September 24, 2014

Banks Went On Offensive About Delaying Foreclosures

The Sun Sentinel reports from Florida. “Home prices in Broward County increased in August, but sales declined. When the six-year housing meltdown bottomed in late 2011, investors overwhelmed the market, paying cash for fixer-uppers that were resold or rented for robust returns. That led to lightning-quick offers and bidding wars among buyers. Prices and sales shot up, while the supply of homes diminished, creating another mini-boom similar to the one from 2000 to 2005. ‘People were [saying], ‘Here we go again,’ said Jim Heidisch, broker for Campbell and Rosemurgy in Pompano Beach.”

The South Florida Business Journal. “Despite the more than 30,000 new condos proposed or in development in South Florida, the market for existing condos cooled. Miami-Dade County saw median condo and town home prices fall 4.2 percent to $182,000 - a rare reversal, according to the Miami Association of Realtors. The number of sales plummeted 21.4 percent.”

“‘The Miami real estate market continues to normalize as the new construction sector gains momentum and generates strong demand for additional new supply, impacting the existing condominium market,’ Miami Association of Realtors Chairman Liza Mendez said in a news release. ‘Despite declines in sales and condo prices, the performance of the Miami residential market continues to be comparable to what it was in during periods of record sales activity.’”

The Herald Tribune. “While local courts have made headway in clearing out the foreclosure backlog, Sarasota attorney Nancy E. Cason says they still have a long way to go. Cason says it could take another 18 months to process the cases now clogging the 12th Judicial Circuit, which includes Sarasota, Manatee and DeSoto counties. ‘Contrary to popular belief, the foreclosure crisis is far from over in the 12th Judicial Circuit,’ said Cason. ‘At this rate, it will take close to another year and a half, give or take, to clear up the current backlog,’ she said, and only if funding for the new resources is renewed after running out next February.”

“Before the process was sped up, it could take up to three years or longer to move a foreclosure case through the circuit. ‘I am confident those days are over,’ Cason said.”

“Foreclosures showed no sign of easing up in Southwest Florida last month. The Sarasota-Manatee region ranked 19th among the nation’s major metropolitan areas, according to RealtyTrac. Lis pendens filings, the first step in the foreclosure process, jumped 35 percent in August over the month in the two-county region, tracking a statewide trend. After 17 consecutive months of year-over-year decreases, initial foreclosure filings climbed 24 percent statewide from 2013, RealtyTrac said. That kept Florida with the nation’s highest foreclosure rate for the 11th straight month.”

“Money flowing in the court system indirectly from banks is tilting Florida’s judicial system against homeowners who face foreclosure. Judge Diana Lewis told the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board during her re-election bid this summer explained the rocket docket’s pressure this way: ‘We’re under a mandate from the court administration and the Supreme Court to get the older cases out because we might lose funding for that,’ she said.”

“Yet it was maneuvering by banks — including the illegal robo-signing of documents — that helped create the backlog of hundreds of thousands of cases. As Lewis said, ‘The banks then went on the offensive about delaying (foreclosures) and not wanting to take the inventory in. So the court system was obligated to try to do some case management and basically push the cases along.’ She added that, ‘Right now we’re spending the taxpayer dollars’ but ‘we don’t know how long the funding is going to last.’”

The News Press. “August existing-home prices were up, but sales were down in Lee and Collier counties — trends that also showed up in national data. But one real estate agent warned that reports from around the country indicate that the market may be in for a downturn. The falling sales numbers come in part because new-home builders are ramping up production now that the economy’s improving and demand is up, said Naples-based land-use consultant Michael Timmerman. ‘There’s price sensitivity because prices have increased in the last couple of years quite a bit,’ he said, ‘and we’ve got quite a lot of new product that’s not included” from developers putting up new houses.’”

“Denny Grimes of Royal Shell Real Estate, just arriving back in town today from a real estate conference in Austin, Texas, said those trends may be amplified in coming months based on what agents from other markets were saying at the conference. About 75 percent had seen a recent uptick in the inventory of unsold homes, which Grimes said is a leading indicator of trouble ahead because it indicates an increasing difficulty in selling at current prices. If that trend continues, especially in Southwest Florida’s major feeder markets in the Midwest, ‘That may give a seller a cause to say ‘Maybe I’ll wait for the market to get better before I come down’.”

