The Housing Bubble

The Providence Journal reports from Rhode Island. “The new property owners in some neighborhoods here mark their turf with padlocks, plywood and messages such as the one scrawled on a front door in Olneyville: ‘Copper Gone. Vacant houses have always been easy prey for vandals, no less so when the owners are giant banks, companies representing Wall Street investors.”

“Block by city block, foreclosures are scarring the landscape in neighborhoods such as Olneyville, Elmwood and the West End, raising fears that the deteriorating real-estate market could hurt property values. These neighborhoods became magnets for real-estate speculators who bought up houses and then resold them for twice what they’d paid.”

“Now, house prices are down and the speculators are gone, leaving behind vacant properties and ‘For Sale’ signs.”

“The number of houses on the market in August climbed to a 10-month supply, compared with a less than 6-month supply in August of 2005, according to the MLS.”

“On Daboll Street, in the city’s West End, Gaensly Luceus and his wife, Erika, put their house on the market in July for $350,000. ‘A couple of years ago, there were people knocking on my door trying to buy my house,’ Luceus said. But the summer passed without a single offer. So last month, they took it off the market.”

“Just up the block, three houses are boarded up.”

The New York Times. “A surge in subprime lending across the region in recent years is now helping to fuel a boom in foreclosures, with the number of filings rising 55 percent in suburban counties in the first nine months of this year, compared with the same period last year, an analysis of real estate data shows.”

“On Long Island, the number of foreclosure actions increased sharply during the summer. Nearly 1,000 foreclosure notices were filed in July, and 728 foreclosures were scheduled in the third quarter. Both numbers represent an increase of more than 60 percent over the same period in 2006, according to Long Island Profiles.”

“Counselors at housing agencies have begun to see a stampede of new clients with payments they can’t afford and who are desperate to keep their homes. ‘We’re running at three times the calls we got last year,’ said Lynn Law, director of education and counseling at the Long Island Housing Partnership. ‘It started in May and June, and continued through the summer.’”

“In Westchester, Jacqueline Borrero said the mortgage payment on the two-family home her brother bought for $299,000 in 1998 rose to $4,800 from $4,000 last May. The loan will cost $5,100 a month starting in November, when the interest rate increases to 11 percent.”

“‘We’re really scared,’ said Ms. Borrero. She and her mother and brother are working extra part-time jobs to meet the mortgage bill, but their combined income won’t be enough to cover the payment, she said. ‘We got some bad advice on this loan,’ she said, ‘Now we don’t know where to turn. We don’t want to become one of the statistics.’”

“In the Southampton village of Sagaponack, the median home price has risen a staggering 44 percent since last year, to $5.5 million. Yet as of the end of August, the number of homes sold had dropped by more than half, to 21.”

“That’s a telling example of what is happening across the East End: a meteoric rise in sale prices that many brokers say is driven by big Hamptons trophy-home sales, but a glut of homes valued under $10 million sitting on the market, including some new ones built by speculators.”

“That can make for lower prices in some places, as sellers slowly stop ‘reaching for what was,’ as broker Judi Desiderio put it, and realize that buyers have lots of inventory to peruse. ‘A buyer today comes out and looks at dozens of properties,’ she said. ‘They’ll know instantly if a house is priced at last year’s or today’s prices.’”

“E-mail messages are regularly flying out to East End brokers, announcing new pricing. ‘I see it every day on the computer,’ broker Paul Brennan said. ‘More and more houses that come from brokers saying, ‘Price reduction, price reduction, price reduction.’”

The Morning Call from Pennsylvania. “When builder Bill Wall decided to start a home in Powder Valley without having a buyer lined up in early 2006, the real estate market was roaring. Houses were selling in days instead of weeks, and often for more than the asking price.”

“But, by the time the home was finished in January 2007, the Lehigh Valley real estate market had stalled. Inventory piled up. Cautious buyers were rethinking their intentions.”

”’I listed it for $699,000 and got only one offer — for substantially less than the asking price,’ says Wall, who has built and sold several million-dollar homes over the past six years.”

“After nine more months dragged on, Wall decided to lower the asking price to $659,000 and he sweetened the pot by throwing in a three-year lease for a Lexus RX 350.” “An open house in late September drew plenty of interest, but no offers. Still, Wall is hopeful that he can find the right buyer.”

“‘Sure, I’m disappointed,’ he says. ‘But I understand that there is a lot on the market right now in this price range. And it’s a very tough range. You need two incomes, and you need the right match.’”

The Baltimore Sun from Maryland. “Pulte Homes is trying to combat the housing slump with a Halloween-themed ‘monster’ sale at seven Maryland communities, including Baltimore, with incentives that include selling at cost and guaranteeing the purchase of buyers’ current dwellings.”

“The homebuilder hopes to entice buyers frightened by plummeting sales, stagnant or falling prices and the potential of getting stuck with two mortgages.”

“‘The unusual blockage of the market we had for the month of September, where it was difficult for prospective buyers to come by a mortgage has exacerbated what was already a difficult situation,’ said John E. Kortecamp, executive director of the Home Builders Association of Maryland. ‘These larger, national production builders are going to do some dramatic things. It’s all about shedding inventory.’”

