Money Does What Money Wants
The Chicago Tribune reports from Illinois. “As home sales have stalled in recent years and foreclosures have risen, homeowners who need to move on and those who have inherited property are turning to renting to help cover costs. So many residences are now for lease that there is ‘a saturated rental market,’ with more available units than potential tenants, said Jeanine McShea, president of brokerage services for @Properties. ‘Many people are renting out property, but most are not making money,’ said Sara Benson, a principal in Chicago-based Benson Stanley Realty.”
“Chicago-area home sales have had an uptick in recent months, but prices have continued to slide. With few forecasts of a quick real estate turnaround, many sales agents suggest slashing selling prices rather than renting in hopes of a higher price later. Most owners ‘need to fish or cut bait,’ said Benson. It is really a question of ‘you lose money now or you pay over a long, slow process,’ she said.”
“When Ed Amaya put his Oak Park bungalow up for sale in mid-2007, homes in his neighborhood sold in a matter of days, weeks at the most. ‘We had some showings; got close to a deal,’ recalled Amaya. But as the housing market soured, a sale proved elusive. So Amaya agreed to rent it to a family that was not in a position to buy. ‘We stayed in that pattern for a couple of years,’ said Amaya, who expected real estate to rebound. ‘But guess what? The market got worse.’”
The Chicago Defender in Illinois. “At the height of the national recession, which was born out of, in part, the burst housing bubble as a result of bad mortgage lending practices, President Barack Obama urged homeowners to push past pride and contact their lenders. The president, in turn, pushed for lenders to work with borrowers.”
“Initially, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan was on board with the president and his call for lenders and borrowers to work with each other. But Madigan has changed her message to homeowners and urges them to contact a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development-certified housing counselor, or even her own office. ‘It’s just a nightmare,’ Madigan told the Defender about what homeowners are dealing with trying to work out mortgage agreements with some lenders. ‘They (lenders) don’t respond.’”
“‘Housing costs have outpaced people’s earnings and it’s come to a crisis point. Some of the programs that are there to help finance are just stretched too thin,’ Kevin Jackson of Chicago Rehab told the Defender. ‘Whether it’s a fraudulent deal to begin with where a home’s value is less than what it’s mortgaged for, or a homeowner determined to stay in a community that doesn’t meet their income needs, some end up over their heads and are faced with foreclosures…There have been some success stories, but the programs just aren’t as effective as hoped.’”
“‘People are trying to apply to and utilize the programs, but later on find out it’s just a temporary agreement as far as the financial institution is concerned. The loan modifications weren’t actually in their best interest and the homeowners find themselves in deeper debt and have had their cases re-filed,’ said attorney Ahmad Sulaiman, managing partner of a firm that specializes in foreclosure defense.”
My Suburban Life in Illinois. “The path to recovery may take some time following the most disastrous housing sales slump in more than 20 years, said John Bohnen, owner of Hinsdale-based County Line Properties. ‘Where a typical chart on housing sales might show a gradual, steady slope upwards, you can expect the Hinsdale market to be more jagged — an upward spike, then a slight downturn, another upward spike, and so on, over the coming 18 months or so,’ Bohnen said. ‘I had never seen this kind of correction in the market since the early 1990s, when there was a small skid. This is the first major correction in more than 20 years.’”
“The $8,000 tax credit program may have helped boost the market in many towns, but Hinsdale didn’t benefit, Bohnen said. ‘We still have some homes on the market that have not sold for more than 700 days,’ Bohnen said. ‘But the multi-million dollar homes continue to move. Money does what money wants.’”
From AnnArbor.com in Michigan. “April real estate activity in the Ann Arbor…is setting sales records among local real estate agents and their offices, a pace that many said should continue as the contracts signed by April 30 - the deadline for the federal homebuyer tax credit - are finalized in May and June. Realtors said they’ll be watching whether the tax credit causes prices to dip now that it’s over and buyers can’t count on what effectively generated up to an $8,000 subsidy. ‘I have heard buyers say, ‘Now that the credit is gone, we’ll just offer less,’ said David Lutton, president of Reinhart Realtors. ‘If everyone did that, we’d have lower prices moving forward.’”
“Agents also are waiting to see the impact of foreclosures and short sales this year. Year-to-date data from the Washtenaw County clerk’s office shows that the number of homes foreclosed increased 14.9 percent, with a total of 463 sheriff’s deeds recorded through April.”
“An $18 million loan that financed Ann Arbor’s largest downtown redevelopment is in default, according to a foreclosure filing, with the lender seeking a total of $20.1 million from developers Joseph Freed & Associates. The loan for Ashley Terrace dates from 2005, when Chicago-based Freed finalized plans to build the 10-story high-rise consisting of 99 condos, 71 of which are excluded from the foreclosure.”
“Ed Shaffran was among those who cautioned against overbuilding. He said that the Ashley Terrace foreclosure appears to signal what he warned against: New construction downtown could only be built at a price that would effectively price a typical unit out of the range of most buyers. Today, active listings at Ashley Terrace include a two-bedroom condo at $355,000 - or about $285 per square foot. A one-bedroom model for $274,500 is $297 per square foot. In comparison, homes in that price range in the city are on the market for under $225 per square foot, and a buyer could choose new construction with an Ann Arbor address for under $150 per foot.”
“‘The pricing was high,’ Shaffran said. ‘Extremely high.’”
Crain’s Detroit Business in Michigan. “At one point during the presale period for the 63 condominiums atop the Book Cadillac building, all but four units were sold. But after the irrational exuberance of 2006 became more rational, deals were closed on just five units when the building opened in October 2008. Today, the residential portion of the building is half occupied in a mix of condos and rental units. ‘Is it where we wanted to be? No,’ said Cleveland-based developer John Ferchill, who led the historic redevelopment project. ‘But it’s better than where we were.’”
