Wait until you see the next wave of foreclosures to be caused by declining wages. I'm an engineer and although there's work out there it pays about 30% less than it did a year ago. While I'm sure this isn't typical, I'm also sure that enough other people are in a similar situation that they aren't going to be able to spend nearly as much on housing as they did before the recent bust.
"Foreclosures scheduled for sale rose to 124,874, a 10.4 percent increase from the prior month, and a 93.3 percent increase year-over-year from July 2008."
I actually now have a friend in just this position. Divorced, busted down to 32 hours a week of retail work, just can't make the nut on her mortgage anymore. Non-recourse situation.
Couple of short-sale attempts have fallen through. I'm telling her to move anything she can't bear to lose to storage and squat. She really has no material possessions you could consider valuable.
Should she pay the property tax, I wonder? Is the state more or less likely to take over the property than the bank?
I think it takes several years to lose a property due to back taxes, IIRC from an article in the Sacramento Bee. May vary by location. This may be longer or shorter than the banks will eventually let it run.
I don't expect to hear anything more on Colonial Bank until tomorrow at the earliest.
Their last press release said:
"On August 5, 2009, the Alabama State Banking Department provided notice to Colonial Bank that the Alabama State Banking
Board will meet on August 12, 2009, at which time Colonial Bank will be asked to consent to the Superintendent's exercise of his
statutory authority to appoint the FDIC as receiver or conservator for the Bank if and when the Superintendent deems such
appointment to be necessary. In the meantime, the Company continues to explore all possible capital-raising alternatives that
would position it and Colonial Bank to comply with the requirements of the Orders to Cease and Desist to which they are
subject."
I guess this might set them up for an eventual Friday failure?
"I think it takes several years to lose a property due to back taxes"
If you are getting free rent from a bank, are they more likely to foreclose on a loan where taxes are being paid, or not? Do they even have the aptitude to prioritize foreclosures on those that will cost them the most?
What???? I thought the recession is over and green shooties for everyone;)
I love this quote because it's so f*cking spot on !
Here, in the dog days of summer, it seems to me that the situation in the USA is so fundamentally bad, so unpromising, so booby-trapped for failure, that I wonder if there has ever been a society so badly deluded as ours.
- Hunky Dory http://kunstler.com/blog/2009/08/hunky-dory.html
Today Obama, in defending his push for government health care, cited the benefits of competition by saying "UPS and Fed Ex are doing just fine, it's the Post office that's always having problems. Isn't the post office the government run one?
(08-10) 21:21 PDT -- The downward trajectory of Bay Area home values was slightly less steep in June than it was a year ago, according to a study being released today by Zillow.com.
The grinding recession, however, is denting home prices in areas that once seemed immune - such as San Francisco and Marin counties - where values have slid more than 15 percent for the past two quarters compared with the previous year.
I've never given that advice. I advise sitting tight and living mortgage-free, personally. I'd probably pay the property tax, however. Counties don't have much motivation to not get paid, while banks are all about extending and pretending.
"Do they even have the aptitude to prioritize foreclosures on those that will cost them the most?"
It would seem relatively easy to prioritize. The costliest one might be put off the longest, I would guess by attempting a modification. I would also guess that few who are behind on their mortgage would be paying their taxes. Could be wrong.
Why can not they, gov +banksters, keep the game longer? In other words, is there any hard/fundamental limit such that they have to stop such procrastination by that time?
As far as SF the Ex will be selling a nice little home near SF State in a month or two.Prices in SF vary a LOT and some areas have had significant drops when measured by $ per Sq Ft.High end appraisals in west Sonoma County are down 40% from the peak and we are a year or so ahead of SF.
As far as SF the Ex will be selling a nice little home near SF State in a month or two.Prices in SF vary a LOT and some areas have had significant drops when measured by $ per Sq Ft.High end appraisals in west Sonoma County are down 40% from the peak and we are a year or so ahead of SF.
"Consistent with last quarter’s findings, the report also showed that re-default rates on modified mortgages were both high and rising during the first three quarters of 2008, with loans modified in the third quarter showing the highest re-default rates. For example, the percentage of modified loans that were seriously delinquent (60 or more days past due) after eight months was 41 percent for loans modified in the first quarter and 46 percent for loans modified in the second quarter. The trend appeared to continue for loans modified during the third quarter."
In California, ad valorem property taxes have 5 year waiting period before the state can foreclose on you.
Mello-Roos and other special assessments often come with accelerated foreclosure.
Ca residents are supposed to receive property tax disclosure report before closing - have your friend search for hers.
"What will be the failure event? What makes the can to big to kick?
Mods do not seem to be much of a panacea."
The "event" is simply that the borrowers will be put through the "mod screen" and found wanting. Or the bank won't be able to contact them. Or they have no or reduced income.
let's see - underwater borrowers with little or no income. Let's reduce their interest rate. Yeah, that will work.
By sept/oct these houses will start hitting the market. They are on the way, the data referenced in the article shows the trend.
BURN (profile) wrote on Tue, 8/11/2009 - 4:30 pm
reply ignore user
AHEM
"The Bay Area counties of Santa Cruz, San Francisco, Marin, San Mateo were among the least underwater."
2nd to last in the state in NODs etc.
There is very little price deflation in SF.
And just like the last 10 times you've posted this again I will point out that YOY comparisons of what you can get $/sq foot don't support your claim.
"Repossessions were down 40% from a year earlier, even though default notices were up and auction notices were flat. Lenders are delaying the final step in foreclosure. This is what's creating the growing backlog of distressed properties." LA Times
ghostface,
they need to start doing blanket cram downs to near market for the seriously underwater.
Otherwise, it is just massive delayed losses that keep getting larger and larger.
What else can one do if the only thing keeping people in their houses is a sense of honor and a vague sense of losing something.
Reality is the housing market is now broken, and Summers had better wake up and smell the java before what has infected CA, NV, FL and AZ goes nationwide.
New York is just starting to crack.
The amount of losses is stunning, so time to federalize and get it over with.
Otherwise, we will be waiting decades for the last houses to be abandoned into the foreclosure maw.
Extend and Pretend Must End!!!
P.K.- time to tell some truth to power before they all drown.
"The average California foreclosure has a total loan balance of $425,134 on a home that is now worth $236,739."
........THAT pretty much says it! So many toys representing some of the difference above now have no garage in which to be housed. To help terminate the wave of nostalgia, I turned on KFI Talk Radio and listened to a couple traffic reports and a news brief on the RV homeless in Ventura County............thank God I escaped that zoo.............my condolences go out to the "house arrest" residents.
"My advice would be to stop paying everything. Everyone else is doing it, join the crowd."
I guess if I was living rent free at the banks expense, and knowing that there are limits to how many foreclosures both the bank and city/state can process, I'd be looking to pay just enough, to get foreclosed on, LAST. But if the banks/state/city are just pulling addresses from a hat FDIC style, I'd agree with you, then the smartest play would be to not pay anything.
nice Jim Jarmusch reference... Down by Law if memory serves...
...
1 Currency
one dear friend;s family was forcibly removed from their home in Jerusalem in 1968 and the
home was demolished and they were forced to move to Jordan. they had lived on that land for over 300
years. that is a fact. the Israeli's or Zionists took advantage of something that is particular to an Arab people
and for that answer please read the history written by Ibn Kahldun.
....
EHP
wrote:
Perhaps you better explain yourself. The Harry Potter movie was moved from Dec 08 to summer 09, that's a fact. It is worth noting because it marked the shift of many studios to lengthen their pipeline and reduce box office competition."
that sir, is patently false, and shows you know nothing about the movie businees. I'm not sure what you mean by lengthening
the pipeline. Look, there are X number of calendar dates. Think of it like a dance card. Jockeying for release date is an age old game. I have not looked at the reasons they moved the Potter date up but usually it's because there are too many like movies
being released at Christmas and they'll canniblaize each other. Or that my distribution arm (filmmaking is a two part business) failed to secure say 3,800 screen for a wide release, Potter after all, is not The Crying Game. Or another more common reason is that the film was scoring badly in test screenings and had to be re-cut. Moving it forward was in essence protecting the Potter franchise. Opening it around the time of Transformer is fine since they don't compete.
As I said before the major studios have jettisoned their specialty divisions because the majors have never been in the game to hit single after single.
