When There’s Too Much Out There
The Press Register reports from Alabama. “Darlene Hill was making a living in Mobile as a real estate investor when she devised a sophisticated con job against lenders that would net her far more money than just robbing a teller with a gun. By the time her enterprise collapsed last year, according to FBI investigators, she had bilked banking institutions and mortgage companies out of $9 million.”
“And if not for the money that the companies recovered from foreclosures, the total loss would have been a good deal higher, investigators say.”
“Experts contend that the damage extends far beyond lenders. Consumers get hurt, they say, when fraud artificially pushes up housing prices that eventually come crashing down. In extreme cases, entire neighborhoods have been flooded with foreclosure sales.”
“‘It’s never good to have a lot of homes for sale, for any reason,’ said Patty Bergstrom, a spokeswoman for the IRS Criminal Investigation Division in Atlanta, which is recognized as a hot spot for mortgage fraud. ‘It affects a lot of people.’”
“To make things work, Hill needed help. She recruited a mortgage broker named Antonio Harrison of Mobile, who has admitted to submitting fraudulent loan applications. Another participant in Hill’s scheme, Jocelyn Easter of Mobile, worked as a loan closer for Harris Title and later for Hill.”
“John Mechem of the Mortgage Bankers Association, said con artists often employ unscrupulous appraisers to assign bogus values to properties in order to get more money from loans. When the mortgage company eventually goes to foreclose on the property, he said, it finds that the true value is much less than the loan amount.”
The Madison County Journal from Mississippi. “Foreclosures in Madison County have increased 154 percent over the past year, public records show, one indicator of the glut in the housing market, in part because of overbuilding, analysts say.”
“What’s more, defaults on loans and mortgages have increased 177 percent, records show. In every month of this year, the number of foreclosures increased over the same month in 2006, the statistics show.”
“Vickie Graves, a mortgage loan originator in Madison and 24-year veteran of the industry, said…she blamed a general glut in the market that can only be solved by the laws of supply and demand.”
“‘When there’s too much out there, then the market makes that correction,’ she said.”
“Graves said some consumers have over-extended themselves. ‘They’re anxious to get into that $500,000 home, instead of that $250,000 home they need to be in,’ said Graves. ‘Builders, realtors, mortgage people, no one should accept all credit or blame in this case.’”
“Anyone who takes a trip through some of south Madison County’s high end neighborhoods, she said, will be able to confirm the sluggish pace of higher-end home sales. According to the Jackson Realtors Association, the average list price of a home in Madison and Ridgeland is about $358,000. The median price for a home in the South was $181,000 in April, a Realtors report shows.”
“There were 953 homes listed in the Madison-Ridgeland area, more than any other real estate market in metropolitan Jackson, according to the Realtors association.”
“David Breland, a builder in Madison, said that doctors, lawyers and others with no building experience have gotten into the business. ‘They don’t know the ins and outs, and they don’t know how to make a house,’ said Breland. ‘They don’t know until the smoke clears that they’ve lost money on the thing.’”
“Even experienced builders are seeing difficulties. Breland noted that he has had one home on the market for over two years. If builders cannot sell a house within six months, he said, the builder begins losing money on the property.”
“Graves blamed the bad sub-prime mortgage market for some of the problems. These sub-prime mortgage arrangements, she said, were not always in the best interests of homebuyers. ‘Sub-prime lenders are tightening up on what they offer. There are less unique products than six months ago,’ said Graves. ‘Wall Street has tightened up on that.’”
“Madison County Tax Assessor Gerald Barber, a member of the Mississippi Appraisal Board, said that he thinks criminal activity has been a large part of the problem of rising foreclosures.”
“‘Mortgage fraud is huge, billions of dollars are involved,’ said Barber. ‘A lot of foreclosures, in my opinion, are coming from mortgage-fraud related situations.’”
