The Housing Bubble

The Nashua Telegraph reports on New Hampshire. “In terms of home foreclosures, Scrooge took a holiday in December, but in January, he came back strong. The state saw 352 foreclosure deeds in January, a record for that month and the second most ever, just seven behind the 359 of last October, according to statistics compiled by the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority. ‘This level of foreclosure activity may reflect the possible deferral by lenders of foreclosure proceedings during the holiday period, and it certainly offers evidence of the continued economic distress of many New Hampshire home owners,’ according to the authority’s report.”

“Banks will hold off on foreclosing in December for two reasons: They’re hesitant to foreclose during the holidays, and December can be a tough month for scheduling, said Jane Law, director of communications for the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority. ‘That has happened in the past, particularly by some of the larger lenders,’ Law said.”

“Nashua Realtor Paul LaFlamme said he handled two foreclosures in January, which he called a ‘heavy’ number for one month. And there might be more coming, said LaFlamme, whose business includes short sales. Some banks have approached LaFlamme to get his opinion on the market value of properties, an indication that the lenders might be preparing to take ownership of the properties, he said.”

The Union Leader in New Hampshire. “There were 505 bankruptcy filings in February, a historic high for that month in New Hampshire. It’s the highest number since the bankruptcy laws were changed in 2005, and comes after a record January, when 381 bankruptcies were filed here. Sandra Kuhn, vice president of FamilyLegal law firm in Concord, isn’t surprised that bankruptcy filings are at an all-time high. These days, many of her clients are unemployed and unable to find work. ‘They’re living paycheck to paycheck, and when they don’t have that paycheck, they’re spiraling out of control,’ she said.”

“Meanwhile, new mortgage data indicate the problem still may be getting worse. The latest National Delinquency Survey by the Mortgage Bankers Association found that delinquencies continue to rise in New Hampshire, with 9 percent of all home loans past due in the fourth quarter of 2009. (Rates were not seasonally adjusted.) In sheer numbers, 10,674 prime loans and 5,446 subprime loans in New Hampshire were delinquent at the end of last year, according to the MBA.”

“The psychological aspects of foreclosure and bankruptcy can seem even more difficult for many these days, according to Kuhn. While some national experts say the economy is improving, folks who are still unemployed or losing their homes aren’t seeing any improvement. Kuhn would like to see a moratorium on mortgage payments — a kind of ‘breathing room’ — for those who are jobless.”

“‘It’s really, really hard if you’re unemployed, to be able sometimes to pay your mortgage,’ she said. ‘The thing is, nobody’s getting jobs.’”

The Times Argus in Vermont. “The recession continues to make its presence felt in Vermont as the number of homeowners facing foreclosure jumped 17 percent last year. There were 1,928 foreclosures filed in the state in 2009 compared to 1,639 the prior year, according to the Department of Banking, Insurance, Securities and Health Care Administration. With the exception of Rutland County, foreclosures increased in all 14 counties in the state last year.”

“The number of calls to the Mortgage Assistance Program hotline would indicate that more foreclosures are likely, at least in the near term, said Thomas Candon, deputy commissioner of the Department of Banking, Insurance, Securities and Health Care Administration. Some distressed homeowners are working with lenders to modify the terms of their mortgage using a voluntary loan modification program. But Candon said a successful outcome for many homeowners is questionable.”

“‘We’ve had people actually calls us, get into a loan modification, come out of it, go back into another one,’ said Candon, in pointing out the difficulty.”

The Warwick Beacon in Rhode Island. “Following the lead of its neighbors, Warwick gave first passage to an ordinance that city council members hope will work to stem foreclosures in the city at Monday evening’s meeting. ‘When I checked the number of foreclosures I was simply shocked and I said to myself ‘something needs to be done about this,’ said Helen Taylor (Ward-3). ‘This forces the banks and the lenders to sit down with the homeowners to negotiate with them to refinance or lower the price of the monthly payments that they’re required to pay.’”

