pool,' McHugh said. 'It's a shame. I hate to see companies leave the market right now. We need investors and we need choices.'"

The Whittier Daily News. "An analyst who tracks IndyMac wrote a letter to his clients Tuesday telling them not to buy IndyMac shares. 'We do not believe that there is any value left for common shareholders,' wrote Paul Miller, an analyst at Virginia-based Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co."

"Meanwhile Fitch Ratings gave IndyMac an 'E' individual rating, which, 'reflects a bank with very serious problems,' a written statement issued Tuesday noted. Fitch also rated the stock 'CC,' which is not investment grade."

"An IndyMac spokesman defended the bank and said stock prices should not be the only measure of the company's soundness, he said. 'It shouldn't come as any surprise in this climate that people are not lining up to buy stocks in companies that sell mortgages,' said the spokesman Evan Wagner."

The Orlando Sentinel. "Their construction business decimated, cars repossessed and mortgage in danger of default, Jason and Teresa Olive called for relief from their lender, Countrywide Financial Corp. Countrywide referred them to its own 'Hope' department."

'Six months later, after a call-center runaround, Countrywide's 'Hope' had led to a dead end. The lender foreclosed on their home in June. 'The 'Hope' people were hopeless,' Teresa Olive said. 'So we've just about given up on them.'"

"'There are four foreclosures for every person that the Hope Now program has helped,' said Kathleen Day, a consumer analyst for an advocacy group. 'There's just no way they can keep pace. The industry doesn't have enough manpower to handle 2 million foreclosures.'"

"Countrywide would not comment on the case. 'Our mission remains to assist our customers,' the company said in a statement."

"You'll have to pardon Jason Olive if he doesn't think so. 'What a crock,' said the house framer, who worked as a subcontractor for various builders until the housing boom went bust. 'I've never been given a runaround like that in my whole life.'"

"'One time we made too much; next time, we made too little. Whatever the case, they'd come up with another reason to turn us down,' Teresa Olive said."

The Morning Call. "Gov. Ed Rendell came to the newest epicenter of the mortgage crisis in Pennsylvania on Tuesday to sign a package of bills that will make mortgage fraud tougher to get away with in the state."

"Rendell signed the bills at the Exeter Township library, not far from where now-jailed mortgage broker Wesley A. Snyder did business until his companies collapsed in fraud and bankruptcy last year."

"The governor said 66,000 Pennsylvania families have adjustable-rate subprime loans, with more than 20 percent delinquent. The new laws, he said, can't help homeowners already in trouble."

"According to Rendell, the Poconos and the Reading area were the two places that had 'the most horrendous outcomes' from mortgage fraud, although the scenarios were different."

"In the Poconos cases earlier this decade, hundreds of families, many first-time buyers from New York, bought homes at inflated prices that fell into foreclosure, spawning civil and criminal cases."

"'I wish the legislative process wasn't so slow,' said Alan Jennings, executive director of the Community Action Committee of the Lehigh Valley, saying thousands of homeowners could have been spared foreclosure if the wheels in Harrisburg had turned more quickly. Still he said, 'it's important that we challenge the way mortgage brokers do business.'"

The Courier Press. "More than two-thirds of Indiana's mortgage broker companies could lose their licenses for not complying with a 2007 state law intended to clean up the industry in the wake of the subprime lending and home foreclosure crisis."

"The 2007 law said that each licensed mortgage loan broker had to have one principal manager, someone with three years' experience who had passed a state examination. Of 950 affected loan brokerages statewide, principal managers at 639 of them still had not taken the exam by the law's July 1 deadline, officials said."

"'The General Assembly has said this is how Indiana intends to operate,' said Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita, whose office regulates the broker industry. 'Especially when we have a loan crisis on hand, we are going to hold loan professionals up to a higher standard - and part of that standard is a competency test.'"

"Michael Monaco, president of the Indiana Association of Mortgage Brokers, said giving companies an extra 30 days was fair, since they already had one year to comply."

"Dave Clark, president of Talon Mortgage in Evansville, passed the exam but said it was not easy. Some will quit the industry and send their clients elsewhere rather than face the exam, he predicted."

"'This needed to be done 10 years ago,' Clark said. 'They did the right thing, but at the wrong time.'"

The Sacramento Bee. "Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke announced a crackdown Tuesday on the exotic loan products offered to risky borrowers that fueled the housing boom."

"But Sacramento brokers and others said the market has already taken care of that: Most of the loans Bernanke has in his sights haven't been available for a while."

"'Gosh, it's almost nine to 12 months ago that these loans stopped,' said Brent Wilson, mortgage strategist with Sacramento's Comstock Mortgage."