“Much of the decline came from the exodus of investors. Timmerman said investors have pulled back in Southwest Florida as well. Now, with prices on the rise, investors are more cautious — when they do buy, it’s often financed in part by a bank loan. Grimes said his advice to local sellers now is not to tempt fate. ‘If sellers have an option to take good money today, they should take it.’”




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46 Comments »

Comment by Ben Jones
2014-09-24 03:42:22

I’m flying to Texas this morning and will be there through the weekend. I’ll do my best to keep up with the moderation, etc.

Comment by palmetto
2014-09-24 05:10:59

Have a good trip, Ben.

 
Comment by scdave
Comment by scdave
Comment by Ben Jones
2014-09-24 06:46:54

I’ll be staying north of Dallas, and I’ve been to McKinney before. Last time I was there, it was cows, subdivisions, cows, strip malls.

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Comment by Shillow
2014-09-24 18:26:46

Safe trip. If y’all get up around Gainesville, poke your head out the window and yell Go Leopards!

 
 
 
Comment by ibbots
2014-09-24 07:35:36

McKinney is a pretty good piece from Dallas. 30 minutes in good traffic. They do have a pretty nice town square with an old courthouse etc and old shops. Good Octoberfest there as well.

The people I know that live there like it a lot for the reasons stated in the Money magazine article.

Comment by cactus
2014-09-24 09:29:27

My ex-neighbor bought in McKinny TX a cheap house , for example it had that popcorn stuff blown on the ceiling in the bathrooms.

Have to keep the foundation of the house wet or the clay its built on will contract and crack the concrete.

weird stuff like that.

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Comment by Avocado
2014-09-24 12:59:44

It even beat out Santa Barbara and Boulder!

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Comment by mvrenter
2014-09-24 15:03:58

But the old town square in McKinney is on the “bad” side of 75. All the subdivisions people are moving into are some distance from that. And a world apart from it in other ways.

And if you step three feet outside of the area where the cute shops and eateries are, it gets weird fast. I was startled to see businesses with bars on the windows.

It’s pretty ghetto on that side of 75 outside of a few square blocks in the center of the old town.

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Comment by Housing Analyst
2014-09-24 04:01:03

….. and every transaction at these massively inflated prices over the past 15 years is tomorrow’s default. Looking out 5, 10, 15, 30 years is nothing but defaults and massive and growing excess empty housing inventory.

 
Comment by Whac-A-Bubble™
2014-09-24 05:14:54

HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of backlogged cases? And this presumably is only in Florida. Making my head spin to realize the game is only in the third inning or so…

Comment by Housing Analyst
2014-09-24 05:20:23

And that amount is only what they’re willing to admit publicly.

Comment by Whac-A-Bubble™
2014-09-24 05:30:17

It’s always been a mystery to me how banksters believe they will somehow get away with hiding shadow inventory FOREVER!

Comment by AmazingRuss
2014-09-24 19:47:04

Eventually they’ll rot away completely. What house?

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Comment by Whac-A-Bubble™
2014-09-24 21:20:16

Especially in Florida. Talk about your rotting, moldy, crap shacks…

 
 
 
 
Comment by Rental Watch
2014-09-24 08:48:54

I’ve been posting this kind of data for years…it right in the non-current loan rates (all loans in default or in the foreclosure process).

Florida has been near the top for YEARS. The other big culprits are other judicial foreclosure states (where the lender needs to go in front of a judge).

Recent non-current loan rates (end of July data from Black Knight’s Mortgage Monitor):

NJ: 12.4% (of which 6.1 points (49% of the non-current) are in the foreclosure process)
FL: 10.9% (of which 4.8 points (44% of the non-current) are in the foreclosure process)
NY: 10.8% (of which 4.6 points (43% of the non-current) are in the foreclosure process)

I don’t know how long the game will take in the judicial states, but the third inning doesn’t seem like an outlandish estimate of where we are. Contrast that with those toward the bottom of the list that are NON-judicial states:

CO: 3.8% (of which 0.5 points (13% of the non-current) are in the foreclosure process)
AZ: 4.5% (of which 0.6 points (13% of the non-current) are in the foreclosure process)
CA: 4.4% (of which 0.7 points (16% of the non-current) are in the foreclosure process)

In these states, we’re in the 7th+ inning of dealing with foreclosures.