“While Scott Allen, president of Fourmidable Group Inc, hasn’t been in the Book Cadillac rental units, he said condo projects with some of the units converted to rental typically don’t offer the same level of service as full rental buildings. ‘A condo community doesn’t have the budget for the same kind of in-house management that an actual apartment building offers,’ Allen said. ‘In an apartment, we install full-time managers, not just people trying to sell condos.’”
The Greene County Daily World in Indiana. “A wet spring season has accelerated grass growth and the Worthington Town Council discussed how to deal with residents who have let their lawns get to an unsightly state. Town Marshal Dennis Conaway said there are properties that the town is forced to mow every year because they are owned by ‘conglomerates’ located outside the state. ‘The guy has never even seen his property,’ the marshal said.”
“Town council president Hal Harp agreed that the absentee owners are a serious problem for the town to deal with. ‘The problem we are faced with is that we’re not even able to notify the owner of the property that there is a grass problem if they are in foreclosure. We have several where people have just abandoned their house. Just let everything go. The mail is still going in the mail box. The only thing we can do is mow them and then file a lien against the property,’ Harp explained. ‘It’s really a problem that we have not been able to solve.’”
“Council member Debbi Dyer added, ‘So many of them that we found were in foreclosure, the banks that have them are in California, Florida and other places.’”
“Harp replied, ‘The paper, the titles move from mortgage company to mortgage company and you can’t track down the owners. We’ve got a house on Third Street that was in the flood (in 2008) and it’s still full of water as far as I know, because they can’t find the owner. He’s in Florida someplace.’”
From Fox 4 KC in Missouri. “Mayor Mark Funkhouser fears an auction of 200 foreclosed homes later this week will be infested with out-of-town sharks. The auctions traditionally only attract out-of-town bankers and investors, who often want to flip the property, sight unseen, without making any improvements to them. Mildred Angel says living next door to a foreclosed home on Palmer Avenue has been a nightmare. ‘All kinds of things come out of there, snakes,’ Angel said.”
“At an afternoon press conference in front of a rehabbed house, Mayor Funkhouser issued a challenge. ‘We would like some local investors to participate in this auction and buy some of these properties,’ Funkhouser said. ‘We need people living in the house, mowing the yards, shoveling the sidewalk and participating in the community as opposed to vacant. And we have thousands, thousands of vacant homes in KC.’”
The Park Rapids Enterprise in Minnesota. “For the first quarter of 2010, Hubbard County’s foreclosure rate rose 60 percent over the same quarter last year. ‘A little bit of it would be job-related; some people just have too many obligations,’ said Mark Hewitt, CEO of Northwoods Bank in Park Rapids. ‘They used to be able to get out of it by selling their property or refinancing it and now those options are gone. I think that’s the biggest cause, then, because housing values have dropped here like they have everywhere.’”
“‘Appraisals have dropped,’ he said. ‘Just this year we’ve seen drops in some of the properties we’ve been involved with up to 30 percent. A year ago we weren’t seeing in the appraisals, the drops. We’re required when we get property back now through foreclosures, to get a current appraisal and we’re getting numbers that are substantially lower.’”
“Park Rapids realtor Justin Clack said low appraisals haven’t negatively affected many local sales yet. ‘When there are foreclosures and the banks list them with us, they seem to sell pretty well,’ he said. ‘It’s not real difficult to sell a foreclosure. Usually they’re priced very reasonably.’”
“But it seems the endless parade of foreclosed properties shows no signs of slowing. And ultimately those discounted bargains could, as Hewitt says, drag the whole housing market into the cellar.”
The Globe & Mail. “Patricia Hermann is the ultimate house sitter. Ms. Hermann is a ‘home manager’ for Showhomes Management LLC. In the past four years, she has lived in six monster homes in Minnesota, where she works as a nurse. The average emergency room nurse in the state makes about $70,000 – good money, but not enough to make the mortgage payments on the $850,000, five-bedroom Tudor-style she’s currently calling home.”
“‘I’ve been doing this since 2006 and I kind of take it one year a time,’ said Ms. Hermann. ‘Maybe I’ll decide to get a place of my own again some day, but I’ve gotten so spoiled that it would be hard to move into a little apartment.’”
“Buyers know the sellers are motivated to unload the property. Empty houses can depreciate quickly because maintenance is neglected, and buyers have a hard time picturing themselves living in what is currently an empty shell. In the U.S., buyers already have a lot of choice: For every qualified one, there about 40 homes available. ‘The bottom line is vacant houses get low-balled by bottom fishers,’ said Thomas Scott, VP of operations at Showhomes.”
“Ms. Hermann’s torn between loving where she’s living and hoping the homeowner is able to sell the luxurious home. She has been there for nine months, and the longest she’s ever lived in one of the homes is 16 months. ‘I think with this economy, I may be here for a while,’ she said. ‘I feel bad for the homeowners, they get worried. But I know I’m helping. The house looks amazing.’”
The Twin Cities Daily Planet in Minnesota. “Two years ago, Paul Stutler, an Eagan resident, discovered major water intrusion problems in his home - the result of a defect left by the builder. Though state law required the builder to pay for the repairs, Stutler’s home warranty claim was ignored, and he sued to get his house fixed. After months of legal wrangling, he got a settlement, but not before spending $40,000 on attorney fees.”
“It’s a familiar story in some cities. In places like Woodbury and Eagan, many a suburban dream home has turned out to be a nightmare. After moving to Woodbury six years ago, Steve Palmer discovered moisture problems in his home, and a forensic engineer found multiple code violations. The experience drained more than just his bank accounts. ‘I missed business, I neglected my family… My marriage is suffering because of it, my finances, everything. I mean, my life is in shambles,’ Palmer said.”
“Finally, after months of work, the House and Senate passed the bill and sent it to Pawlenty’s desk shortly before adjourning the 2009 legislative session. Gov. Tim Pawlenty vetoed the bill. In a letter to lawmakers, he said the legislation would have further burdened an industry that was already devastated by the housing market crash. ‘You gotta be kidding me,’ Palmer said, recounting his reaction upon hearing the news.”