“The number of Maryland properties about to be put on the foreclosure auction block more than tripled last month from a year earlier, as homeowners struggle with the one-two punch of mortgages they can’t afford and homes they can’t quickly sell.”

“About 1,730 notices of impending auction were issued last month, up from about 550 in September 2006, RealtyTrac said. The number of properties taken back by lenders last month after no one bought them at auction increased 10-fold from September 2006, to about 220. Though some might be commercial properties, the great majority are homes, the company said.”

“‘The picture in Maryland is a troubling picture, and we cannot deny that. In virtually every corner of the state, foreclosure events have increased dramatically,’ said Thomas E. Perez, the state secretary of labor, licensing and regulation.”

The Gazette from Maryland. “The credit crunch in the housing market has squeezed the bottom line of some area banks. First Mariner Bancorp, the Baltimore parent of First Mariner Bank that was founded in 1995, showed a net loss of $3.9 million for its 2007 second quarter.”

“First Mariner has stopped issuing ‘Alt-A’ mortgages through its wholesale lending division, said CEO Edwin F. Hale Sr. The company has also decided to close its wholesale lending operation and taken steps to modify underwriting guidelines and strengthen borrower qualification terms.”

“The bank will slow its development of new branches and ‘eliminate any poor-performing locations,’ Hale said. Some job cuts are expected, mostly through attrition, he said.”

“Provident Bankshares Corp. of Baltimore saw residential mortgage loans decline by $92 million, or 23 percent, in its second quarter from a year ago.”

“M&T Bank Corp. of Buffalo, N.Y., the fourth largest bank in Maryland in deposits, works hard with qualified borrowers who don’t carry as much risk, said Atwood Collins III, president of M&T’s mid-Atlantic division in Baltimore.”

“‘The residential mortgage loan market is not what it was two years ago, but qualified borrowers need not worry,’ Collins said.”

The News Tribune from New Jersey. “Expensive, high interest rate mortgage loans continued to grab a larger share of the market last year, and thousands of homeowners like Paul and Elizabeth Duncan are feeling the squeeze.”

“The Toms River couple are finding it increasingly hard to make the $3,200 monthly payments on their $327,000 mortgage, which they refinanced last year at a 9 percent interest rate. They are not sure how they are going to make this month’s installment.”

“‘We have more going out than coming in,’ Elizabeth Duncan said.”

“Soon, the Duncans say, they may be forced to sell their new dining room furniture, or take out a cash advance on a credit card in order to make payments and buy some time.”

“The Press analysis found that in Monmouth and Ocean counties last year, one in five home loans were granted to subprime borrowers, for a total of $3.1 billion. In 2004, about 1 in 10 loans had gone to subprime borrowers.”

“Richard G. Stafford of Capital Home Mortgage in Spring Lake said he believes many borrowers were addicted to shopping. ‘They didn’t change their lifestyle,’ Stafford said. ‘The appraisers were generous to them. They just kept refinancing and then maxed their credit cards out again.’”

“Phyllis Salowe-Kaye, executive director of the consumer advocate group New Jersey Citizen Action, called such comments ‘blaming the victim.’”

“She and other advocates fault mortgages sales staff who gave loans to borrowers who never could make the payments long term or made promises that were not kept. ‘These people are in business to make money, but they’re in the business to make money on the backs of people,’ Salowe-Kaye said.”

“The Duncans appear to be an example for both arguments.”

“The couple married in 1999, but with two children each from previous marriages, they soon found that their two-bedroom mobile home was much too small. They bought the three-bedroom colonial in 2004 with $28,000 down and a $211,000 mortgage, land records show. The Duncans earn $80,000 a year.”

“They said they so enjoyed owning the house that they took out a $50,000 home equity loan to build a 450-square-foot family room extension. They also racked up another $46,420 on five credit cards as they landscaped their front yard, and purchased new televisions, a $5,500 dining room set and a $5,000 pool table.”

“With bills piling high, a telemarketer called one day and offered a mortgage refinancing to Elizabeth. The woman told her they could refinance all their debt and pay $400 a month less than they were before.”

“The credit card and home equity payoffs, along with mortgage company fees, came to $327,000, at a 9 percent per year interest rate. But there was a catch.”

“Until they received a notice for late taxes, the Duncans said they failed to realize that the loan, unlike most mortgage loans, did not include payments for property taxes. Buried one-inch deep in the paperwork was an ‘Escrow Waiver’ form, mixed in with several other required disclosures.”

“Now the Duncans have set up the escrow account to pay taxes and homeowners insurance, but their mortgage payments are now $200 a month higher than their total debt payments were before they refinanced.”

“The couple say they are angry about the lender not including the $200-a-month escrow payments in the loan, but the Duncans say they realize they have spent themselves into their current crisis.”

“‘We shouldn’t have gone so crazy when we moved in here,’ Elizabeth Duncan said. ‘We went overboard, way overboard.’” “She said she hopes others will learn from their experiences. ‘Maybe someone else won’t make the same mistake,’ she said.”