“The process does allow for foreclosures to take place, but only after a good faith effort at resolution has occurred. Bill White, president of Coastway Community Bank, says that’s already happening. He observed it is not in the bank’s interest to foreclose, as the bank ends up selling the property at less than what it is worth. ‘When talking about some of the larger out of state banks maybe they aren’t going through the process, but we bend over backward. Where people have had extenuating circumstances we modify payments. It’s our best bet to get paid,’ he said.”

“‘I don’t see it as a productive step,’ he added. White said legislators are ‘making judgment we haven’t done that (attempted to keep people in their homes) and we have. I’m sure it is well intentioned but speaking for Coastway it misses the mark.’”

“Despite voting for the ordinance, councilman Ray Gallucci (Ward-8), said he believes it will be difficult to enforce. ‘I think it’s a good piece of legislation, but if we can’t enforce it, what good will it really do. I’m hearing Providence is having some trouble enforcing it,’ said Gallucci.”

The Boston Globe in Massachusetts. “Massachusetts could face a second wave of foreclosures as tens of thousands of distressed and bank-owned properties hit the market, slowing the state’s nascent housing recovery, officials from the Massachusetts Housing Partnership said. Clark Ziegler, executive director of the state’s quasi-public, affordable housing agency, said there are about 64,000 distressed properties in so-called shadow inventory poised to go on the market because they have delinquent mortgages, are in foreclosure, or already are owned by a lender.”

“‘The report is not warning of the ‘next big crisis,’ Ziegler said, but is a reminder that the housing market still a long way from recovery. ‘The reality is that there are more [foreclosed properties] to come, and it will stretch out how long it takes the recovery to play out,’ Ziegler said. ‘It is a cautionary tale.’”

“Alan Clayton-Matthews, a professor of public policy at Northeastern University, doesn’t believe shadow inventory will have a big impact locally. He said shadow inventory has been an issue for a while. ‘If this were a problem, it would derail the recovery in housing. We would have seen its effects by now,’ Clayton-Matthews said.”

“But Barry Bluestone, dean of the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs at Northeastern University, said he was alarmed to see a recent surge in auctions of foreclosed homes, which can bring down prices especially in hard-hit towns. The number of published auction announcements tracked by Warren Group jumped in January by 81.5 percent to 2,385 compared with 1,314 in the same month in 2009. ‘The number of auctions is off the chart,’ Bluestone said. ‘It can have the effect of continuing to depress prices just as they are continuing to come back.’”

The Asbury Park Press in New Jersey. “The total value of properties in the township has decreased by about 7.5 percent, from $6.16 billion to about $5.7 billion, following the township-wide reassessment completed in December. The reassessment was intended to bring valuations in the township closer to market-rate figures, after Manalapan lost nearly $300,000 in legal fees and judgments in 360 lost tax challenges last year.”

“The average township home is now assessed at about $376,900, a 12 percent decrease from last year’s figure, $428,480. But the new valuation won’t be used on local and county tax bills until after 2010 municipal, school, fire and other budgets are adopted, township Chief Financial Officer Patricia Addario said. ‘(The reassessment) is not necessarily good news, because the value is irrelevant until you determine what the rate is,’ said Alan Ginsberg, an accountant who saw the assessment on his single-family Wildflower Court Colonial dip by about 13 percent.”

“Gov. Chris Christie’s looming budget cuts will put the brakes on an already slow economy, but the short-term pain will make New Jersey more competitive, Joel Naroff, an economist, said Thursday. ‘The issue was not the pain, but how to spread the pain,’ Naroff said. ‘We now have a governor who intends to inflict a major amount of pain across the state. And I congratulate him for that.’”

“Short of the creation of a bubble that rivaled the technology bubble of the 1990s and the housing bubble of the 2000s, consumers will remain stingy and the economy will grow only modestly, Naroff said. ‘I call it a change in strategy from shop ’til you drop to shop ’til you’re tired,’ Naroff said.”

“It means the state can’t count on a very big increase in tax revenue, leaving the state government faced with slashing expenses — a move that won’t be confined to the public sector, he said. ‘Everybody has to pay a steep price in the short-term,’ Naroff said after his speech, ’so that in the long-term we can have an economically competitive state.’”