The Legal Newsline. “New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is probing eight banks he believes might have misled credit rating agencies. The targets might have fooled credit agencies into giving higher grades to mortgage securities than they should have received, Cuomo feels. The banks under investigation are Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, UBS, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Credit Agricole and Merrill Lynch. Lynch is owned by Bank of America, the target of another lawsuit brought by Cuomo.”
“The three credit rating agencies are Standard & Poors, Fitch Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service. Those three are already the target of a lawsuit brought by Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray. Cordray said the credit-rating firms marketed mortgage-backed securities, saying they had the highest ratings and lowest risk. Cordray said the rating firms put high rating on the on toxic mortgage debt in return for high fees paid by those they were rating.”
“‘The rating agencies’ total disregard for the life’s work of ordinary Ohioans caused the collapse of our housing and credit markets and is at the heart of what’s wrong with Wall Street today,’ Cordray said.”
“Duke University professor Michael Munger has said that Cuomo should look in the mirror when he seeks causes of the financial crisis. Munger says Cuomo’s reign as secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development Authority under President Bill Clinton was a big cause of the financial problems of today. Cuomo required Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy $2.4 trillion in mortgages over a 10-year span. Cuomo said that meant affordable housing for 28.1 million low- and moderate-income families.”
“‘The fact is that pressure had been placed on both private banks and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to increase the amount of affordable housing available for people who couldn’t afford it,’ Munger said. Banks were making loans they wouldn’t make under normal circumstances. They were pressed by both Congress and Cuomo and the HUD. Basically, they were putting a government stamp of approval on them to buy these as investment-grade assets. To put it bluntly, the government was setting a trap… For Andrew Cuomo to blame somebody else, he caused it as much as anybody, or his agency caused it more than anybody — and certainly more than any bank merger.’”
The Journal Sentinel in Wisconsin. “Sales of existing homes in Wisconsin rose 16.8% in the first three months of 2010 and sale prices remained stable. John Flor, chairman of the Wisconsin Realtors Association, noted that it was the third consecutive quarter of gains in home sales and the second straight quarter with double-digit growth in the state. But Flor and others acknowledged tax credits intended to stimulate the housing market contributed to the increases.”
“‘I think the second half of the year will be a better reflection of what I call the normalization of the market,’ said William Malkasian, president of the state Realtors organization. ‘We’ll have a better idea then of what it’s going to look like. But I think we’re off life-support.’”
Channel 3000 in Wisconsin. “A family that had apparently been squatting in a West Side home currently in foreclosure has moved out of the residence. The family was asked to move by the Madison police, according to officials with Operation Welcome Home, a local homeless advocacy group. On Tuesday, the owner of the home filed a trespassing complaint. The complaint allowed law enforcement officials to get involved.”
“The mother, Desiree Wilson, and her two children had moved into the home two weeks ago without the owner’s permission. At a press conference on Monday, Operation Welcome Home announced that it helped the family move in without the owner’s permission. They said they entered through a broken door and changed the locks. They said that they launched an effort to encourage homeless people to move into houses going through the foreclosure process.”
“‘We believe that housing is a human right, and we know that we’re part of a bigger movement that’s been doing this across the country,’ said Operation Welcome Home organizer Z! Haukeness.”
“Madison police said there was really little they could do because the owner of the home originally said he just didn’t care. Capt. Jay Lengfeld, of the Madison Police Department’s west precinct said officers contacted the property owner, who told them he didn’t care about the squatters — as the property was going through foreclosure. But on Tuesday, the property owner changed his mind, citing concerns for liability. Prior to that — even though neighbors had called to report the problem — the owner just didn’t want to get involved.”
The Capital Times in Wisconsin. “‘We’re asking them to turn over the property to the community whose tax dollars are funding what they are doing,’ says Z! Haukeness of Operation Welcome Home, citing billions of dollars in bailouts to mortgage lenders.”
From Fox 11 “More and more homes in the state are going from ‘for sale’ to ’sold.’ ‘We’re on the rebound. Things are moving in the right direction,’ said Chuck Peeters, the president of the Realtors Association of Northeast Wisconsin.”
“Even though the numbers show the market is improving, there are still many people having a tough time trying to sell their house. ‘I guess the worst part is just sitting there and waiting for somebody to be interested in it,’ said Shane Meyer, of Green Bay.”
“Meyer has been trying to sell his home on Green Bay’s east side for 2 1/2 years. He’s had to drop the asking price from a $250,000 down to about $200,000. He says the federal incentives did not lead to more people coming to look. ‘I don’t know if it’s the wrong price range or what but I haven’t noticed any increase in people looking at it or calling,’ said Meyer.”
“The tax credit ended last month, which is why some worry the housing market has peaked. People in the industry say there is still some momentum. Shane Meyer hopes it means he can finally get his home off his hands. ‘It’s all a matter of time, sooner or later it will sell.’”
“‘Some of the programs … are just stretched too thin,’ Kevin Jackson of Chicago Rehab told the Defender. ‘Whether it’s a homeowner determined to stay in a community that doesn’t meet their income needs … some end up over their heads and are faced with foreclosures … The programs just aren’t as effective as hoped.’”
OK. So people willfully determined to live in communities that ‘do not meet their income needs’ are a bloc that federal programs are attempting to assist? I would like to live in Beverly Hills. Where is the signup sheet for help?
So people willfully determined to live in communities that ‘do not meet their income needs’ are a bloc that federal programs are attempting to assist?
Yet another Democratic voting bloc to be mobilized by votes-for-entitlements “community activists.” Here’s the bill, Middle America.
“The tax credit ended last month, which is why some worry the housing market has peaked. People in the industry say there is still some momentum”
There’s always momentum. It just changes direction.
To put it bluntly, the government was setting a trap… For Andrew Cuomo to blame somebody else, he caused it as much as anybody, or his agency caused it more than anybody — and certainly more than any bank merger.’
‘HUD forced us to do it’ is shaping up to be the defense of the plutocrats- as if any government agency had that sort of power over them in the last 30 years.