EHP: don't confuse book knowledge or your obviously inflated sense of intellectual prowess with the real knowledge of how certain industries work. I do see that tendency in your postings.
ps: I don't care what you think of some knock-off vid mash I made
"ghostface,
they need to start doing blanket cram downs to near market for the seriously underwater."
Agree with everything you said. Principal reductions or mass foreclosures is the only solution. One or the other, or both. Keeping people in a property with negative equity is bad for the borrower, bad for the bank, and bad for society.
@ Speed (profile) wrote on Tue, 8/11/2009 - 4:54 pm
"Repossessions were down 40% from a year earlier, even though default notices were up and auction notices were flat. Lenders are delaying the final step in foreclosure.
America's "too-greedy-to-fail" Wall Street banks with multiple trillion bailouts are doing their best to try and form a new bubble i.e recession is over buy now.
Who will blink first when....
Structural unemployment is skyrocketing.
“Structural” is a polite way of saying there won’t be any jobs for the long-term unemployed this year, next year, or the year after that.
The jobless rate declined because the work force shrank.
Everyone seems to have forgotten we need to create 250,000 jobs a month just to stay even with population growth.
The interest on all the debt the nation is taking on to bail out bankers and “stimulate” the dead credit-bubble model will place a drag on growth far into the future.
Interest rates are set to double. A funny thing happened on the way to borrowing “free money” in the trillions; there isn’t enough free money around for everyone to borrow unlimited amounts of it. So there’s actually more demand for surplus cash than there is supply of surplus cash. That sets up a supply-demand imbalance which leads to higher costs of borrowing. Nothing fancy here–even the Fed economists understand this.
Tax revenues are tanking.
Normal accounting and reporting rules have been suspended. The U.S. financial markets are still a hall of mirrors; mark-to-market is still a pipe-dream; mark-to-fantasy reigns supreme as the easiest way to prop up insolvent banks’ balance sheets.
Commercial Real Estate is spiraling round the drain.
Consumers are retrenching generationally, not for a few months.
In the long years of bogus “prosperity,” consumer credit grew every month like clockwork. $70 billion isn’t much, but it’s the start of a trend which essentially dooms consumer-based, over-leveraged economies like the U.S. to years or decades of (at best) meager growth.
".......it is just massive delayed losses that keep getting larger and larger."
Or, in my neck of the woods:
"Las Vegas: 81% of mortgage holders upside down"
....nothing can be done for these unfortunates........you cram in as many free months into that short anxious period as you can before the Sheriff bangs on your front door and tells you to "get the Hell out".
interesting article on mods (from the Nation): "Obama's Plan to Help Homeowners Is a Bust" Obama's Plan to Help Homeowners Is a Bust | | AlterNet
"So servicers opt to stonewall borrowers and foreclose on them, even when doing so sacks investors with massive losses."
"The house next to us sold last for 860k aprox. in 2006.
After sitting empty for 1 1/2 years if finally has an reo sign up. Zillow shows it going back to the lender for 597k 2 weeks ago."
You will see lots of bizarre behavior. I have seen a lot of houses sit on the market with no offers, get pulled from the market for months, then come back on at a reduced price. Do these people need to move? If not, why are they selling? Strange stuff.
As one who's family was directly expropriated by the Benes decree, and then finished off by the communists, well my sympathy is lacking. You had best move on instead of wasting time. Elderly family members in Europe are still wasting time litigating with a country over stuff they will never get back.
Little people always pay more than their lord and masters for the war.
Since there is no justice machine, it just wastes everybody's time crying over split milk.
This guy makes Denninger look mellow: YouTube - Max Keiser on The Financial Armaggedon
As a Marin person, I have been noticing property moving again---
Just observations of walking or driving through the area.
"The "event" is simply that the borrowers will be put through the "mod screen" and found wanting. Or the bank won't be able to contact them. Or they have no or reduced income.
let's see - underwater borrowers with little or no income. Let's reduce their interest rate. Yeah, that will work.
By sept/oct these houses will start hitting the market. "
ghostface, the article itself shows that over 70% of these foreclosures are being deferred, probably due to mods. A mod can be perfectly successful if it is generous enough. Why on earth wouldn't the banks and their regulators simply make the mods as generous as they need to in order to avoid a re-default. (And please don't even mention moral hazard. That was thrown overboard a long time ago.)
Why can not they, gov +banksters, keep the game longer?
Well, since they're willing to monetize, they can (if they're reasonably adept) keep the game going until inflation comes. Bernanke seems to be a capable wielder of the One Ring, so not much will be beyond his power to salvage until that day.
Citizen Allen
there was a heated discussion last night on the Israeli question bwt 1 currency and a host of others, I purposely
refused to weigh in except for one comment ... I have dogs on both sides of the argument so I know to hold my tongue.
when I was at Columbia I remember given a security briefing by an Israeli general on campus to a select few of say 18.
he was quite convincing. had some great maps and you how ham and eggs given the right moment can
be impressive. very clever to massage minds of potential future leaders.
I knew the bubble was over when the cops starting showing up at an almost 900k house on a monthly basis for domestic disturbance calls, drug use/dealing out of the house, mysterious breakins around the neighborhood, a rotation if mysterious boarders, cars that never moved out of the driveway etc...
It's so much better being surrounded by 100% koolaid drinkers now that that house has been cleaned up
patient- after 6 months of dicking around with Sh*ttybank about a mod, with a denial (too much income!), a lost paperwork, and inert unresponsiveness, not paying the mortgage for three months is starting to look like a good idea. Do we need a mod? Well, I think so. Having nonrecourse paper, they should think I need a mod too! They are on the hook for $100 per square foot over the current foreclosure pricing- now how would they like to take that loss?
Want to increase mods?
Penalize the servicers for not offering mods in the best interest of the owners of the paper.
This has gone on quite long enough.
The administration has to lead or be run over by subsequent events.
"Why on earth wouldn't the banks and their regulators simply make the mods as generous as they need to in order to avoid a re-default."
Here is the sad truth. 90% of the time it is more economical for a bank to do a foreclosure. Banks have models to determine this, and mods don't pencil out. At the toot of the problem is many people weren't meant to be in the house in the first place, and keeping them there with no equity is a guaranteed redefault, if not in 6 months, then certainly in 18, 24, 36 months, leaving the bank with a lower interest stream and the same problem they had in the first place.
Why do you think the government is paying servicers to do mods? Why wouldn't a bank do a mod if it made financial sense?
They would, but it doesn't.
And why would a bank forgive principal? If they are going to take the hit, they might as well foreclose and be done with it.
Tom- I agree, as Novato could be in the Central Valley. Want to trade Petaluma for it?
As far as ticks, I have gotten more in Sonoma County, but the stats may have been skewed, as I was living on a ranch.
ghostface
but if the bank could string out the losses by using strategic MODS don't you think that that would be preferable to foreclosing, foreclosing just causes blowback for your other mortgaged props in that sector... think of what Mike Millken was doing in the junk biz before they shut him down, he was propping up failing hi yield bonds...
also, if you kick the can down the road far enough it's someone elses' problem...
Foreclosures in Oregon are not so easy to find-- there are short sales on the MLS, but not foreclosures. Trulia says there are some, but there are no signs. And the foreclosures seem to be clustering in areas where a local job source has died, so the whole neighborhood tends to go down at once, sadly. It's sad, and scary. And yet people seem to be holding up rather bravely. You can tell there's a lot of stress, but there's a lot of toughness, too. I have to admire that.
@Duke of Con Dao (profile) wrote on Tue, 8/11/2009 - 5:03 pm
km4
where did you get that 250,000 emplyment number from? last I looked I thought it was about 185,000? source?
Honestly can't recall but from memory sounds about right
“For the first time since the Depression, the American economy has added virtually no jobs in the private sector over a 10-year period. The total number of jobs has grown a bit, but that is only because of government hiring.
The accompanying charts show the job performance from July 1999, when the economy was booming and companies were complaining about how hard it was to find workers, through July of this year, when the economy was mired in the deepest and longest recession since World War II. For the decade, there was a net gain of 121,000 private sector jobs, according to the survey of employers conducted each month by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In an economy with 109 million such jobs, that indicated an annual growth rate for the 10 years of 0.01 percent.”
NET NET: So how can US economy return to 'bullshit bubble normal' with all the systemic problems and when
1) Structural unemployment is skyrocketing.