"'That, in some ways, is how government reacts. It's kind of behind the curve,' said Dustin Hobbs, spokesman for the California Mortgage Bankers Association."

The Bradenton Herald. "During a news conference Tuesday, Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Steve Preston estimated the new guidelines will help 100,000 families refinance into 'more affordable FHA-insured loans' by the end of the year."

"'FHASecure will begin to provide additional assistance to subprime borrowers with adjustable rate mortgages and help to restore liquidity and stability to the markets,' Preston said."

"Many lenders have found it is not just those with subprime or adjustable rate mortgages that need help in a faltering economy. 'I think it's across the board. The exotic mortgages get a lot of publicity, but there are other people who are in trouble whose loans were rather vanilla,' said David Freed, president of Aim Mortgage of Bradenton."

"Much like in its previous incarnation, FHASecure is focusing specifically on assisting people in danger of losing their homes to foreclosure, not investors. 'For investors, foreclosures are going to be something that hurts them financially and hurts their credit, but it's not going to put them out on the street,' Freed said."

"Freed, like many mortgage brokers and lenders, is cautiously optimistic that the new plan will provide the relief needed but had difficulties with it before and are waiting to pass judgment on the new plan."

"The original incarnation of FHASecure required homeowners to jump through so many hoops, many no longer qualified or were in pre-foreclosure before the paperwork could be completed."

"'I can tell you FHASecure was a total disaster,' Freed said."

The Press Association. "The average cost of a home being sold at auction has slumped by 17% during the past year, figures show. Homes that went under the hammer between March and May fetched an average of £140,500 - £28,700 less than they sold for during the same period of 2007, according to research by the Liberal Democrats."

"The study, based on the sale price of 4,748 properties around the country, found the rate of price falls accelerated to 18.5% in May."

"The party's Treasury spokesman, Lord Oakeshott, said: 'Auctions are the sharp end of the housing market where real deals show the prices paid by real buyers. The published house price indices are well behind the game.'"

"He said: "Ministers must wake up now and let housing associations and councils buy empty homes for social housing to rent. 'The feeble Government response to the housing crash so far has been like throwing pennies down a drain.'"

The Wall Street Journal. "With Britain's housing boom turning to bust, estate agents are finding it increasingly difficult to make money. For some, the downturn already has proved catastrophic."

"Mortgage approvals in May dropped 57% from the same time last year, reflecting a roughly 50% fall in the number of homes purchased, according to the British Bankers' Association."

"'Lenders no longer offer 100% mortgages [and] less than 42% of buyers had saved up enough for a 5% deposit,' says Jo Whincup, an area director for William H. Brown. 'Many buyers were looking for a property and making offers with no idea about what they could afford.'"

"It is already too late for some estate agents. Cesare & Co., recently absorbed the properties of Page Flatt & Co., a local estate agency in the town of Tring, but not much else of the firm remains and the former owner has moved on. 'He's available if we need him,' a Cesare spokesman said."

"Would-be buyers like Thom Harrison have the upper hand."

"Mr. Harrison, a 23-year-old first-time buyer in Liverpool, said he and his partner had viewed 27 properties and considered all but two to be overpriced. They made an offer on one."

"'It needed £10,000 [$20,000] of work, so we took off £10,000 and [the seller] wasn't very happy. If we don't find [a place to buy] by the end of July, we'll rent for another six months,' he said. 'It's well worth the wait to save astronomical amounts of money.'"

The Birmingham News. "Regions Financial Corp., the largest bank based in Alabama, is facing a $23 million loan default related to a Florida condo development."

"The Palms of Riviera Dunes, in Palmetto, Fla., owes the $23 million, according to a Regions lawsuit filed in that state's Manatee County. Regions, which operates in 16 states, wants to take control of the property and sell it to recoup the lost money."

"According to the development's Web site, the condos offered 'spectacular water views of the Manatee River, spacious terraces, granite and Corian countertops, ceramic floor tile, raised panel wood cabinets and much more! The Palms condominiums range from $346,900 to $1.8 million.'"

"It didn't work out, as have not many of the riskier real-estate loans Regions and other banks made from 2001 through 2005, when it seemed property values would never fall."

"'The defendant does not have the financial capability of seeing that the condominium project proceeds forward while maintaining the costs associated with running the common areas of the condominium project,' Regions said in its suit."

"The bank will probably have a tough time selling the property promptly, according to Tony Plath, a banking professor at the University of North Carolina Charlotte."

"'Not in that market, which is one of the most overpriced and ill-liquid in the country,' Plath said of the southwest Florida coast. 'Now, Regions is going to have incur additional costs to keep the grass cut and the alligators out of the swimming pool.'"