And isn’t it odd how Professor Munger’s opinion piece that exonerates the banksters got tacked on to the end of what starts out to be a news article on Cuomo’s investigation? A very Fox-news style of ‘journalism’. (Here’s some news that makes our true sponsors unhappy, so we’ll wrap up the piece by spinning the heck out of it in the opposite direction.)
Alpha, you need to stop seeing everything from your ultra-liberal perspective. Munger is dead on: Cuomo is cynically trying to depict himself as the champion of “The People” against Wall Street fraudsters, despite the inconvenient truth that bureaucrats like him played a huge role in the housing bubble by forcing lenders to make unsound loans. Does that excuse the banksters? No. But Cuomo (and Barry Frank, Chris Dodd, and their ilk) are every bit as guilty as the banks and FBs themselves in creating the housing bubble and then shifting the crippling costs from banks and FBs to taxpayers.
I don’t think he said HUD made us do it;
‘Cuomo required Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy $2.4 trillion in mortgages over a 10-year span. Cuomo said that meant affordable housing for 28.1 million low- and moderate-income families.’
‘The fact is that pressure had been placed on both private banks and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to increase the amount of affordable housing available for people who couldn’t afford it,’ Munger said. Banks were making loans they wouldn’t make under normal circumstances. They were pressed by both Congress and Cuomo and the HUD.’
It’s either true or not…
It’s true and verifiable, Ben. The record speaks for itself. People who are blind in the left eye (or the right) and therefore refuse to acknowledge the role of “their” partisan side in the causes of the housing bubble and our larger economic mess, are a big part of the problem. We the People need to demand accountability from all public officials regardless of their political affiliation. Alpha adopts the usual “attack the messenger” reflexive approach of the Left without acknowledging the accuracy of Munger’s points.
To put it bluntly, the government was setting a trap
He backtracks a little and attempts to cover himself, but the ‘gov setting a trap’ pretty much puts the blame on HUD. The banksters were *forced* to go along- due to the demands of the government- the very government that many here assure me is owned by the banksters.
Let’s agree that there was plenty of blame to go around. Starting with FBs who signed mortgages they couldn’t afford. Caveat emptor and all that.
Let’s agree that there was plenty of blame to go around.
On that we definitely agree. And if you note, I never call for forgiveness of any of the parties involved- from FBs to banksters to gov bureaucrats. I want them all to pay.
I just keep noticing that the banksters have the best PR machine, and it’s working overtime, and with some success, to spin away their guilt in the mess and throw it on everyone else. I’m trying, in my own small way, to make sure they don’t get away with it.
whoops- end italics after ‘…blame to go around’.
I’m trying, in my own small way, to make sure they don’t get away with it.
When you’re ready to try in a larger way, Ron Paul could use the support.
Rand calls me every day and asks me to vote for him. But then Mitch calls and tells me not to. They’re both rather robotic.
How would either of the Pauls hold the banksters accountable? I thought they were laissez-faire, let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may, libertarians. To me, that’s just accepting corruption but refusing to bail it out when it inevitably crashes. I think if you lessen the corruption (through effective regulation etc) you lessen the crashes. And you get a more enjoyable country to live in.
There’s a reason people have been trying to regulate the economy for for the last century- it sucks living in a boom-and-bust, caveat emptor, swindle-and-be-swindled, economy. People like the Pauls have forgotten that.
Alpha, you shameless Bolshevik,
Sometimes “perfect” is the enemy of “good enough.” Do I agree with Ron & Rand Paul across the board? No. But neither one are bankers’ bitches like 99% of their colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Both opposed the bailouts and both have pushed hard to audit the Fed. That makes them worthy of active support in my book.
You also seem to think both Dr. Pauls will be annointed as Emperors with power to rule by decree and impose Libertarianism as the law of the land. We could do worse, but remember, they’ll still be in a Parliament of Whores (as PJ O’Rourke famously put it) beholden to Wall Street, so their power to bring about sweeping changes will be limited.
And by the way, even some ardent RP supporters like myself strongly agree that predatory corporate behavior needs to be regulated and put in check - by honest, competent, tough regulators, not the toadies at the SEC. There are logical limits to libertarianism, and some of us also take seriously the “general welfare” clause of the Constitution.
Hold it, I don’t think that that makes sense. Cuomo was a member of Clinton’s cabinet and Fannie and Freddie were semi-independent at that time. That number - $2.4 trillion - is a huge amount of cheddar. I can’t imagine that Cuomo could require Fannie and Freddie to purchase that quantity of mortgages on his own authority. I would think that Congress would have to approve something if that magnitude.
This one doesn’t have the ring of truth about it.
Whether or not Cuomo et al are guilty of playing a role in this mess is not really related to the fact that what starts as a news article on Cuomo’s investigation ends as an opinion piece that savages him- that’s what I found interesting. Seems indicative of the reach of Wall Street’s PR that an article in a legal news site ends, for no apparent reason, with a very lengthy pro-bankster spin and attack upon someone investigating bankster activities.
A pro-bankster spin from the WSJ? I am flabbergasted. That doesn’t detract from the validity of their comments on Couomo’s own culpability in the housing bubble train wreck.
The article is from something called Legal Newsline. I’m not familiar with it but it purports to be a site for legal news about state supreme courts and attorneys general, not openly partisan at least.
And you guys are making my main point. Here we are arguing about Fannie’s etc role in the mess (which indeed exists and should be investigated) when the article starts out to be about Cuomo investigating the banksters. Suddenly at the midpoint of a ‘news’ article, one professor’s opinion suddenly appears and proceeds to belittle the whole matter and cast aspersions on one of the parties involved. Why?
It would be like halfway through an article reporting on a murder, suddenly someone starts ragging on one of the police detectives, saying he once beat his wife or something. It may well be worthy of a separate opinion piece, but why is it being tacked on to the end of a news article? That is what I find interesting.
Would you want to be investigated by a police detective who beats his wife? And is Cuomo doing a serious investigation, or is this more of his political grandstanding?
Very good questions, Sammy. But they should be asked in a separate opinion piece, not tacked on to a news article.