The Dallas Morning News from Texas. “When it comes to foreclosure woes in North Texas, there’s plenty to spread around. While big cities Dallas and Fort Worth have the most home foreclosures, some suburbs, including Arlington, Garland, Grand Prairie and Mesquite, are also seeing large numbers of home loan defaults.”
“In the northern suburbs, Frisco is playing catch up with a 57 percent jump in residential foreclosure postings in the first half of 2007.”
“‘Among the suburban cities in the North Texas region, the city with the highest number of residential postings filed during the first half of 2007 was the city of Arlington with 1,488 foreclosure notices,’ George Roddy, CEO of Foreclosure Listing Service, said in the new report. Garland is second with 967 postings.”
“‘I think it has a lot to do with demographics in those cities,’ Mr. Roddy said, citing the large number of affordable homes, which appealed to first-time homebuyers.”
“Frisco, with 267 postings, had the third-highest gain among North Texas suburbs. In fashionable Frisco, buyers who now face foreclosure may have overreached, Mr. Roddy said. ‘It’s the place to be and where you see big houses,’ he said.”
“Through the first half of 2007, more than 21,000 residential foreclosure postings have been recorded in North Texas. That’s about a 14 percent increase from the same period of 2006, according to Foreclosure Listing Service.”
‘Local non-profit agency Community Service Programs of West Alabama has partnered with law firm Rosen & Harwood to offer a series of seminars on mortgage law later this summer. ‘We want to get ahead of [the trend],’ said Cynthia Burton.’
‘Alabama reported 806 foreclosure filings in March, an 80 percent increase from the previous month, and a 358 percent increase from 176 filed in March 2006, according to/sRealtyTrac. ‘We’ve just seen the tip of the iceberg in Alabama,’ said Jim Flemming, CEO of Bank of Tuscaloosa. ‘Foreclosure is not something that’s [only] involved with low income; it affects everybody.’
‘To the editor: There is a three-year inventory of unsold houses in Henry County, (Georgia). The Henry Herald reports the number of foreclosures in Henry County has increased 327 percent from 2000 to 2006, the highest increase in the 10-county metro area.’
‘When…prices are falling, it is a bad omen for everyone. Real estate agents are leaving the business. Builders are filing for bankruptcy. People are allowed to buy houses they cannot afford. The value of existing houses decline because the market is flooded.’
‘With over 4,500 unsold houses already built, it is bewildering why builders continue to seek building permits and zoning for high density housing, which means more units per acre. Foreclosures are the economic indicator begging for action.’
Obviously, the reason builders keep building is because (1) it is still profitable, and (2) they are builders, that’s just what they do.
The reason builders keep building is because they can still get money. When the flow of money gets shut off then the building will stop. I know plenty of contractor, their view of reality doesn’t allow them to see the boom is over. A lot of these guys are young, and have never gone though a real recession.
In a lot of ways the housing bubble is like the oil boom of 1979-82. The price of oil was going to go sky high with no end in sight. All sorts of wells were drilled on that belief. During the winter of 1982 they were drilling like crazy even though there was a deep recession, the price of oil was dropping and reserves were way up. It wasn’t untill the spring of 1982 when investors stopped investing money into oil wells, did the drilling stop. It was very sudden, and shocking to the people who went thought it.
Ben - You’re going to be in high cotton on this blog for some time. Today, Nouriel Roubini declared himself not bearish enough on housing. From his blog:
This writer has been a serious bear on housing for a long time: but after listening to these most sophisticated analysts of housing, mortgage lending and the MBS markets from a top global financial firm my concerns seemed almost not bearish enough. The main message from these analysts and the data is that the housing recession, the subprime carnage and the broader mortgage mess are getting worse, not better; and things will get worse well into 2008. There is no end in sight to the housing recession and we are only in the first innings of the mortgage credit crunch.
http://www.rgemonitor.com/blog/roubini
Woo hoo!!
I read it as a bad sign when, over a couple of months’ time, the Fed has decisively changed its message from “subprime is contained” to “worse than expected.”