Crain’s New York Business. “Real estate developer Shaya Boymelgreen’s Web site proclaims his finance business is ‘built on a solid foundation.’ He might wish to revisit that statement after federal regulators seized LibertyPointe Bank, an institution that he helped start and served as chairman. LibertyPointe late Thursday became the first New York City bank to fail in 11 years. For Mr. Boymelgreen, it was just the latest turn of the screw.”

“In January, he was evicted from his corporate headquarters in Brooklyn after the landlord said Mr. Boymelgreen stopped paying rent. Several of his real estate projects are stalled, and he faces a flood of lawsuits alleging everything from failure to repay loans to fraud and negligence, as well as breach of contract related to the construction and sale of two condominium projects.”

“Mr. Boymelgreen branched into banking in 2005, starting LibertyPointe with a partner named Meyer Eichler, the founder a Coney Island Avenue bookstore that bills itself as the world’s largest Judaica store. The idea was the bank would serve Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish population. ‘Money is begging us to come out,’ Mr. Eichler told The Brooklyn Paper at the time.”

The Real Deal on New York. “State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s office, which regulates the sale of condominiums in New York, has told the developers of the financially-troubled One Madison Park condominium to offer refunds to any buyers that have not closed on their apartments, The Real Deal has learned.”

“Cuomo’s office forced the rescission offers after senior lender Istar Financial filed last month to foreclose on developers Ira Shapiro and Marc Jacobs for allegedly defaulting on five months of interest payments, pledging apartments without the bank’s permission and allowing the building loan to fall out of balance by $63.6 million, according to court documents and legal sources.”

“Such a move would require the developers to refund deposits on more than 40 percent of the 69-unit tower at 23 East 22nd Street, as half of the units are under contract and a dozen of those contracts have closed, according to Department of Finance records.”

The New York Times. “Senate Banking Committee members from both parties said on Wednesday that they had agreed to include in their regulatory overhaul bill a new Office of Research and Analysis that would provide early warnings of possible systemic collapses, Edward Wyatt and Sewell Chan report in The New York Times. By standardizing financial instruments and reporting mechanisms, the agency would give regulators a broader view of the health of participants in the financial markets and the potential for problems to spread. The idea’s supporters say that kind of information was lacking in recent years as the housing bubble burst and troubles spread from firm to firm.”

“‘One of the problems we observed in the recent crisis is that nobody knew who had what,’ said Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat who last month introduced a stand-alone bill to establish a National Institute of Finance. ‘The result was a cascading effect of uncertainty and doubt.’”

From CNN Money. “In the U.S. Senate, the progressives are restless. A handful of them are making it known that Democratic leaders shouldn’t take their votes for granted when it comes to Wall Street reform. ‘I won’t vote for a bill if the banks have control of it,’ said Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.”

“Brown sits on the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee and is among a group worried that Democrats have given away too much to woo Republican support for the bill. ‘Republicans are doing the bidding of their benefactors, the banks,’ he said.”

“The warnings come as committee Chairman Chris Dodd announced that negotiations with Republicans are taking too long and that he will unveil his own Wall Street reform bill Monday. Though Dodd’s proposal has no Republican support, the Connecticut Democrat said he will incorporate many Republican ideas in the hopes he will win bipartisan support.”

“Two other senators who have expressed deep reservations: Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, and Ted Kaufman, D-Delaware. In remarks on the Senate floor, Kaufman warned that he won’t get behind ‘compromise measures that give only the illusion of change and a false sense of accomplishment.’”

“Sanders said he would vote against a Wall Street reform bill unless it includes an independent consumer regulator and tough new restrictions on banks. ‘The American people are disgusted with the behavior of Wall Street, and they don’t want us to go back to a time when Wall Street had no accountability and no regulation,’ Sanders said.”

“Still another Democratic senator, who asked not to be named, said the influence of banks isn’t limited to senators in just one party. ‘These banking institutions are so powerful, they’re all afraid of taking them on,’ the senator said.”