Not really. The credibility of the investigator is central to the investigation. People may not read a separate story or editorial. Thus they might assume Cuomo is acting solely in the public interest. Maybe, maybe not. Hypocrisy is the one unforgivable sin in politics, and hypocritical officials deserve to be called out.
But let’s not hijack this thread anymore.
Seemed a lot more like spin than investigative reporting.
If Cuomo seriously wants to be seen as a white knight in this, he needs to offer a mea culpa about his role in the mess. Has he done that?
No, and he won’t. Because he realizes the American public is afflicted with a mass case of ADD. They only fixiate on the issue de jour, not malfeasance that occurred several years ago. To apologize would only call attention to his own role in the bubble. Counting on the American sheeple’s ignorance of his role is a better bet.
“And isn’t it odd how Professor Munger’s opinion piece that exonerates the banksters got tacked on to the end of what starts out to be a news article on Cuomo’s investigation? A very Fox-news style of ‘journalism’.”
Did Megabank, Inc somehow compensate Professor Munger for his ‘objective assessment’?
Follow the money trail, follow the money.
‘arguing about Fannie’s etc role in the mess (which indeed exists and should be investigated) when the article starts out to be about Cuomo investigating the banksters. Suddenly at the midpoint of a ‘news’ article, one professor’s opinion suddenly appears and proceeds to belittle the whole matter and cast aspersions on one of the parties involved’
This is what happens when a very large, multi-decade issue gets politicized. I posted the other day some remarks by Nancy Pelosi, where she tells us who is and isn’t to ‘blame’ in the context of the current election out there. Of course, her buddies were clean and the opponents were dirty. The fact is, there is ‘plenty of blame to go around’ so any finger pointing has some truth to it.
I’ve long said, that if we really started digging into the bubble itself, the first question to ask is, when did it start? Then we can get cause and effect much more clearly.
Another problem is, this huge line of dominos crashing exposes long-time wrongs that seem to suddenly appear in the wake, when it was screwed up all along. Like wall street’s BS, the dangerously powerful idiots at the Fed, and the regulatory dog-and-pony show that is congress.
And then, there is the really odd thing; these same politicians and their camps are compounding the problems of too-high house prices as we speak! I know it’s maddening, but it’s also simple. Let’s look strictly into the housing bubble, and we might get some meaningful reform out of this.
Well said, Ben. The housing bubble is a microcosm of a lot of larger and related problems, but at least it’s a limited, hence manageable, subject. And our HBB discourse in here brings out a lot of different perspectives that are by turns educational, informative, and entertaining.
“Another problem is, this huge line of dominos crashing exposes long-time wrongs that seem to suddenly appear in the wake, when it was screwed up all along.”
That is a profound insight, Ben. I liken the situation to what happens when a large earthquake strikes a Third World nation, or an unanticipated volcanic eruption disrupts air travel. The responsible geologic forces build for eons of time before the devastating proximate disaster inflicts its awful toll. Similar to slowly-building geologic pressures, the disequilibrium forces, systemic fraud and political mischief which underlie the U.S. housing market debacle have built for decades.
The responsible geologic forces build for eons of time before the devastating proximate disaster inflicts its awful toll.
I prefer to think that God hates Europe.
“People are trying to apply to and utilize the programs, but later on find out it’s just a temporary agreement as far as the financial institution is concerned. The loan modifications weren’t actually in their best interest and the homeowners find themselves in deeper debt and have their cases re-filed…”
Well duh. These FBs thought the bankers would happily write off into thin air tens of thousands of dollars?
Bankers? Lol.
What really happened was much needed HOPE was extended to the FBs inticing them to STAY in their houses and to KEEP UP WITH THEIR PAYMENTS.
FB: You mean I am not getting something for nothing? But I voted for Obama?!!!
“So many residences are now for lease that there is ‘a saturated rental market” in Chicago.
Here in 85383 and 85310, it’s exactly opposite. We’re saturated with “Short Sales” that are vacant. Apparently people have mailed in the keys, banks are sitting on them waiting and the rental market is hot. In the course of the last week or so, every rental home and apartment (with 3 bedrooms in the target area) that we showed interest in were already rented.
We finally found one, but its 15 miles from the area where we wanted to live.
So is there a shortage of rental apartments in complexes, or just of condos and sf homes? I likely will move to Phx (or Tucson) in July.
Thanks,
I can’t speak for Phoenix, but I’ve never seen anything like the Tucson apartment glut. There are sign spinners, banners with 1st month free, $0 down, etc., etc. I’ve stayed in two different apartment complexes(gates, clubhouse, pool, wifi) where there are 10-15% empty apartments. The landlords fall all over themselves to rent an unfurnished 1br. apartment to me for a couple of months in the winter @$500/mo.
Pretty cheap way for me to dodge a couple months of Wisconsin winter. Condos are more pricey to rent than Florida, usually Clownifornians with their pictures and autobiographies on the internet, ala Realtwhores listings.
And this is exactly what people ’round here were predicting years ago. Just when the rental rate/purchase price ratio starts returning to sanity, the rent will be comming down because of the oversupply. Get ready for the second dip. Of course this will be worst in markets where there has been alot of building: condos in Miami, SFHs in the inland empire etc. In markets where there ISN’T as much new supply the double whammy won’t be so bad. Say, SFHs in close in suburbs.
Town Marshal Dennis Conaway said there are properties that the town is forced to mow every year because they are owned by ‘conglomerates’ located outside the state. ‘The guy has never even seen his property,’ the marshal said.”
When are these elected local yokels going to start acting like actual leaders in the defense of their communities? Instead of wailing about having to mow the grass and slapping endless liens on vacant properties: here’s an idea: start fining the absentee owners $1000 a day for neglect of the property, then seize the property once liens go unpaid for a month. Auction off the houses, but only to local residents or buyers employed in the community and committing to live in the house for at least three years. No specuvestors allowed.
There you go. Treat them like an abandoned car. Fine them, put a lien on them and then take ownership when the owner doesn’t respond.