The shadow inventory is largely concentrated in judicial states at this point.

Comment by Housing Analyst
2014-09-24 10:10:23

And I’ve been correcting your misrepresentations for the same duration.

25 million excess empty houses, 4.4 million of which are in the state of CA aren’t going away any time soon.

 
 
 
Comment by Ben Jones
2014-09-24 05:35:58

‘With a growing inventory of homes to choose from, Manatee County home buyers are shopping in an environment where the median price has remained relatively steady over the past year. At the same time, real estate professionals say that median is higher than in neighboring Sarasota County thanks to a larger inventory of new homes.’

‘In August, both Manatee and Sarasota counties saw a few more single-family homes sell than in the same month in 2013, according to Multiple Listing Service statistics published this week. In Manatee County, 493 homes sold during the month, five more than the previous August. Sarasota County sales grew by 53, hitting 698. On the whole, August brought a buyer’s market.’

 
Comment by Ben Jones
2014-09-24 05:47:38

‘just arriving back in town today from a real estate conference in Austin, Texas, said those trends may be amplified in coming months based on what agents from other markets were saying at the conference. About 75 percent had seen a recent uptick in the inventory of unsold homes, which Grimes said is a leading indicator of trouble ahead’

The other 25% aren’t paying attention. It’s rolling over. The quickness and broadness of it is surprising.

Comment by Whac-A-Bubble™
2014-09-24 06:10:05

“It’s rolling over. The quickness and broadness of it is surprising.”

Why now? Who flicked the switch that started the rollover?

Comment by Ben Jones
2014-09-24 06:51:22

As a handyman I used to know said, “mean ol’ Mister Supply and Demand.”

Supply and demand isn’t usually used right, IMO. What does it mean? It’s the actions of many individuals in a particular market, reacting to prices, inventory, etc. It’s funny to see people say, “golly there’s a bunch a houses out there”.

Comment by Whac-A-Bubble™
2014-09-24 07:06:34

“It’s the actions of many individuals in a particular market, reacting to prices, inventory, etc.”

Does the market work when massive top-down manipulation is used to withhold inventory?

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Comment by cactus
2014-09-24 09:32:25

Does the market work when massive top-down manipulation is used to withhold inventory?”

Once the Banks are saved inventory will be allowed to roll out.

Banks are saved now I think.

 
 
 
 
 
Comment by Beer and Cigar Guy
2014-09-24 06:37:11

“The South Florida Business Journal. “Despite the more than 30,000 new condos proposed or in development in South Florida, the market for existing condos cooled. Miami-Dade County saw median condo and town home prices fall 4.2 percent to $182,000 - a rare reversal, according to the Miami Association of Realtors. The number of sales plummeted 21.4 percent.”

Its not a plummet! It will just settle a little bit- like a souffle- before it takes off to the sky again!! You just wait until all of the filthy-rich Chinese, Brazilians, Greeks and Somalis swoop in to snap-up these bargains! Resplendent in their brightly colored kilts and head-dresses, crafted from only the most exotic and endangered species, they will arrive in their private jets carved from solid diamond. At lavish banquets they will feast upon the tender flesh of the children of renters and other peasants, before engaging in vicious, cage match, all-cash bidding wars where the opening is 1000x asking price. No condo will be left unscathed…

 
Comment by azdude
2014-09-24 06:54:49

I have confidence that janet yellen will support high home prices with monetary policy.

Comment by scdave
2014-09-24 07:06:56

yellen will support high home prices with monetary policy ??

Stock market, housing and real estate in general have been a huge beneficiary of monetary policy over the last 3 years…However, with Barneke, and, IMO more so with Yellen, its about jobs and income…

Where I do see a tick up in interest rates, I think its purpose will be to try and slow down the stock & real estate markets…At least make them take pause…But, given the weakness throughout the world economies, I just can’t see a major increase in interest rates at least over the next couple of years…

Comment by cactus
2014-09-24 09:33:59

Dollar is going too high ? That should give the FED pause if they want to help exporters.