“Structural” is a polite way of saying there won’t be any jobs for the long-term unemployed this year, next year, or the year after that.
2) there's annual growth rate for past 10 years of 0.01 percent in job creation ?
My point- (I glanced at some of that last night and went to sleep instead)-
is that the little folks sit there and grind their greivances with the winners.
The leadership that lead them into their debacle is rarely blamed.
Look at Serbia today and see that moronic thought pattern repeated.
Moral of the story, don't lose a war over your homeland.
Or you don't have one.
Simple really.
Now, if you think some divine thing is going to save your butt when the other side can easily when, well move, duck, or change your leadership.
Almost 150 million people would be alive today if that carpenter had set a timer a few minutes sooner on 8. November 1939.
The whole subject leaves me with ashes for the blind fools who strap on nationalism as some sort of machismo.
“It’s probably not a propitious time for an incoming CEO to begin with a vacation,” said Steven Seiden, president of New York-based executive recruitment firm Seiden Krieger Associates. Seiden said that while the absence won’t hurt the company’s financial position, “from a public relations standpoint it’s probably not the wisest thing to do.”
To be honest, if he was working in august I'd be all large carat precious stones yesterday.
"“It’s probably not a propitious time for an incoming CEO to begin with a vacation,” said Steven Seiden, president of New York-based executive recruitment firm Seiden Krieger Associates. Seiden said that while the absence won’t hurt the company’s financial position, “from a public relations standpoint it’s probably not the wisest thing to do.”"
Maybe not. But in general US executives ridiculously over value their personal involvement and presence. If your business won't do nicely while you're away for a month, then you don't have the right staff.
I think it was Maureen Dowd who responded to the theory that the world would fall apart if we didn't pay banking and trading executives millions of dollars annually with the quip, "Let's test that theory."
large carat precious stones?
like what precisely? and you had better know someone in the biz who knows his sh**!
I can introduce to some Thais that maunfacture brilliant fakes - funny thing about that game, is secrets
are passed down like a medieval guild (reminds me of a story, after the Meiji Restoration when Japanese
were sent to Europe to play catch up the thing they most marveled over was the encyclopedia, they couldn't
believe that all this information was being given away for FREE, under their system of learning you would
employ a sensei who over time would teach you say the secrets of Kabuki on a fee basis...
"but if the bank could string out the losses by using strategic MODS don't you think that that would be preferable to foreclosing,"
"Modifications that reduce payments have lower delinquency rates over time. Although delinquencies on modified loans increased each month following modification, delinquency rates were considerably lower for mortgages in which monthly payments were reduced. Six months after modification, only 24 percent of the mortgages that had monthly payments reduced by 20 percent or more were 60 or more days past due, compared with 54 percent of mortgages with monthly payments left unchanged, and 50 percent with higher monthly payments"
"Seriously delinquent mortgages increased. Seriously delinquent mortgages (60 or more days past due or involving delinquent bankrupt borrowers) increased as economic pressures continued to weigh on homeowners. Prime mortgages, which represented two-thirds of all mortgages in the portfolio, had the highest percentage increase in serious delinquencies, climbing by more than 20 percent from the prior quarter to 2.9 percent of all prime mortgages."
Is it really that much help? First you have to take the loss on the reduced mortgage, then, even if you reduce payments 20% are going to fail in six months, probably more later as more fall underwater or borrowers get laid off. Plus prime is just getting started.
Unless you are modding to 2.5 to 3.5 income they will be back AND you take a loss now.
Asia having a bad start to the morning. Nikki down 0.94% on the open, Kospi got a cold too, bringing regional aggregate SAXCME:IND down .5%. Taiex will likely get it next. USD easing against Y, AUD/NZD. Yerp futures madder elmo, gristly.
"I wonder if Neil will share his popcorn. This could get interesting. "
Of course I'll share!
I need to do another Cheesecake factory meet up... (I organized them over at the HBB.) The daughter is finally old enough.
Everything is aligning for the wheels to fall off this bus during the fall/winter. I expect quite a few foreclosure mods... but not enough to slow this train.
"Here is the sad truth. 90% of the time it is more economical for a bank to do a foreclosure. Banks have models to determine this, and mods don't pencil out. At the toot of the problem is many people weren't meant to be in the house in the first place, and keeping them there with no equity is a guaranteed redefault, if not in 6 months, then certainly in 18, 24, 36 months, leaving the bank with a lower interest stream and the same problem they had in the first place.
Why do you think the government is paying servicers to do mods? Why wouldn't a bank do a mod if it made financial sense?
They would, but it doesn't.
And why would a bank forgive principal? If they are going to take the hit, they might as well foreclose and be done with it. "
Yep. Soon someone is going to break ranks and flood the market. If the government tries to interfere (other than buying off the banks), it will just seize up the California mortgage market. Wait... getting mortage insurance in this state is getting tough... hmmmm.....
"Las Vegas: 81% of mortgage holders upside down"
Ghad... I knew it was bad, but I didn't realize that bad. What fraction have no mortgage? No wonder there is noise about Las Vegas becoming the next Detroit... ouch.
"The average California foreclosure has a total loan balance of $425,134 on a home that is now worth $236,739."
This makes even more frightening than it already was the often reported suggestion by economist Martin Feldstein that the taxpayers pay down the principal balance of those homeowners who would otherwise walk away. No doubt intentionally, the (one) example which Dr. Feldstein gave in his recent WSJ column showed a writedown of $40,000, half of which was to be eaten by the lender and half to be paid (to the lender) using the taxpayers' money.
Given the above figures supplied by CR, Dr. Feldstein's formula would result in a $140,000 writedown, half of which we taxpayers would have the honor of paying. (Granted, the average loan balance which CR supplied includes interest, fees, and costs, all in addition to principal.) Dr. F's formula is as follows: refinance at 120 percent of the current value of the home. As for the amount of the principal forgiveness, the lender eats half and the taxpayers pay the other half. Given that there are now about 125,000 foreclosure sales scheduled (in CA alone), the total cost to the taxpayers would be about $8.75 billion (again, for CA alone). Watch out, folks, as dear Dr. F. is influential with the administration of BHO.
"....suggestion by economist Martin Feldstein that the taxpayers pay down the principal balance of those homeowners who would otherwise walk away. No doubt intentionally, the (one) example which Dr. Feldstein gave in his recent WSJ column showed a writedown of $40,000, half of which was to be eaten by the lender and half to be paid (to the lender) using the taxpayers' money."
This business of borrowers having to repay loans is so 20th century. Yawn.
I have not looked at the reasons they moved the Potter date up but usually it's because there are too many like movies
being released at Christmas and they'll canniblaize each other.
Harry Potter has typically been released during the holiday season, so WB wasn't worried about cannibalization. What they were concerned about was that the WAG strike left their summer pipeline bare, dependent solely on "Terminator: Salvation" (which turned out to be a turkey). Furthermore, WB was worried about 2009 revenues, especially given its phenomenal 2008 year (Dark Knight). By moving HP to the summer, they were able to realize almost all of its revenue in 2009. and fortunately, the Hangover turned out to be a pleasant surprise.
Wage cuts and lost paychecks could seriously jeopardize the recovery of a U.S. economy that still relies on consumer spending for two-thirds of its power. “You have a very severely harmed, injured consumer in terms of income slow down, job uncertainly, job loss, wealth loss, inadequate savings, high debt levels,” said Laura Tyson, an Obama advisor who headed the Council of Economic Advisors in the Clinton administration.
“The consumer, I don’t see powering us out of this recession.”
Practices of modern civilized people have changed dramatically over the last few hundred years. We generally call this progress, in honor of our belief that the trend is uni-directional, in favor of a consensus definition of improvement.
Has (full) repayment of loans become an historical relic? Something that will be as quaint in 50 years as doing laundry by hand is today? With most of our personal lending today guaranteed to be repaid by FNMA, or Freddie Mac, of the FHA, or backstopped by the FDIC if the loan is still held by the bank that made it, we are already there. Is this change permanent?
Duke I won't be drawn into this again tonight. I love your anecdotes but numbers are important on this site.
I'm sorry about your friend. It's no consolation but there's a good chance that his space was taken by someone who also had been kicked out of his home of 300 years. On my recent trip to Israel I met a Druze man whose family had to flee Lebanon after a few hundred years. In 1945, Poland certainly didn't want any stragglers coming back to claim their houses. Some Jews made it through the concentration camps only to be murdered on their return.