That’ll get this hidden inventory into the pipeline.
Sell to local residents but no City, County, or State employees !!!
Sell it to anybody ready to put 20% down and verify his income
Well I agree that ultimately, seizure is the answer. Or at least the threat of seizure might unclog some of this stuff. But of course the FBs don’t want the town unloading this stuff anymore than they want the banks doing so. And they have a bigger say in what local government does than they do in bank decisions.
“The banks under investigation are Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, UBS, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Credit Agricole and Merrill Lynch. Lynch is owned by Bank of America, the target of another lawsuit brought by Cuomo.”
“The three credit rating agencies are Standard & Poors, Fitch Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service.”
I have a hunch that a stake could be driven through the heart of bubble-era fraud if only the law could figure out a way to send the responsible CEOs at those nine megabanks and those three rating agencies to prison. Don’t tell me the CEOs are too-big-to-fail, either.
Yeah, just who is protecting the ratings agencies? Notice they aren’t touched by the so-called ‘financial reform.’
I was willing to give the white house some room to manuver regarding the housing bubble, but they’ve turned out to be tools like everybody else in DC.
+1. But the greater tools are those who elected them.
Thought you’d enjoy this latest bit of mind-boggling hypocrisy from Colorado Senator Michael F. Bennett, who never met a bailout or Big Government program he didn’t like:
“The Senate recently passed my Pay It Back amendment with broad bi-partisan support. This plan will cut the size of the bailout and end the ‘revolving door’ bailout fund.
Pay It Back reduces the size of the bailout fund known as TARP by $150 billion and prevents Treasury from redirecting unused funds for new programs. It will also ensure that repaid banking, housing and auto bailout funds - totaling more than $180 billion to date - are used to pay down the deficit, not to fund further spending. Fiscally responsible measures to pay down the deficit are critical as the national debt is approaching $13 trillion.
The Pay It Back Plan is a great addition to the Wall Street reform bill. Taxpayers who were forced to bring the big Wall Street banks back from the brink of collapse are now assured that the bailout fund is being wound down. This amendment will ensure that paid back bailout funds will be used to pay down the deficit, so our kids aren’t saddled with a debt Washington is unable to pay.
Of course Senator Bennett neglects to mention his own role in forcing said taxpayers to rescue the banksters from their own rampant greed and reckless speculation, or enabling the greatest financial swindle in US history - the transfer of trillions in private debt onto the taxpaying public. Naturally, Senator Bennett also voted against Ron Paul’s Audit the Fed bill. The magnitude of his sellout of the productive classes in Colorado and the nation is exceeded only by his gall in acting like the People’s Champion and claiming to mitigate measures that he himself foisted on us.
“‘The fact is that pressure had been placed on both private banks and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to increase the amount of affordable housing available for people who couldn’t afford it,’ Munger said. Banks were making loans they wouldn’t make under normal circumstances. They were pressed by both Congress and Cuomo and the HUD. Basically, they were putting a government stamp of approval on them to buy these as investment-grade assets. To put it bluntly, the government was setting a trap… For Andrew Cuomo to blame somebody else, he caused it as much as anybody, or his agency caused it more than anybody — and certainly more than any bank merger.’”
How do you assign culpability when such a large number of individuals in power during the bubble era seemed to have a hand in the subprime lending debacle?
One modest proposal:
NEVER, EVER LET HILLARY CLINTON GAIN THE PRESIDENCY!!!
I’d be willing to debate that she would have been less damaging than the guy we got in her place.
Do you Bill? I personally think they are a package deal; you can’t have one without the other. But at least Bill was a lovable rascal.
“Do you mean Bill?”…
“Mayor Mark Funkhouser fears an auction of 200 foreclosed homes later this week will be infested with out-of-town sharks. The auctions traditionally only attract out-of-town bankers and investors, who often want to flip the property, sight unseen, without making any improvements to them.”
Here is a sure sign the federal government’s various bubble reflation efforts are working: Flippers grabbing property to capture the short-term price appreciation due to housing market stimulus.
“The tax credit ended last month, which is why some worry the housing market has peaked. People in the industry say there is still some momentum. Shane Meyer hopes it means he can finally get his home off his hands. ‘It’s all a matter of time, sooner or later it will sell.’”
He is conjecturing whether the housing market peaked in April 2010? What about the really big peak back around July 2006 or so, or the Grand Canyon-sized chasm that awaits by maybe 2015?
Quote of the Day (from the linked web site):
“Page after page of professional economic journals are filled with mathematical formulas leading the reader from sets of more or less plausible but entirely arbitrary assumptions to precisely stated but irrelevant theoretical conclusions.
—Wassily Leontief, Science, Volume 217, 9 July 1982, p. 106.”
In the long run, irrelevant theoretical conclusions will no longer receive government subsidy funding.
What about the global warming hoaxers ???
I remember one of my math professors talking about economists starting with “Two lines in a seven dimensional space” and going immediately to “at the intersection” without proving that the did, indeed intersect at all. Of course to mathematicians showing that “the solution exists,” is itself an undertaking.
The Greene County Daily World in Indiana. “Town Marshal Dennis Conaway said there are properties that the town is forced to mow every year because they are owned by ‘conglomerates’ located outside the state. ‘The guy has never even seen his property,’ the marshal said.”
I had no idea that Indiana was such a real estate investor’s paradise?
Or Ann Arbor condos at these prices:
‘Today, active listings at Ashley Terrace include a two-bedroom condo at $355,000 - or about $285 per square foot. A one-bedroom model for $274,500 is $297 per square foot’
And I’ll have posters here almost every day saying there is no bubble anymore…
The difference between then and now is that those college town condos probably aren’t selling.
We still have a slog of “luxury” condos for sale in Pullman at silly prices, but it has been a long time since anyone purchased one. What I don’t get is how developments built out two years ago, sitting vacant this whole time, still haven’t gone belly up. I keep waiting for the bank to take over and liquidate at fire-sale prices but “extend and pretend” is alive and well.