The Hartford Courant in Connecticut. “Unemployment in Connecticut ticked up slightly to 9 percent in January, the highest in this recession, according to a new report released by the state Department of Labor. The January rate, up from 8.8 percent in December, is the highest number for Connecticut since 1976, but it still is lower than the national rate of 9.7 percent.”

“In a sign of recovery, employers in Connecticut added 2,300 jobs in January — the first time since October that the net job figure increased and only the second time since March 2008. ‘Don’t break open the champagne, but you can open a bottle of beer over that one,’ said economist Nick Perna, a Yale lecturer and economic adviser to Webster Bank.”

“Over the past 12 months, construction had the biggest loss by percentage — 12 percent fewer jobs — and professional and business services lost the most positions, 18,600 over the year. Overall, the state’s economy reached 1,610,400 jobs in January, down by 52,500 from January 2009. The decline since the employment peak in March 2008 was 101,100, or nearly 6 percent of all jobs. ‘There’s a long way to go to regain the jobs that have been lost, Perna said. ‘All the TARP and all the other stuff from out there just kept the bottom from falling out,’ he said.”

“Perna is one of a stable of economists who make forecasts for the Wall Street Journal. That newspaper asked him which of five things was the greatest threat to the economy: scarcity of credit to small and medium-size businesses, losses in commercial real estate, another decline in the housing market, the U.S. deficit and less spending from consumers.”

“His answer: ‘None of the above. The U.S. Congress. And I mean that.’ Perna said the Senate has gone beyond gridlock to ‘armed conflict.’ ‘These people have gotten ideologically constipated,’ he said. “I think we’re now incapable of making reasonable economic policy in Washington.’”

The Norwich Bulletin in Connecticut. “Eastern Connecticut home foreclosures rose last month, with Windham County registering the highest percentage of the state’s eight counties. Windham County foreclosures rose 41 percent to 106 from 75 in January, according to RealtyTra. Windham’s February rate was 32.5 percent higher than the 80 foreclosures in the same month in 2009.”

“New London County foreclosures rose 11 percent to 174 in February from 157 in January. New London’s number was up 39 percent from the 125 in February 2009, RealtyTrac statistics show. The figures made New London the No. 5 county in the foreclosure rate rankings. The head officer of the region’s real estate sellers association wasn’t alarmed by the numbers. ‘Connecticut is in much better shape than the rest of the country,” said John Bolduc, CEO of the Norwich-based Eastern Connecticut Association of Realtors.”

“Connecticut had less of a housing boom than states such as Arizona, California and Florida, meaning the foreclosure problem is not as intense. Bolduc said he expects foreclosures to remain a problem for another year or two. ‘It’ll hang around, but things should get better,’ he said.”

The Wethersfield Post in Connecticut. “With jobs disappearing, unemployment growing and Connecticut facing an ongoing budget nightmare - in an election year - the Spring 2010 issue of ‘The Connecticut Economy: A University of Connecticut Quarterly Review,’ analyzes the state’s grim budget prospects.”

“The Quarterly Review also examines the economic consequences of local policy decisions including zoning controls, taxes, spending and regional cooperation that affect property values and the mix of residential housing. The editors note that Connecticut is an old state and growing older; the 39.4 median age of the state’s population ranks Connecticut as the seventh oldest state in the nation.
So, if Connecticut hopes to replace its aging, retirement-bound baby boomers with a cadre of younger workers, it needs to import them with a mix of challenging jobs, good pay and affordable housing, writes Quarterly Executive Editor Steven Lanza.”

“However, like most towns in other states, Connecticut communities have long used zoning controls to regulate the pace, mix and location of development. Lanza examines whether zoning works at cross purposes with broader public policy objectives, such as attracting young professionals to a rapidly graying state.”

“To shed light on how local policies affect real property values, co-editor Dennis Heffley and UConn economics Ph.D. graduate student Ekaterina Gnedenko apply a novel ‘open city’ model to examine policies including municipal taxes, spending, zoning and regional cooperation that maximize local property values.”

‘They note that ‘if property values reflect not just a town’s site and socioeconomic conditions, but also ‘how the town is run,’ then public officials who seek to enhance property values may be serving the interests of their constituents well.’”