Yes, now the Fed is only three-quarters clueless, versus being totally in that state.
Really? I read it as a good sign. They were wrong, but at least they are willing to admit that they were wrong. If they still instisted that everything was going to be OK, I would be more worried.
OK, I admit that it would have been better overall if they hadn’t been so boneheaded from the start….
Or they are just professional liars. They knew it was and is bad. They just lie about it.
Expecting the war on savers to intensify again? Seems likely
Expecting the war on savers to intensify again? Seems likely
“we are only in the first innings of the mortgage credit crunch”
And that is the most hopeful prediction I have read in a long time. Bring on the credit crunch. I am going to be a very happy camper when my long years of being responsible with money finally pay off and I’m part of a vastly reduced group of people who can qualify for a mortgage, along with my buddies here on the blog
anyone have GDP w/o gov spending ?
bet it’s a big negative number
big
Its needs to be mentioned that when a dem gets into the WH and pulls out 90% of our troops from Irak then lack of gov $ will indeed tank the fraudCONomy™ for years to come.
Think end of cold war and what it did to SoCal. It was an Epic Bibilical disaster. I went car shopping in 1992 and an ex rocket engineer was a car salesmen. But i was broke and not buying nuthin. So was everyone. 2007 will seem like a dream to home sellers and they will think ‘why didnt i lower the price in 07!!’
But the Dems won’t have qualms raising taxes on millionaires to cut the deficit, cut taxes on the middle class, and make Federal investments in programs that create jobs for the middle class.
And the reality is, this is EXACTLY what they should be doing in a recession. Except for the “cutting the deficit” part.
“make Federal investments in programs that create jobs for the middle class.”
Would you explain (a) what “programs” create jobs for the middle class? and (b) what federal dollars?
Taxes on all income levels will have to be raised just to service the deficit. There are no cuts in anybody’s future.
Many of the mere millionaires won’t be once this shakes out…and the serious money is already well-shielded.
While I agree the rich should not have received tax cuts from the Republicans, I highly doubt the Democrats will cut taxes for the middle class. I also don’t know of any government programs that will create middle class jobs unless the Federal government starts hiring more useless bureaucrats who can retire on full pension at age 50 and send the country into oblivion at an even faster rate. It’s time for a third and fourth party. Curruption is entrenched in both parties and DC
Think end of cold war and what it did to SoCal. It was an Epic Bibilical disaster. I went car shopping in 1992 and an ex rocket engineer was a car salesmen. But i was broke and not buying nuthin. So was everyone.
I remember those days well. General Dynamics and other DoD contractors were laying people off in SD by the tens of thousands.
Regarding cars, I recall that back then GM and other brands had special “Southern California” prices that were quite a bit lower than elsewhere.
I hear you in Colorado. I got lucky and got out in ‘90 in the LA-OC area.
After that disaster, I still encourage everyone I speak to with an interest and aptitude to go into law or medicine vs engineering or science. Why go into an occupation that is easily outsourced and has hordes of folks lined up for H1-Bs? Imo, I figure law and medicine will be some of the last professions standing.
And just how is a country that designs and produces nothing going to pay all those lawyers and doctors?
The same way they pay now. I never said there would be no more scientists and engineers to continue design and production, there is plenty of talent waiting to get in. My question is why go into an occupation with a built-in large external supply that can easily be doubled or tripled by Congress, not to mention severe salary compression? Why not go into one that has the abiity to keep the supply relatively capped?
“Experts contend that the damage extends far beyond lenders. Consumers get hurt, they say, when fraud artificially pushes up housing prices that eventually come crashing down. In extreme cases, entire neighborhoods have been flooded with foreclosure sales.”
There you have it! Darlene Hill is responsible for the bubble…..
And if the prices would just stay high then no one would get hurt? They still don’t get that the high prices all by themselves hurt consumers, even if they don’t “crash” back down.