Wow, I didn’t learn in my own ‘newspaper’ that these Ashley Terrace condos (hideously ugly and ruining the feel of that part of downtown, ick) are in foreclosure (well, the overall loan is anyway)!
The business reporter who wrote about ’sales records’ (which, btw, was revealed in an unclear way to be a ‘record’ for the one office in town who is currently doing a lot of the pushing-people-off-the-fence and has the agent presence to make a ‘record’ for a single month when a tax credit was about to expire lol. So, his data on how once it expires people will just ‘offer less’ comes from the scores of potential buyers he’s experienced in this ‘record’ month for contracts in the history of his company. Hurry! Hurry! The credit is about to expire! Buy, buy, pussycats!) is a consistent cheerleader for real estate and I’ve experienced her taking down articles and their comments when she didn’t like the way her misleading reports had been received lol, pretty amusing (the paper is mostly an online effort now, their print edition went under and their building is waiting for a buyer).
I’ve heard from more sane househunters that prices haven’t come down enough here, and I’d say that’s true. There’s no clear path to improving this economy, and more foreclosures will be coming. Ann Arbor still struggles with what seems to be a delusion that there’s an ocean or moutains nearby, or a real city within an hour instead of Detroit in one direction and Lansing in the other. Some of the movers and shakers seem to think that they could turn AA into Austin lol, or that building lofts or condos with terraces to look out onto a starbucks would fetch $300/SF, just insane. It’s insanity that can be sustained only because Ann Arbor folks believe (with some reason) that by contrast to the rest of the state, they look pretty not-so-bad!
They’re not making any more corn.
But there’s no shortage of cornholed FBs.
Sorry. Couldn’t resist.
“At an afternoon press conference in front of a rehabbed house, Mayor Funkhouser issued a challenge. ‘We would like some local investors to participate in this auction and buy some of these properties,’ Funkhouser said. ‘We need people living in the house, mowing the yards, shoveling the sidewalk and participating in the community as opposed to vacant. And we have thousands, thousands of vacant homes in KC.’”
That is just dumb, as it is greater fools from out of town who possess the buckets of money and boxes of stupid necessary to drive the market value of homes out of reach relative to local end-user demand. Why not simply pass a law that requires out of town investors to maintain the properties, or else pay the city a large fine on a regular basis to cover the government’s costs of maintaining the properties. If the fine is not paid over a period of, say, three months running (or whatever the appropriate time period), the government could take back the property and auction it off to the ‘local investor’ with the highest bid.
This would be a win-win for the local government, as it would help control the problem of equity locusts driving down local property values by failing to maintain their ‘infestments,’ and it would also provide a nice infusion of cash from the infestors to city coffers.
Just thought I’d pass on an observation of my local RE market, Boston.
From December through April I was surprised at how FEW homes were on the market in my Newton, Dedham, Brookline area. It didn’t make sense to me given the available tax credit.
Now, even stranger, I’m seeing more and more houses for sale. Easily three times as many as from December through April. I know May-June are prime selling periods but what I can’t fathom is the pop of listings AFTER the tax credit expired.
The total level of houses listed seems down at least a third or half from peak listings but seems to be growing, fast. Other than the seasonal explanation, why in the world wouldn’t people have listed their houses at least sometime within the tax credit period? I’m stumped.
That’s EZ to explain.
1) The $8,000 tax credit LIFTED values
2) These higher values created HIGHER comps
3) Asking prices are now higher due to the higher comps
The smart buyer will wait until after the summer.. when these artificially high comps will expire (appraisers can only use comps going back 3 - 6 months)
This winter will be the golden time to purchase a new prop!!
“That’s EZ to explain.”
Agreed, but there is more to the story:
…
4) While the $8K new homebuyer credit was in play, homes that might have sat on the market for a considerable length of time were instead snapped up quickly by new buyers lured by the credit — especially low end (”affordable”) homes.
5) The result of the artificially increased rate of home buying activity was to clear out the inventory pipeline, creating the illusion of FEW homes on the market.
6) Now that the tax credit is no more, would-be sellers trying to price off recent, artificially-inflated comp prices are not likely to soon find a buyer, creating the perception of “more and more houses for sale.” Homes marketed at prices where they would have sold with $8K stimulus propping up demand are unlikely to sell at similar prices the sellers now expect to receive, resulting in a spontaneous inventory train wreck.
BTW, seeing the same development in our SD ‘hood since the end of April.
You really think the biggest mania we may have ever seen will be over by fall?
“The housing market will bottom out by the end of next year” (whatever year it happens to be at the moment…).
We are seeing the same thing in our neck of the woods (Pullman, WA). The only thing I can figure is that a lot of shadow inventory is coming on the market with the growing realization that we are due for another leg down. Of course, it is already too late… but that is probably the thinking.
A neighbor just put their house on the market because the sole breadwinner husband took a job in Portland. But they are refusing to “take a loss” so the wife and kids will stay behind for “a couple of years if necessary” until the house sells. Yes, there are still a lot of folks out there who think that what we are currently experiencing is the anomaly that will eventually give way to the “normal” real estate market of 2007.
The Psychedelic Furs - All That Money Wants - 1988
I’ve heard it said that behind all great wealth lies a great crime. Or multiple crimes.
Which would explain the too-big-to-fail banks recent profits.
Unregulated piracy is a lucrative occupation.
““Meyer has been trying to sell his home on Green Bay’s east side for 2 1/2 years. He’s had to drop the asking price from a $250,000 down to about $200,000. He says the federal incentives did not lead to more people coming to look. ‘I don’t know if it’s the wrong price range or what but I haven’t noticed any increase in people looking at it or calling,’ said Meyer.””
Gee, it hasn’t sold in two years and just now it’s occuring to this genius that the house may be overpriced?
Here’s a hint, Meyer. Find out what the market value is and lower the price to 10% less.