If you think I'm a "my country right or wrong guy" you haven't been paying attention to my posts. That goes for my views on Israel, too. But I will correct garbage from Mmckinl not backed up by a single fact any time I see it. Italy and the UK export more arms than Israel, simple fact.
I've been to Egypt and Jordan. My father visited Saudi Arabia. I can tell you this, religious minorities, women, workers, and voters have it much better in Israel, with all it's prejudices. As I said, no title to land on Earth is clean. It's a question of relative amounts of blood. That's it on this.
Lying to Congress, here in the dark
Co-mingling your TARP cash with mine
Softly you whisper, you're second's unsecured
How could our loans be so blind
We failed on together
We grifted apart
And here your apps been denied
So now I come to you, with Option ARMs
Nothing to doc, believe what I say
So here I am with Option ARMs
Hoping you'll see what your loan means to me
Option ARMs
Living without you, living alone
This empty house seems so cold
Wanting to mod you, wanting you near
How much I wanted your home
But now that youve come back
Turned refi to pay
I need you to stay
So now I come to you, with Option ARMs
Nothing to doc, believe what I say
So here I am with Option ARMs
Hoping youll see what your loan means to me
Option ARMs
patientrenter is right, in that why should the bank write down anything, when we taxpayers are already guarantying payment in full? (Forget about the pmi entities, as they are failing rapidly.)
For a long time now people have bought homes not intending to pay them off in full. They planned on selling the house and buying a new house. They planned on doing this until they retired and sold the last house and rented. Or sold the bigger house to buy free and clear the smaller retirement house.
Anyone who buys a house with a 30 yr loan and is 50 yrs old does not intend to ever pay that loan off in full.
That all changed when you can't move up, when you can't sell the big house for the smaller retirement house. Or use the house appriciation to add to your retirement income.
The rules changed while the largest population numbers had planned to retire in the next decade or so.
""Here is the sad truth. 90% of the time it is more economical for a bank to do a foreclosure."
Here is another: 90% of the time, 80% of homeowners in an area are not underwater. Rent level is a function of supply and demand. Demand is a function of income.
Greater "income" from rent usually means less income to reward labor.
Has (full) repayment of loans become an historical relic?
Certainly for the Federal government it has. With the short 2 year exception under Clinton, Treasury always plans to roll maturing bonds in perpetuity.
@ josap (profile) wrote on Tue, 8/11/2009 - 6:27 pm
The rules changed while the largest population numbers had planned to retire in the next decade or so.
The government sure is cramming a lot more scarce capital into unproductive housing stock. The FHA, Ginnie Mae, Fed MBS purchases, the $8K home credit, the GSEs are still at it, the big homebuilders are subsidized through changes in the tax code...
point taken 1 currency!
I was trying to stay out of that fray... one thing I know is that mcckinl is a Crypto-Nazi. some of you make recognize this phrase as it was spoken live on CBS news in '64 in a heated exchange between Bill Buckley and Gore Vidal.
I don't see you as a 'my country right or wrong' type at all. Funny, you mention the Druse. I have a friend who attended Columbia the same time I did. I was hoping to be invited to his marriage ceremony in Israel thereby providing me with an excuse to visit that country, sadly, I wasn't it. Druse marriages can only be witnessed by Druse not outsiders.
Yeah, mmckinl was spewing a lot of garbage and I figured you could handle it, which you did.
If you are 50 and buy a house then you have lived through several real estate cycles and this one should have been easy to it was out of control. If they are bag holders they have not paid attention.
"For a long time now people have bought homes not intending to pay them off in full. They planned on selling the house and buying a new house. They planned on doing this until they retired and sold the last house and rented. Or sold the bigger house to buy free and clear the smaller retirement house.
Anyone who buys a house with a 30 yr loan and is 50 yrs old does not intend to ever pay that loan off in full.
That all changed when you can't move up, when you can't sell the big house for the smaller retirement house. Or use the house appriciation to add to your retirement income.
The rules changed while the largest population numbers had planned to retire in the next decade or so."
It may be no coincidence that the price of the biggest asset most people counted on for their retirement security is declining just as the largest number of people plan to retire within the next 2 decades. I hesitate to subscribe to any theory that claims to explain giant movements in markets, but the demographic theory of why we've had massive increases in asset prices over the last 30 years, and why that is beginning to level off, seems to fit major facts. And the demographics are too important to ignore.
But culturally, I wonder if we've left behind the notion of full personal repayment of loans. At this stage, all that has to be done to make that true is preventing change = change to the days of 15-20 years ago or more, when repaying loans in full was considered a personal obligation that was taken very seriously, legally and ethically. (There are always exceptions - I am talking about the broader culture.)
Ah nostalgia is a great thing. Just pulled up SPX on the kaboomberger and did a sort by biggest % losers today, and guess what - it looks just like, um, real familiar, uhh, just like this time last year! Yay.
In it, the author points out the irrational pricing and risk of FHA loans, and wonders why the members of our House of Representatives are averting their gaze carefully. Do you know why the key people on Capitol Hill would do that?
Basel, there is a helluva lot of truth in what you're saying. I'm a coach for an ostensible select/travel team and let's just say that at the age these kids are, they should have hugely greater appetites for aggression, competition, and plain old banging into one another, but at least 1/3 of them don't.
We have made it okay to "just show up and try." It's pathetic, and indicative that they will not ever figure out that just showing up won't cut it in the real world. Good thing most of them will have trust funds...
We have made it okay to "just show up and try." It's pathetic, and indicative that they will not ever figure out that just showing up won't cut it in the real world. Good thing most of them will have trust funds...
"Eighty percent of success is just showing up" - Woody Allen
"15-20 years ago or more, when repaying loans in full was considered a personal obligation that was taken very seriously, legally and ethically."
But not financially.
Mass bank failures and corporate BK (welfare) go back further. No publicly traded corporation has ever paid its debts in full. How could it compete?
Good luck, Ford. And the UAW homeowner should pay BAC and Wells Fargo, in full, right AFTER GM has made good on its contracts, in full. Oh, it's personal.
"Eighty percent of success is just showing up" - Woody Allen
Maybe is America of yesterday but certainly not today.
I agree with Lothar the Rottweiler "It's pathetic, and indicative that they will not ever figure out that just showing up won't cut it in the real world"
Sorry to say it will be sobering reality for Americans under the age of 30 ( unless they have trust funds )
Hey MrM, I'm a big sports guy. Old school, Bobby Knight kind. I coach kids who will not even listen without coming close to physically touching them (which you can't do in such a way or you'll be sued).
I'm astonished by what I have to deal with and what it portends for the future. There is a lot of truth to be found on playing fields the world over, and the sport I love is loved by all, but especially the most destitute because it's their ticket out of whatever hellhole place they grew up in. The non-Americans here will know exactly what I'm talking about.
I've started to look at buying in the DC market, considering making a move this winter. We're in no hurry-- in Arlington it is still around 35% cheaper to rent and there are a lot of option ARMs getting ready to blow up.
Wife and I also went to VA "hunt country" to scout properties this weekend-- Loudon County mostly. Major greenfield developments from Toll and other developers battling it out on lower and mid-level. Further out, massive haircuts on the listings, seemed they are getting nervous as the selling season rolls into late summer. Nice realtor said some of the asking prices are pretty soft. One property was reduced from $850,000 to $599,000 this summer. As it was a dilapidated barn on ten rough acres I think there's a lot further downside. There are no more "move-up" buyers cashing out their DC condos/townhouses and overpaying for something bigger in the countryside.
Lowthar
easy on the Bobby Knight hagiography ... I know a man who was his asst coach for 12 years...
and the stunts Bobby use to play... do you want to hear one?
Yes, it's the fault of unemployment benefits, it couldn't possibly be massive outsourcing and "investors" gutting the country while boosting RE prices to the sky.
@ MrM (profile) wrote on Tue, 8/11/2009 - 6:57 pm
With unemployment benefits extended for more than a year, what is the incentive to show up? People are dropping out of the labor force en masse.
I agree this is more political BS trying to kick the can down the road but the sobering reality of Structural unemployment* is skyrocketing will ultimately take hold and splash cold water on the faux American dream
*“Structural” is a polite way of saying there won’t be any jobs for the long-term unemployed this year, next year, or the year after that.
basel - OMFG - no WONDER the CA home sales have picked up in the 400-800k range like I saw on that disgusting ABC news piece. I didnt realize you could do FHA to that level. Good gawd, we are completely FORKED!