 
 
Comment by Whac-A-Bubble™
2014-09-24 07:07:34

Is supporting housing prices part of the Fed’s mandate now?

Comment by Housing Analyst
2014-09-24 07:21:16

With the resumption of price declines all over the map, it doesn’t seem to be working.

 
Comment by snake charmer
2014-09-24 11:22:44

Yes. It is. Not explicitly, of course.

 
 
 
Comment by iftheshoefits
2014-09-24 06:55:56

Ahh yes, the ‘exodus of investors’.

Who will replace them on the buy side?

Comment by Whac-A-Bubble™
2014-09-24 07:08:33

Greater fool bagholders?

 
Comment by Beer and Cigar Guy
2014-09-24 08:16:46

If the distressed sales, price reductions and flood of inventory in HB Act 1 were largely stemmed because the banks had controlling interest and said, “No!”, then what is to stop the flood in Act 2 when the all-cash investors panic and individually try to salvage what they can? ‘He who panics and sells first, loses least!’

Comment by iftheshoefits
2014-09-24 08:34:21

We all have a lot of back-and-forth here (as we should) about whether the ‘investors’ will panic and sell, or whether they will hold. From what I see, the fact alone that investors will no longer be buying any more is all that’s needed to collapse this echo bubble, all on it’s own.

Panic selling (if it does happen) will just be the icing on the cake. Or maybe, just maybe - a long, slow, tortuous decline might even be better? Not enough panic to force another round of even more idiotic interventions by the politicians and the Fed, just enough steady decline to wean everyone off of this idea of housing as an investment, for the next generation or so.

I’m good either way. Pass the popcorn.

 
 
 
Comment by taxpayers
2014-09-24 09:31:51

Sales of US new homes soar in August

get the linberger cheese for HA

Comment by cactus
2014-09-24 09:37:21

we had a housing crash”

its what you don’t see coming that gets you ( no Country for old men)

Comment by snake charmer
2014-09-24 11:26:26

There is a lot of quotable material in that book. Among my favorites:

“The prospect of outsized profit leads people to exaggerate their own capabilities. In their minds. They pretend to themselves that they are in control of events where perhaps they are not.”

 
 
 
Comment by Housing Analyst
2014-09-24 10:30:57

We’re still building. And we’re gonna keep adding new inventory..

 
Comment by snake charmer
2014-09-24 11:29:38

“Prices and sales shot up, while the supply of homes diminished, creating another mini-boom similar to the one from 2000 to 2005. ‘People were [saying], ‘Here we go again,’ said Jim Heidisch, broker for Campbell and Rosemurgy in Pompano Beach.”
_____________________________/

I don’t recall people in this state — other than myself — saying this at all. The language I saw used was “housing recovery,” as if the attempted reversion to the mean was the anomaly rather than the bubble.

 
Comment by taxpayers
2014-09-24 13:03:10
 
Comment by Bubbabear
2014-09-24 19:13:19
 
Comment by Bluto
2014-09-24 20:23:25

I’m completely convinced that Bubble 2.0 is real and is beginning to pop…but am wondering if there will be another wave of speculators and flippers after that happens….any thoughts on that?? Buying would make sense for me if prices dropped back to 2011 levels but do NOT want to waste my time trying to compete w/ 100% cash flippers and speculators again.

(FWIW have been following this blog for many years and it correctly prompted me to slightly discount my last place for a quick sale in spring 2007…felt I had my finger on the pulse of the bubble then thanks to this blog and a few others then, have the same feeling now)

Comment by John
2014-09-24 20:59:56

Once people do not give into buying overpriced home is when investors will get out of the market

 
Comment by Whac-A-Bubble™
2014-09-24 21:23:03

“…but am wondering if there will be another wave of speculators and flippers after that happens….any thoughts on that??”

It’s turtles all the way down…until all the turtles go extinct.

 
 
Comment by John
2014-09-24 21:03:16

Once people stop buying overpriced homes, investors will go away. I always check the sales history and refuse to buy a flipper home. I rather buy from old grandma

 
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