Ok, but what about the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight’s new study that shows housing values are still climbing? While trouble for housing certainly looms on the horizon, based on the wacky asking prices that I see, I tend to think prices are not falling, at least not here in NY, and at least not fast enough.
Then you are not really looking. Go beyond the newspaper real estate weekly section. I posted a few days ago of a developer in my home town that had 10 new homes between $649k and $700k. 4 were occupied with the remaing 6 having for sale signs in the windows. One of the occupied homes had a FSBO sign in the lawn with the words “Priced to sale $300,000.” Now if that is not a price drop I don’t know what is.
That’s bait. You won’t get it for much less than the builder’s price.
Depends on whether he’s meeting his debt covenants. Presumably you meant, “…for much less than the builder’s cost.” Better to eat a loss than go out of business. He may be in the ground on a lot of stuff elsewhere.
Any action on that one, yet?
I’ll be by that street tomorrow and post then.
Bubble-land SFR prices are generally too high to be reflected in the OFHEO price index. ‘Nuff said.
And the refis, which are usually inflated.
The fraud is still going on. Lots of it in the Sacramento area in the high end price range. The comps are built on previous fraud sales, giving the appraisers “innocent justification” for the value. Sellers are bailing out and are easy marks for the fraud cash back buyer. This market will take years to settle out at the bottom. The lenders have not even begun to get serious with values and underwriting, but they will. When a lender sells, they can not provide the cash back incentives, so their houses are just sitting, sitting, and sitting some more. This market will drop for 3 to 4 more years.
And where’s Paladin when you need him?
yes what happend to paladin. he posted here everyday then nothin.
did the REIC get him? his website went nowhere also.
http://paladinreports.com/
maybe he gave up in utter disgust at ‘the system’.
Here’s a HB short play for playahs with ballz:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=agMH1wIg9Vtg&refer=home
I think there’s more to be made in the actual stocks of homebuilders - Lennar, Standard Pacific, Pulte, KBH, etc. They are in violation (or close) of their bank loan covenants and thus are facing credit downgrades. This will make their financing costs increase just as they can least afford it.
But each to his own…
The end of iamfacingforeclosure.com!
“IamFacingForeclosure.com is over. It will never return.
Advertisers: Feel free to cancel your PayPal subscription. I will be issuing pro-rated refunds this week.
Everybody: I’m very sorry to end like this.
Thanks to all the supporterz, haterz and everyone who wrote about me. You guys made the last 9 crazy months of blogging possible.
You may contact me or join my mailing list here. —
Casey Serin
May 31, 2007″
He keeps changing it. He’ll be back. This is some sort of ploy to make money from it.
I fear you are right. I have to hand it to the kid, he sure knows how to boost page hits.
You never know. Maybe he is in jail with Bubba.
“I will be issuing pro-rated refunds this week.” Anyone who believes that doesn’t know Casey Serin. But then, it’s hard to feel sorry for anyone who actually sent money to Casey.
I’d love to know how much he’s made from that site. Not enough to get himself out of hoc I’m sure but at least enough to support his Jamba Juice habit.
Dell laying of 8,800. Some background: Back in 2001, we were driving past Dell’s Round Rock Texas HQ when people were being escorted out by security. This was Dell’s first layoff and only 500 or so were let go but the damage to Dell and Round Rock’s psyches was apparent. About a month after that, we noticed Round Rock’s house market tanking. The damage was primarily in the bigger homes in the golf course developments but there were hundreds of vacant homes all over town.
Now that they’ve announced 8,800 layoffs, even if only a quarter of those are in Round Rock then the pain will be quite palpable. Round Rock’s housing market has done well primarily because of Californians buying “cheap” real estate and Dell getting back on track. Now that the market in North Austin/RR has already slowed down, this will push the wagon towards the cliff much more quickly. For those of you unfamiliar with Round Rock Texas, it is Dell’s private company town and when Dell gets a cold, RR gets the plague.
I’ve wanted to move back there for 4 years so now my search will begin in earnest. Txchick, any thoughts?