I know more about that program than you'd probably want to know, Duke. Could be less than six degrees of separation between whom you know and whom I know, even.
Or we could talk about those hated Kentucky Wildcats, about whom I know more dirt than will ever be published by anyone who wants to work in the state, ever.
Bobby made kids run for missing class. Nowadays a freaking felony charge, if lowered, isn't half enough to keep most hoops players from stepping on a college basketball court (or football field, for that matter).
""15-20 years ago or more, when repaying loans in full was considered a personal obligation that was taken very seriously, legally and ethically."
But not financially.
Mass bank failures and corporate BK (welfare) go back further. No publicly traded corporation has ever paid its debts in full. How could it compete?
Good luck, Ford. And the UAW homeowner should pay BAC and Wells Fargo, in full, right AFTER GM has made good on its contracts, in full. Oh, it's personal."
Limited liability companies are a good example of the historical change in our culture that I'll call "progress". Before the invention of LLCs, entrepreneurs and their financiers might become personally liable in an unlimited amount for losses of any business venture they became involved with. Nowadays, the limitation of responsibility afforded to investors by a LLC is considered normal, and has been for a long time. Nothing new there.
My question was about something different, that might be in the middle of a sea change: a cultural acceptance of non-repayment of personal loans, taken out by individuals for their own personal spending. Since most of the dollars for such lending comes in the form of home loans, and the repayment of most new home loans today falls to the govt if the borrower doesn't repay, I wonder if we've reached that inflection point, where our culture is about to make a permanent change that we'll later call a contribution to "progress".
basel - OMFG - no WONDER the CA home sales have picked up in the 400-800k range like I saw on that disgusting ABC news piece. I didnt realize you could do FHA to that level. Good gawd, we are completely FORKED!
They are just trying to recycle foreclosures with higher government loan limits. They know prices have to come back down to sane loan to income levels. No real secret as to where the prices are going to land, just slow the free fall.
A few weeks ago a House committee approved legislation to keep the FHA’s loan limit in high-income states like California at $729,750.
States of the United States of America by income
California median household income – $59,948
So that FHA limit is 12X median income. WTF is FHA insuring loans if that type? It would seem to me that Californians can not afford the houses in thier own state. They are not fit to own.
on cali property taxes. i, as well as many others have said, it is 5 years before he comes a knockin.
my neighbor is a classic example. he is underwater to the tune of 320k. but not to worry. he had a loan that was 400k more than mine and he was paying the same pmt. how you ask...oh surely you do not ask.
well, he has paid prop tax "0." he is currently behind 30k in taxes that accrue at 1.5% a month (uhmmm that is 18% a year)...but again do not fret because he is not gonna pay that 18% either. he will instead come across the road in 2010 and tell me the "man" is screwing him now and when he got his loan, and he wants it to be "made right."
//My question was about something different, that might be in the middle of a sea change: a cultural acceptance of non-repayment of personal loans, taken out by individuals for their own personal spending.//
I think that may be true, in part.
If you know people who have filed BK, walked away from a home loan, racked up credit cards to the max and stopped paying, you are more likey to do the same. There is no stigma in your social group.
If many of the people you know are angry at the banks, the large corps, the gov and blame all the woos on them, you will probably do so as well. if you don't have an enviroment of personal responciblity, you don't have that view yourself.
the bottom line is i think i am gonna buy the house across the street in 2010 when this joker cannot make the taxes. it is a nice house. and of course, I do live in a nice neighborhood.
Basel -thx, but Im quite sure that this is one of those areas...since it's basically the high end of the east bay SF - poic and picosec know what Im talkin bout.
No, not saying the banks and gov have no responcibility.
What I am saying is that when J6P sees the banks and gov running up debt, not paying, going BK, getting bailed out, J6P wants the same deal. And if you, as an individual, are in a social group that holds no stigma for doing just what the banks have done - you are more likely to do the same.
The only volleyball match I ever watched in full or cared about was Russia vs. China, women's gold medal match in 2004 Olympics.
The Russian coach was famous for decades of Soviet dominance, and made Bobby Knight look like a human being. The Russians were heavy favorites, much taller than the Chinese. Russia took the first 2 sets, coming back from a deficit in both. But the Chinese did not lose heart and took the lead in the third, with spectacular defense and teamwork, smiling every point.
The famous Russian coach started to get pissed. China won the set and took the lead in the 4th. During every time out, the Russian coach screamed at the players so viciously that the sell-out crowd was totally silent with embarrassment. China took the 4th, and the coach kept screaming. His players were all near tears. China took the gold in a huge upset. Tears of joy all around, even viewers at home. Bobby Knight was an asshole.
"The biggest failure was our government, regulators, Fed and politicians."
But all those sweet campaign contributions... If they did not take it and provide a little quid pro quo, it would go to the opposition or primary challenger...
So you're blaming Bush?
.
Four of my twenty LinkedIn pals exhibit atypical behavior in the past 60 days.
I deduce that at least two of them are were laid off (they joined 20 social networking groups in 3 weeks)
The other two appear to be in jeopardy.
I'm thinking so, too, if for no other reason that it might look a little better in court eventually.
She's a very sympathetic situation. This is a person who owns maybe $2000 worth of stuff, and no other debt, in the whole world. She rides a bike around her metropolitan area. The house is, let's politely call it "modest."
From what I see and hear, more people are blaming the banks for forclosures. They tried to mod, they tried a short sale, nothing worked.
These same people are not taking any responciblity for buying above their means. They are not taking responciblity for not thinking before they signed the HELOC loan and bought the new can and went to Europe for vacation. It has become acceptable to blame someone - anyone- else.
Others who bought within their means, seen their property values drop like a rock and lost jobs have cause to blame. Many of those don't complain.
Lothar
google the name Ron Felling for starters, I've knew him before he ever became a coach for Knight...
highly successful coach at Lawrenceville, IL HS... the mind games that Knight pulled were beneath that of
a grown man, he's just like Bill Parcell's... odd, how both are the best of friends,
personally, they are sociopaths...
You don't need both hands to count how many of his players not just graduated, but within four years and what they have done and are continuing to do with their lives and careers.
He was only an asshole (on the court) when a point needed to be made. Tidbit for Duke: you ever get a firsthand report about when the ball went on the floor or, perhaps, whoops, into the bleachers and it was last-one-there didn't really want to be?
Yeah there's a good little story for you to corroborate or not, innit?
In general (ha ha) life, he alternates between tolerable and an asshole, the skew to the asshole side.
His off-court life is his own business. His on-court behavior is seen by millions.
By the same token, I don't care who Spitzer fucked if he did excellent public service. (He was a hypocrite for harsh public comments about a prostitution ring.)
I don't follow 'last one there?"... I was talking about the way he treated his coaching staff not players...
thank God there are avenues for such people to go into as opposed to politics. he thought he was above the
rules - the cult of personality as worshipped by loser windbags like that announcer who calls him the General -
Note that NoDs at 44k/month are running at the same volume as total new and resale home sales volume in June as per Dataquick. (Seasonally, June is one of the best months of the year.) Sales volumes will have to rise to absorb this volume of eventual foreclosures. Either the economy is going on another bender, or prices have to collapse further to spur the volume to absorb this distressed inventory.
"The average California foreclosure has a total loan balance of $425,134 on a home that is now worth $236,739"
Is that median, or mean?
Or mode?
NEMO! You're back.
Good thing they cancelled that useless Mark-to-Market accounting. Who need accounting? Just get in the way of hardwork honest business people.
AHEM
"The Bay Area counties of Santa Cruz, San Francisco, Marin, San Mateo were among the least underwater."
2nd to last in the state in NODs etc.
There is very little price deflation in SF.
I wonder if Neil will share his popcorn. This could get interesting.
probably mean/average
actually nemo, these are now a la mode, it's the only way to sell them
we all scream for ice cream!
Wait until you see the next wave of foreclosures to be caused by declining wages. I'm an engineer and although there's work out there it pays about 30% less than it did a year ago. While I'm sure this isn't typical, I'm also sure that enough other people are in a similar situation that they aren't going to be able to spend nearly as much on housing as they did before the recent bust.
Winter will be cold for real estate agents. And next spring and summer. And next fall...