Collateral damage: Hedgies got bombed by the black swan guano droppings that landed on the U.S. stock market…
The Financial Times
Hedge funds hit by May volatility
By Sam Jones in London
Published: May 16 2010 22:01 | Last updated: May 16 2010 22:01
Some of the world’s biggest hedge funds have suffered significant losses this month after high levels of volatility across markets and the shortlived stock market plunge in New York combined to wipe billions from portfolios.
Losses in the first week of May alone erased all gains made so far this year for some managers, according to investors who spoke to the Financial Times.
Large losses in a single week are not unusual for hedge funds, which typically aim to outperform markets and cut volatility, but those this month have come as a stark reminder to many of the continuing uncertainty over the economic recovery.
London’s BlueTrend – the $10bn computer-driven fund run by BlueCrest Capital, one of the most successful managers to emerge from the financial crisis – dropped 7.57 per cent during the first week of May. Rival AHL, the $20bn monolith run by the Man Group, fell 3.3 per cent.
In the US, the Renaissance Institutional Equities Fund, another quantitative trader run by Long-Island-based Renaissance Technologies, fell 3.6 per cent.
Sharp losses were also taken by many large long-short equity managers, which both invest in stocks and look to take advantage of price falls by selling them short.
…
EDITOR’S CHOICE
In depth: Hedge funds - Apr-25
Insight: Risks posed by geeks are not flash in the pan - May-13
Beware of geeks bearing grifts!
The Financial Times
Risks posed by get-rich geeks are not just a flash in the pan
By Gillian Tett
Published: May 13 2010 20:53 | Last updated: May 13 2010 20:53
Last year, I bumped into a brilliant mathematician friend who had spent much of the past decade grappling with complex credit. Ruefully, he confessed that he and his fellow geeks were starting to find products such as credit derivatives rather dull.
For the banking crash had left investors so nervous and regulators so heavy-handed that there was little scope to be “creative” any more. Indeed, he questioned whether those products would really last (which looks rather prescient, given some American politicians are now intensifying efforts to ban naked shorts in the credit default swap world).
But some eggheads, he added, had a fall-back plan. As credit derivatives became boring, some of those players were moving into algorithmic trading instead. For that area still apparently offered scope for intellectual innovation, and, of course, fat profits. “It’s a real frontier,” he said, with glee.
It is a tale that regulators on both sides of the Atlantic should note. An entire week has now passed since the extraordinary, tumultuous crash and rebound of the US equity markets. But, although regulators and policymakers have been crawling all over these events with a toothcomb for seven days, the only thing that is even more remarkable than the drama of those events is that their trigger remains a mystery.
Reflect on that for a moment. A regulated public equity market crashed dramatically, prompting a full-blown enquiry, but thus far policymakers appear mystified by the cause. It might have been a “fat finger error”, a computing malfunction, or a rogue trader. But, then again, it might not. The only thing that is clear is that the structure of the trading systems, with all their high-speed, computer-controlled practices, appears to have magnified the problem in a way that caught regulators, bankers and investors by surprise.
Ironically enough (or perhaps not so oddly, given my story about the geeks) this has numerous parallels with the world of complex credit. During the past decade, algorithmic trading – just like complex credit a few years before – has expanded at a dizzy speed. However, until last Thursday, this activity was largely ignored by the wider world.
That was not necessarily because algo traders deliberately wanted to hide their craft (though some certainly did); instead, a more subtle problem was that this activity seemed to be so mind-numbingly geeky and dull to ordinary mortals that very few journalists, politicians, or even regulators, had much interest in asking hard questions.
When traders spoke about their risk-management systems, using the language of advanced maths, most non-bankers simply switched off. In any case, all of this activity was wrapped up in rhetoric that suggested that financial innovation in the trading infrastructure was a good thing, since it promised to make it more stable, liquid and “advanced”. Which, of course, is what people also said about collateralised debt obligations.
Now, of course, it is painfully clear some of this rhetoric was dead wrong. Just as regulators discovered back in 2007 that credit securitisation had built interconnections and fragilities across the financial system that nobody understood, so too the rise in algo trading has introduced new interconnections – and extreme fragilities, which are poorly understood. A 21st century financial machine – or monster – has emerged, which appears to have spun out of the control of government (or anyone else). Little wonder that recent opinion polls suggest public faith in finance and government is slipping.
This has at least two important implications for regulators. In the short term, it is obviously extremely important that regulators now try to determine exactly what happened last week, and then explain it in language the public can understand. Slapping on a uniform system of circuit breakers, or imposing other regulatory curbs might help, but only to a limited degree. What is needed now is a full explanation of what happened.
…
The turn of the screw continues to tighten small business credit:
* The Wall Street Journal
* MAY 17, 2010
Tightening the Credit Screws
Community banks are still offering loans. But businesses have to jump through a lot more hoops to get them.
By EMILY MALTBY
In the depths of the credit crunch, community lenders became a popular financing source for Main Street. But small-business owners may need to work harder to get support from local banks these days.
Even though most community banks came through the financial collapse in good health, with lots of capital and liquidity to extend loans, some of them have gone under. So, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Federal Reserve and other regulatory agencies are increasing their scrutiny of local lenders to spot troubled assets and keep the banks in solid financial shape. As part of the effort, the watchdogs are asking the banks to boost their capital and loan-loss reserves even further—which means raising more money, getting more selective about making new loans and canceling the risky loans on their books.
The upshot for business owners: Local bankers now demand a lot more information about the business and its operations before they sign off on a loan. Entrepreneurs who land a loan need to give frequent updates about the state of affairs—and not just routine financial information, such as sales figures.
Bankers need deeper “information about what’s going on with the business…for instance, if one of the [borrower's] customers is in financial trouble,” says Kevin Tenpas, chief executive of Heartland Business Bank in De Pere, Wis., a part of Heartland Financial USA Inc. in Dubuque, Iowa.
Small-business owners who don’t work closely with their lenders will find it much tougher to get financing. “I think it’s even more important to have that relationship now than before,” says Mr. Tenpas. “I think the tendency is for owners to not communicate if it’s not good news, which is when it’s most important.”
…