When did they announce this? You’re right, that will sock it to RR.
It was part of the earnings this afternoon. The stock was up 2.6% on the news.
The stocks up closer to 5% at the close of after-hours trade. It wasn’t just the layoffs that moved the stock - their revenues exceeded expectations.
It could also have been that they were going to sell units in Wal-Mart; or a combination of the layoffs and the new marketing.
Thomas W. Luce III, chairman of the Dell’s internal audit committee, conceded that the investigation was taking longer than expected.
“Although this process has taken us longer than we would have liked,” Luce explained, “it is important to commit the time and resources required to ensure a thorough and comprehensive review and resolution of all identified issues and the implementation of appropriate remedial measures.”
Now there’s a dude livin’ large off the Dell gig. Why practice law when you can make a gabillion buxx doing this. Of course his former partner ran for Dallas mayor recently and drew a big 4% of the vote so it doesn’t work for everyone . . .
wonder if he’s billing ‘em by the hour.
Dell is one of our vendors and I work directly with several people from their management. I’ve heard alot of talk of those layoffs the past few months. I guess it finally came to fruition. There’s plenty of unhappy employees there with the bonuses cut and pay freezes.
Wow. Round Rock is a tough area to sell as it is. This is gonna really make it a foreclosure paradise.
Right, the only reason to live there was to be close to work. I did hear back in the 90’s that Dell had a dispersed campus, so it may not be 8k from one town.
They have a huge facility in Nashville also. Somebody keep an eye on that MLS.
Dell, AMD and Freescale have all announced layoffs in the last month and all 3 of these companies are major employers in Austin. Austin is a nice city, with probably the best quality of life of any city within 1,000 miles, and I know lots of people in Houston and Dallas who would like to live there. Problem is Austin’s economy is so dependent on tech, and these layoffs at Dell are going to depress Austin’s job market/wages even further.
Freescale cutting jobs, spending
Austin Business Journal - 2:52 PM CDT Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Freescale Semiconductor Inc., one of Austin’s largest employers, is getting a bit smaller this week.
The chipmaker is eliminating jobs across the entire company as part of a bigger plan to cut costs, says Glaston Ford, a Freescale spokesman.
“The semiconductor industry is off to a sluggish start in the first half of 2007, and like many of our peers, we are taking actions to reduce expenses and become more profitable,” Ford says.
Some 5,400 people worked for Freescale in Austin last year, making it the area’ sixth largest corporate employer. Worldwide, the company had 24,000 employees.
The job cuts are happening across the entire company, but Freescale isn’t saying how many are losing their jobs or where the cuts are happening. The layoffs, most of which will be done before the end of this week, are one step the company is taking to improve its profits, Ford says.
I heard it through that grapevine that TI is going to be laying people off late this year as well.
THIS IS MY BIGGEST FEAR - I lose my job. You can prepare for downturns, etc., but if you lose your job and everyone has a hiring freeze, you are SOL - unless you have many years expenses hanging around. Most peoploe do not have that without digging deep….
The new TI plant on HWY-190 is being sold. They never even used it after spending billions to build it. They already had a round of layoffs recently, but I wouldn’t be surprised to hear of another round coming. AT&T will also be cutting jobs soon. There is a hiring freeze for the next 12 months I am told. Any new hires will have to be approved at executive levels.
It’s not all gloom and doom, but the economy is slowing down. I just hope it doesn’t crash and burn like RE
what you are writing is scary because the market hasn’t slumped yet…once it does, multiply your observations by many times
Yeah. Two words. Low Ball.
Interesting: maybe I will go on their web thingy and suggest that they hire tech support in english?
I only have the waranty in case something major happens to my computer. For the most part I refuse to deal with tech support. If the computer has problems I fix it. Most techs are bozos and will eff up your computer worse than when you started.