I only show up when the market has a down day. Which is why it has been a few months.
"Foreclosures scheduled for sale rose to 124,874, a 10.4 percent increase from the prior month, and a 93.3 percent increase year-over-year from July 2008."
Shadow inventory is just a rumor.
This one was on the wall at work for quite awhile before anyone took notice and caught on ...
Achievement
Are we still advising people to sit tight?
I actually now have a friend in just this position. Divorced, busted down to 32 hours a week of retail work, just can't make the nut on her mortgage anymore. Non-recourse situation.
Couple of short-sale attempts have fallen through. I'm telling her to move anything she can't bear to lose to storage and squat. She really has no material possessions you could consider valuable.
Should she pay the property tax, I wonder? Is the state more or less likely to take over the property than the bank?
$188K loss * 124,874 = $23 billion of losses. Not to be recognized until sold.
Maury,
I think it takes several years to lose a property due to back taxes, IIRC from an article in the Sacramento Bee. May vary by location. This may be longer or shorter than the banks will eventually let it run.
I don't expect to hear anything more on Colonial Bank until tomorrow at the earliest.
Their last press release said:
"On August 5, 2009, the Alabama State Banking Department provided notice to Colonial Bank that the Alabama State Banking
Board will meet on August 12, 2009, at which time Colonial Bank will be asked to consent to the Superintendent's exercise of his
statutory authority to appoint the FDIC as receiver or conservator for the Bank if and when the Superintendent deems such
appointment to be necessary. In the meantime, the Company continues to explore all possible capital-raising alternatives that
would position it and Colonial Bank to comply with the requirements of the Orders to Cease and Desist to which they are
subject."
I guess this might set them up for an eventual Friday failure?
Does that mean we won't see Nemo and Sebastian on the same thread? Hmmmm....
This can't look good on a bank's balance sheet:
Sale: $140,000
Bed/Bath: 3/2
Sq. Ft.: 1,338
Location: Citrus Heights, CA
Last Sale: $300,000 (August 17, 2004)
-and this is in no way exceptional.
I don't see you so don't pretend to be there.
"so it is possible that the lenders will start cancelling many of these 'Notices of Trustee Sale' soon if the mods are successful. "
CR is really turning into a bull.
You are going to be sadly disappointed. The can kicking will stop in Sept/Oct.
with additional foreclosures coming at even lower prices...do I hear $25 billion? $28 billion? $30 billion? Sold!
"I think it takes several years to lose a property due to back taxes"
If you are getting free rent from a bank, are they more likely to foreclose on a loan where taxes are being paid, or not? Do they even have the aptitude to prioritize foreclosures on those that will cost them the most?
You are going to be sadly disappointed. The can kicking will stop in Sept/Oct.
It'll make a nice bookend with his mild recession calls.
And just why would anyone's balance sheet care about what the market is doing?
What???? I thought the recession is over and green shooties for everyone;)
I love this quote because it's so f*cking spot on !
Here, in the dog days of summer, it seems to me that the situation in the USA is so fundamentally bad, so unpromising, so booby-trapped for failure, that I wonder if there has ever been a society so badly deluded as ours.
- Hunky Dory http://kunstler.com/blog/2009/08/hunky-dory.html
Today Obama, in defending his push for government health care, cited the benefits of competition by saying "UPS and Fed Ex are doing just fine, it's the Post office that's always having problems. Isn't the post office the government run one?
"There is very little price deflation in SF. "
Some, some....
Home value drop-off slows; S.F. immune no more
(08-10) 21:21 PDT -- The downward trajectory of Bay Area home values was slightly less steep in June than it was a year ago, according to a study being released today by Zillow.com.
The grinding recession, however, is denting home prices in areas that once seemed immune - such as San Francisco and Marin counties - where values have slid more than 15 percent for the past two quarters compared with the previous year.
"If you are getting free rent from a bank, are they more likely to foreclose on a loan where taxes are being paid, or not? "
Hmmm, good question, I will ask around.
My advice would be to stop paying everything. Everyone else is doing it, join the crowd.
In California it takes 5 years before a sale for back taxes.State by State.
I've never given that advice. I advise sitting tight and living mortgage-free, personally. I'd probably pay the property tax, however. Counties don't have much motivation to not get paid, while banks are all about extending and pretending.
"Do they even have the aptitude to prioritize foreclosures on those that will cost them the most?"
It would seem relatively easy to prioritize. The costliest one might be put off the longest, I would guess by attempting a modification. I would also guess that few who are behind on their mortgage would be paying their taxes. Could be wrong.
...The can kicking will stop in Sept/Oct.
Why can not they, gov +banksters, keep the game longer? In other words, is there any hard/fundamental limit such that they have to stop such procrastination by that time?
Thanks!
As far as SF the Ex will be selling a nice little home near SF State in a month or two.Prices in SF vary a LOT and some areas have had significant drops when measured by $ per Sq Ft.High end appraisals in west Sonoma County are down 40% from the peak and we are a year or so ahead of SF.
As far as SF the Ex will be selling a nice little home near SF State in a month or two.Prices in SF vary a LOT and some areas have had significant drops when measured by $ per Sq Ft.High end appraisals in west Sonoma County are down 40% from the peak and we are a year or so ahead of SF.
"The can kicking will stop in Sept/Oct."
What will be the failure event? What makes the can to big to kick?
Mods do not seem to be much of a panacea.
OCC News: OCC and OTS Release Mortgage Metrics Report for Fourth Quarter 2008
"Consistent with last quarter’s findings, the report also showed that re-default rates on modified mortgages were both high and rising during the first three quarters of 2008, with loans modified in the third quarter showing the highest re-default rates. For example, the percentage of modified loans that were seriously delinquent (60 or more days past due) after eight months was 41 percent for loans modified in the first quarter and 46 percent for loans modified in the second quarter. The trend appeared to continue for loans modified during the third quarter."
"Why can not they, gov +banksters, keep the game longer? "
They would need to impose another foreclosure moratorium. Maybe they will.
In California, ad valorem property taxes have 5 year waiting period before the state can foreclose on you.
Mello-Roos and other special assessments often come with accelerated foreclosure.
Ca residents are supposed to receive property tax disclosure report before closing - have your friend search for hers.
"What will be the failure event? What makes the can to big to kick?
Mods do not seem to be much of a panacea."
The "event" is simply that the borrowers will be put through the "mod screen" and found wanting. Or the bank won't be able to contact them. Or they have no or reduced income.
let's see - underwater borrowers with little or no income. Let's reduce their interest rate. Yeah, that will work.
By sept/oct these houses will start hitting the market. They are on the way, the data referenced in the article shows the trend.
BURN (profile) wrote on Tue, 8/11/2009 - 4:30 pm
reply ignore user
AHEM
"The Bay Area counties of Santa Cruz, San Francisco, Marin, San Mateo were among the least underwater."
2nd to last in the state in NODs etc.
There is very little price deflation in SF.
And just like the last 10 times you've posted this again I will point out that YOY comparisons of what you can get $/sq foot don't support your claim.
"Repossessions were down 40% from a year earlier, even though default notices were up and auction notices were flat. Lenders are delaying the final step in foreclosure. This is what's creating the growing backlog of distressed properties."
LA Times
ghostface,
they need to start doing blanket cram downs to near market for the seriously underwater.
Otherwise, it is just massive delayed losses that keep getting larger and larger.
What else can one do if the only thing keeping people in their houses is a sense of honor and a vague sense of losing something.
Reality is the housing market is now broken, and Summers had better wake up and smell the java before what has infected CA, NV, FL and AZ goes nationwide.
New York is just starting to crack.
The amount of losses is stunning, so time to federalize and get it over with.
Otherwise, we will be waiting decades for the last houses to be abandoned into the foreclosure maw.
Extend and Pretend Must End!!!
P.K.- time to tell some truth to power before they all drown.
Someday this war's gonna end...
"The average California foreclosure has a total loan balance of $425,134 on a home that is now worth $236,739."
........THAT pretty much says it! So many toys representing some of the difference above now have no garage in which to be housed. To help terminate the wave of nostalgia, I turned on KFI Talk Radio and listened to a couple traffic reports and a news brief on the RV homeless in Ventura County............thank God I escaped that zoo.............my condolences go out to the "house arrest" residents.
Will the Mortgage Mod monthly payment match the unemployment income? If not there won't be much accomplished.