Announced job cuts:
Dell 8,800
Motorola 3,500 + 4,000
Intel 1,500
IBM 1,570-3,023
http://www.edn.com/article/CA6447964.html?nid=2019&rid=1170689717
That’s 10% of their workforce. And of course US based employees will bear the brunt of the layoffs. After all. you would have to layouf 5-6 Indians to match the savings in laying off one gringo.
In my dept., we had their claims payers pegged at 30% of our US workers - maybe a little different ratio at higher jobs, but I would say the ratio is closer to 3 to 1.
Local Austin form on housing discussing Layoffs the past 1 month.
http://www.city-data.com/forum/austin/75698-big-dell-layoff-coming.html
// I rent in Canyon Lake, Texas and telecommute.
/// I need to hire more people to do software work out of their own home, hope this means people won’t turn their nose at a stable family-run business $15/hour like they did 3 months ago when I posted a job on craigslist.
$15/hour is nothing. I’d tell him to go pound sand and collect unemployment.
The software industry isn’t what it used to be, unless you are willing to work very hard or you have a lot of talent - many jobs are pretty routine. $15/hour with no dress code, no commute, flexible hours (put your 40 hours in however you want)… yha, pound sand.
$15/hr * 40 hr/week is more than the maximum unemployment check in Texas, if I recall correctly.
Here in Austin the wave seems to be cresting. I am getting postcards from homebuilders trying to sell me homes. Lots of condos going up. Just wondering if/when the tide will turn …
Rent:
Take it from me, when Austin crashes, it crashes hard. I don’t care what the newbies tell you.
All of Texas crashes hard. There’s very little substance under all the hype.
I’m willing to bet that statement applies not solely to Texas.
Wow. I was visiting relatives in TX the last couple of weeks and a Realtor in Austin told me Austin was a “very hot and booming” market. I just said thanks for the info and laughed.
You have to appreciate the context. She was trying to sell new houses in a small development carved into an existing neighborhood in the south part of the city. Looked like five houses built, with maybe two of the five occupied, a partially constructed hoouse with no one working on it, and a few empty lots. One of the two occupied was for sale. The flyer said it was built in 2003. Sounds like a boom to me.
I had never been to Austin before. It seemed nice enough, but asking prices for houses were very high everywhere I looked, and therefore out of the question.
I checked the freebie Realtytrac foreclosure listings for 75214 in Dallas where I stayed. While not many in that area, it looked like once you crossed to the west side of Abrams (I think), the number on the map just skyrocketed. Clearly appeared that was a dividing street in that part of Dallas.
I was visiting relatives in TX the last couple of weeks and a Realtor in Austin told me Austin was a “very hot and booming” market. I just said thanks for the info and laughed.
It is actually true… Austin was one of the areas BOOMING when everyone else was going down. One of a handful of cities in the USA. It was when I was looking 2 months ago… I gave up, renting. Event rentals seem high to me based on the reading here on the forums. $280K houses renting for $1400?
I do believe it has stayed hot, and maybe it still is, but with all I read here about TX and the prices I saw, there is really nothing for me to do but wait to see how it plays out. My goal was to get an idea of the area.
Live in Kyle, SW of Austin, and work in CA (long, sad story) Anecdotal, builder’s agent says area is still boomin’ but rumor is a recent batch of homes are investor bought when subdivision is touted for entry level (nope, I’m not here for investment, like my cars, I plan on wearing this one out, too). Ben was kind enought to link the Hays County article on foreclosures a few days back, so being noticed in MSM here too.
And land of oz, my first assessment is about 10% higher than when purchased in Aug 06. Frankly, I didn’t think smokin’ crack was a problem for guvmint agents but I’ve been wrong before. Assessor is saying house is worth more than the builder is asking new, refer to problem above.
“Event rentals seem high to me based on the reading here on the forums. $280K houses renting for $1400?”
That rent rate is not terrible, IMO. You can always offer less.
Yeah, once you cross Abrams, you’re officially into “Lakewood” vs. the M Streets area. Lakewood is a bubble with stupid prices although all the 600K+ McMansion building on the other side of Abrams is bringing that area up very quickly.
Almost all fraud will boil down to the appraisal. There’s a box on the appraisal that must be checked. It states how the value of the property was guesstimated. It should always be ‘rental income is highest and best use of this property’. If it is anything else, the buyer must put down the difference in cash, and usually can’t buy the property even if they do have the difference in cash. I recently reviewed an appraisal for a bank. I haven’t done that in a number of years. The ‘rental income box’ said there was no available data for rentals in the area. Needless to say I was reviewing for fraud. Title clerk is going to jail, appraiser is going to jail, buyer is going to jail. Broker had no clue….
4 seasons condos in downtown Austin will start at 800k. I wonder if they will ever break ground though …
Let’s get a fix on houses for sale in Round Rock right now so we can see how much the inventory goes up. Bet it goes up right away.
“Experts contend that the damage extends far beyond lenders. Consumers get hurt, they say, when fraud artificially pushes up housing prices that eventually come crashing down. In extreme cases, entire neighborhoods have been flooded with foreclosure sales.”
These stories seem to be quite a change of pace from the “real estate always goes up” rah-rah cheerleading report on the housing bubble from early 2005. I suggest that anybody looking for a bottom ought to wait until the novelty of the fraud-expose’ stories fades away into a receding memory.
“‘When there’s too much out there, then the market makes that correction,’ she said.”
“Graves said some consumers have over-extended themselves. ‘They’re anxious to get into that $500,000 home, instead of that $250,000 home they need to be in,’ said Graves.
Which means there’s soon to be even more “too much out there.”
$500,000 homes? In Mississippi?? This bubble is so-o-o toasted…
Yeah, saw that “$500K homes in Mississippi” and was bewildered.
So many jokes there, don’t know where to start…
Buy NOW…or be locked out of the FRAUD Forever !
OT
The chicks in this vid aren’t even hot…
http://www.cnbc.com/id/18963284
??????? That is a spoof, right? I am so confused by that.
This is what revver.com has about it:
Viral Phenomenon
45 views since 05-26-2007
How can it be wrong when it feels so right? The viral phenomenon commercial as seen late night in the Atlanta North Fulton area on Comedy Central, TLC, E!, MTV and NICK at Night. See what the LA Times is saying about it! http://www.gotkal.com http://www.blankstageproductions.com
Hovanian has withdrawn estimates for ‘07.
Good idea.
When will other NYSE-listed companies (like builders w/bad debt on the balance sheet) take a page out of Fannie Mae’s playbook and refuse to post financials? Could they sue the NYSE for giving “private corporation” Fannie Mae preferential treatment?
Soon, we’ll start seeing a traveling hoards of the newly homeless in there Hummers, Bimmers, and Caddies with the “tight” rims roving along in gypsy style bands… looking for work, clanking tin cups and dancing jigs for brothers who can spare dimes! Give it six months! This is going to end in devastation and fiasco.
not if the price of gas keeps going up, those bands will be squatters…
Anyone notice that Countrywide’s REO is now over $1,600,000,000?!
Wow. Perhaps I’m naive, but that sure seems like a large number for a single lender.
Not really. It’s equivalent to a couple thousand McMansions in Rancho Bernardo.
Russ Winter was writing about this today. Does anyone have a clue what the game plan is with these REOs? Are they saving them up for a bailout, to game the stock price, or is this “by direction” from another “authority”? All I know is if CountryWide decides to get serious about selling these it’ll be a waterfall for housing prices.
In the Frisco example, I believe builders and lenders to be partially responsible. Frisco is a new home mecca and so many buyers got in with offers of zero down and a tax bill based on unimproved tax value. When their taxes were reassessed with the true tax value their mortgage payment shot up hundreds of dollars. Being that they bought we no downpayment many didn’t have the cash reserves or room in their budget for a bigger payment. Sad situation. I think if many of these home buyers had been educated some of these foreclosures could have been prevented.