"My advice would be to stop paying everything. Everyone else is doing it, join the crowd."
I guess if I was living rent free at the banks expense, and knowing that there are limits to how many foreclosures both the bank and city/state can process, I'd be looking to pay just enough, to get foreclosed on, LAST. But if the banks/state/city are just pulling addresses from a hat FDIC style, I'd agree with you, then the smartest play would be to not pay anything.
The amount of losses is stunning
Couldn't be more stunning than the Crash and bailout so far.
Yawn.
Score one for deflation.
nice Jim Jarmusch reference... Down by Law if memory serves...
...
1 Currency
one dear friend;s family was forcibly removed from their home in Jerusalem in 1968 and the
home was demolished and they were forced to move to Jordan. they had lived on that land for over 300
years. that is a fact. the Israeli's or Zionists took advantage of something that is particular to an Arab people
and for that answer please read the history written by Ibn Kahldun.
....
EHP
wrote:
Perhaps you better explain yourself. The Harry Potter movie was moved from Dec 08 to summer 09, that's a fact. It is worth noting because it marked the shift of many studios to lengthen their pipeline and reduce box office competition."
that sir, is patently false, and shows you know nothing about the movie businees. I'm not sure what you mean by lengthening
the pipeline. Look, there are X number of calendar dates. Think of it like a dance card. Jockeying for release date is an age old game. I have not looked at the reasons they moved the Potter date up but usually it's because there are too many like movies
being released at Christmas and they'll canniblaize each other. Or that my distribution arm (filmmaking is a two part business) failed to secure say 3,800 screen for a wide release, Potter after all, is not The Crying Game. Or another more common reason is that the film was scoring badly in test screenings and had to be re-cut. Moving it forward was in essence protecting the Potter franchise. Opening it around the time of Transformer is fine since they don't compete.
As I said before the major studios have jettisoned their specialty divisions because the majors have never been in the game to hit single after single.
EHP: don't confuse book knowledge or your obviously inflated sense of intellectual prowess with the real knowledge of how certain industries work. I do see that tendency in your postings.
ps: I don't care what you think of some knock-off vid mash I made
M.C. Bernanke = "Arrest is in the house!"
"ghostface,
they need to start doing blanket cram downs to near market for the seriously underwater."
Agree with everything you said. Principal reductions or mass foreclosures is the only solution. One or the other, or both. Keeping people in a property with negative equity is bad for the borrower, bad for the bank, and bad for society.
@ Speed (profile) wrote on Tue, 8/11/2009 - 4:54 pm
"Repossessions were down 40% from a year earlier, even though default notices were up and auction notices were flat. Lenders are delaying the final step in foreclosure.
America's "too-greedy-to-fail" Wall Street banks with multiple trillion bailouts are doing their best to try and form a new bubble i.e recession is over buy now.
Who will blink first when....
“Structural” is a polite way of saying there won’t be any jobs for the long-term unemployed this year, next year, or the year after that.
In the long years of bogus “prosperity,” consumer credit grew every month like clockwork. $70 billion isn’t much, but it’s the start of a trend which essentially dooms consumer-based, over-leveraged economies like the U.S. to years or decades of (at best) meager growth.
The house next to us sold last for 860k aprox. in 2006.
After sitting empty for 1 1/2 years if finally has an reo sign up. Zillow shows it going back to the lender for 597k 2 weeks ago.
".......it is just massive delayed losses that keep getting larger and larger."
Or, in my neck of the woods:
"Las Vegas: 81% of mortgage holders upside down"
....nothing can be done for these unfortunates........you cram in as many free months into that short anxious period as you can before the Sheriff bangs on your front door and tells you to "get the Hell out".
interesting article on mods (from the Nation): "Obama's Plan to Help Homeowners Is a Bust"
Obama's Plan to Help Homeowners Is a Bust | | AlterNet
"So servicers opt to stonewall borrowers and foreclose on them, even when doing so sacks investors with massive losses."
"The house next to us sold last for 860k aprox. in 2006.
After sitting empty for 1 1/2 years if finally has an reo sign up. Zillow shows it going back to the lender for 597k 2 weeks ago."
You will see lots of bizarre behavior. I have seen a lot of houses sit on the market with no offers, get pulled from the market for months, then come back on at a reduced price. Do these people need to move? If not, why are they selling? Strange stuff.
km4
where did you get that 250,000 emplyment number from? last I looked I thought it was about 185,000? source?
Duke,
Thems the breaks when you lose a war.
As one who's family was directly expropriated by the Benes decree, and then finished off by the communists, well my sympathy is lacking. You had best move on instead of wasting time. Elderly family members in Europe are still wasting time litigating with a country over stuff they will never get back.
Little people always pay more than their lord and masters for the war.
Since there is no justice machine, it just wastes everybody's time crying over split milk.
Someday this war's gonna end...
Were you in the east bay? (I can't remember.)
poic,you must be in a good neighborhood.
This guy makes Denninger look mellow:
YouTube - Max Keiser on The Financial Armaggedon
As a Marin person, I have been noticing property moving again---
Just observations of walking or driving through the area.
This is sweet. The title at least.
Fed Faces Its Zimbabwe Moment - Forbes.com
"Fed Faces Its Zimbabwe Moment"
"The "event" is simply that the borrowers will be put through the "mod screen" and found wanting. Or the bank won't be able to contact them. Or they have no or reduced income.
let's see - underwater borrowers with little or no income. Let's reduce their interest rate. Yeah, that will work.
By sept/oct these houses will start hitting the market. "
ghostface, the article itself shows that over 70% of these foreclosures are being deferred, probably due to mods. A mod can be perfectly successful if it is generous enough. Why on earth wouldn't the banks and their regulators simply make the mods as generous as they need to in order to avoid a re-default. (And please don't even mention moral hazard. That was thrown overboard a long time ago.)
Why can not they, gov +banksters, keep the game longer?
Well, since they're willing to monetize, they can (if they're reasonably adept) keep the game going until inflation comes. Bernanke seems to be a capable wielder of the One Ring, so not much will be beyond his power to salvage until that day.
Adorno,only parts of some towns are "Really Marin" these days.Still the tick capital of the USA though,so it has something going for it.
Citizen Allen
there was a heated discussion last night on the Israeli question bwt 1 currency and a host of others, I purposely
refused to weigh in except for one comment ... I have dogs on both sides of the argument so I know to hold my tongue.
when I was at Columbia I remember given a security briefing by an Israeli general on campus to a select few of say 18.
he was quite convincing. had some great maps and you how ham and eggs given the right moment can
be impressive. very clever to massage minds of potential future leaders.
I'm living in Fremont right now.
I knew the bubble was over when the cops starting showing up at an almost 900k house on a monthly basis for domestic disturbance calls, drug use/dealing out of the house, mysterious breakins around the neighborhood, a rotation if mysterious boarders, cars that never moved out of the driveway etc...
It's so much better being surrounded by 100% koolaid drinkers now that that house has been cleaned up
patient- after 6 months of dicking around with Sh*ttybank about a mod, with a denial (too much income!), a lost paperwork, and inert unresponsiveness, not paying the mortgage for three months is starting to look like a good idea. Do we need a mod? Well, I think so. Having nonrecourse paper, they should think I need a mod too! They are on the hook for $100 per square foot over the current foreclosure pricing- now how would they like to take that loss?
Want to increase mods?
Penalize the servicers for not offering mods in the best interest of the owners of the paper.
This has gone on quite long enough.
The administration has to lead or be run over by subsequent events.
Someday this war's gonna end...
"Why on earth wouldn't the banks and their regulators simply make the mods as generous as they need to in order to avoid a re-default."
Here is the sad truth. 90% of the time it is more economical for a bank to do a foreclosure. Banks have models to determine this, and mods don't pencil out. At the toot of the problem is many people weren't meant to be in the house in the first place, and keeping them there with no equity is a guaranteed redefault, if not in 6 months, then certainly in 18, 24, 36 months, leaving the bank with a lower interest stream and the same problem they had in the first place.
Why do you think the government is paying servicers to do mods? Why wouldn't a bank do a mod if it made financial sense?
They would, but it doesn't.
And why would a bank forgive principal? If they are going to take the hit, they might as well foreclose and be done with it.
Tom- I agree, as Novato could be in the Central Valley. Want to trade Petaluma for it?
As far as ticks, I have gotten more in Sonoma County, but the stats may have been skewed, as I was living on a ranch.
Marin is weird. Good parts of Corta Madera are selling well and yet Tiburon is getting crushed from what I've been hearing.
What's the current LTV? (ie, your best estimate of value.)
We saw a spike of NFS scheduled yesterday in Santa Clara county and San Mateo county, 482 and 84 respectively.
Jp if that question is for me I have a feeling the neighbors did 80/20 financing and the primary lender took it back for their loan.
Atleast that makes sense seeing that it's an reo now.
New owner needs to supply plumbing as all the copper piping was stripped out.
ghostface
but if the bank could string out the losses by using strategic MODS don't you think that that would be preferable to foreclosing, foreclosing just causes blowback for your other mortgaged props in that sector... think of what Mike Millken was doing in the junk biz before they shut him down, he was propping up failing hi yield bonds...
also, if you kick the can down the road far enough it's someone elses' problem...
Foreclosures in Oregon are not so easy to find-- there are short sales on the MLS, but not foreclosures. Trulia says there are some, but there are no signs. And the foreclosures seem to be clustering in areas where a local job source has died, so the whole neighborhood tends to go down at once, sadly. It's sad, and scary. And yet people seem to be holding up rather bravely. You can tell there's a lot of stress, but there's a lot of toughness, too. I have to admire that.
@Duke of Con Dao (profile) wrote on Tue, 8/11/2009 - 5:03 pm
km4
where did you get that 250,000 emplyment number from? last I looked I thought it was about 185,000? source?
Honestly can't recall but from memory sounds about right
Did you see this?
Zero 10 Year US Job Creation
Zero 10 Year US Job Creation | The Big Picture
Floyd Norris notes an astounding data point:
“For the first time since the Depression, the American economy has added virtually no jobs in the private sector over a 10-year period. The total number of jobs has grown a bit, but that is only because of government hiring.
The accompanying charts show the job performance from July 1999, when the economy was booming and companies were complaining about how hard it was to find workers, through July of this year, when the economy was mired in the deepest and longest recession since World War II. For the decade, there was a net gain of 121,000 private sector jobs, according to the survey of employers conducted each month by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In an economy with 109 million such jobs, that indicated an annual growth rate for the 10 years of 0.01 percent.”
NET NET: So how can US economy return to 'bullshit bubble normal' with all the systemic problems and when
1) Structural unemployment is skyrocketing.
“Structural” is a polite way of saying there won’t be any jobs for the long-term unemployed this year, next year, or the year after that.
2) there's annual growth rate for past 10 years of 0.01 percent in job creation ?
"And why would a bank forgive principal? If they are going to take the hit, they might as well foreclose and be done with it."
Why would a bank forgive?
Because if the don't, they will get a phone call from a person who can close them down within a month.
This has gone on quite long enough.
Why?
I bet it can last longer than your patience.
I'm living in Fremont right now.- poic
OMG! I used to live in Livermore. I don't glow in the dark, though.
My point- (I glanced at some of that last night and went to sleep instead)-
is that the little folks sit there and grind their greivances with the winners.
The leadership that lead them into their debacle is rarely blamed.
Look at Serbia today and see that moronic thought pattern repeated.
Moral of the story, don't lose a war over your homeland.
Or you don't have one.
Simple really.
Now, if you think some divine thing is going to save your butt when the other side can easily when, well move, duck, or change your leadership.
Almost 150 million people would be alive today if that carpenter had set a timer a few minutes sooner on 8. November 1939.
The whole subject leaves me with ashes for the blind fools who strap on nationalism as some sort of machismo.
Someday this war's gonna end...
“It’s probably not a propitious time for an incoming CEO to begin with a vacation,” said Steven Seiden, president of New York-based executive recruitment firm Seiden Krieger Associates. Seiden said that while the absence won’t hurt the company’s financial position, “from a public relations standpoint it’s probably not the wisest thing to do.”
To be honest, if he was working in august I'd be all large carat precious stones yesterday.
"“It’s probably not a propitious time for an incoming CEO to begin with a vacation,” said Steven Seiden, president of New York-based executive recruitment firm Seiden Krieger Associates. Seiden said that while the absence won’t hurt the company’s financial position, “from a public relations standpoint it’s probably not the wisest thing to do.”"
Maybe not. But in general US executives ridiculously over value their personal involvement and presence. If your business won't do nicely while you're away for a month, then you don't have the right staff.
I think it was Maureen Dowd who responded to the theory that the world would fall apart if we didn't pay banking and trading executives millions of dollars annually with the quip, "Let's test that theory."
Maureen Dowd is a Nappy-Headed Ho
large carat precious stones?
like what precisely? and you had better know someone in the biz who knows his sh**!
I can introduce to some Thais that maunfacture brilliant fakes - funny thing about that game, is secrets
are passed down like a medieval guild (reminds me of a story, after the Meiji Restoration when Japanese
were sent to Europe to play catch up the thing they most marveled over was the encyclopedia, they couldn't
believe that all this information was being given away for FREE, under their system of learning you would
employ a sensei who over time would teach you say the secrets of Kabuki on a fee basis...
"but if the bank could string out the losses by using strategic MODS don't you think that that would be preferable to foreclosing,"
"Modifications that reduce payments have lower delinquency rates over time. Although delinquencies on modified loans increased each month following modification, delinquency rates were considerably lower for mortgages in which monthly payments were reduced. Six months after modification, only 24 percent of the mortgages that had monthly payments reduced by 20 percent or more were 60 or more days past due, compared with 54 percent of mortgages with monthly payments left unchanged, and 50 percent with higher monthly payments"
"Seriously delinquent mortgages increased. Seriously delinquent mortgages (60 or more days past due or involving delinquent bankrupt borrowers) increased as economic pressures continued to weigh on homeowners. Prime mortgages, which represented two-thirds of all mortgages in the portfolio, had the highest percentage increase in serious delinquencies, climbing by more than 20 percent from the prior quarter to 2.9 percent of all prime mortgages."
Is it really that much help? First you have to take the loss on the reduced mortgage, then, even if you reduce payments 20% are going to fail in six months, probably more later as more fall underwater or borrowers get laid off. Plus prime is just getting started.
Unless you are modding to 2.5 to 3.5 income they will be back AND you take a loss now.
OCC News: OCC and OTS Release Mortgage Metrics Report for First Quarter 2009
Asia having a bad start to the morning. Nikki down 0.94% on the open, Kospi got a cold too, bringing regional aggregate SAXCME:IND down .5%. Taiex will likely get it next. USD easing against Y, AUD/NZD. Yerp futures madder elmo, gristly.
How many legs down does a centipede have?
C
thanks Blackhalo for the official gov position on MODS
"I wonder if Neil will share his popcorn. This could get interesting. "
Of course I'll share!
I need to do another Cheesecake factory meet up... (I organized them over at the HBB.) The daughter is finally old enough.
Everything is aligning for the wheels to fall off this bus during the fall/winter. I expect quite a few foreclosure mods... but not enough to slow this train.
"Here is the sad truth. 90% of the time it is more economical for a bank to do a foreclosure. Banks have models to determine this, and mods don't pencil out. At the toot of the problem is many people weren't meant to be in the house in the first place, and keeping them there with no equity is a guaranteed redefault, if not in 6 months, then certainly in 18, 24, 36 months, leaving the bank with a lower interest stream and the same problem they had in the first place.
Why do you think the government is paying servicers to do mods? Why wouldn't a bank do a mod if it made financial sense?
They would, but it doesn't.
And why would a bank forgive principal? If they are going to take the hit, they might as well foreclose and be done with it. "
Yep. Soon someone is going to break ranks and flood the market. If the government tries to interfere (other than buying off the banks), it will just seize up the California mortgage market. Wait... getting mortage insurance in this state is getting tough... hmmmm.....
"Las Vegas: 81% of mortgage holders upside down"
Ghad... I knew it was bad, but I didn't realize that bad. What fraction have no mortgage? No wonder there is noise about Las Vegas becoming the next Detroit... ouch.
Got Popcorn?
Neil
"The average California foreclosure has a total loan balance of $425,134 on a home that is now worth $236,739."
This makes even more frightening than it already was the often reported suggestion by economist Martin Feldstein that the taxpayers pay down the principal balance of those homeowners who would otherwise walk away. No doubt intentionally, the (one) example which Dr. Feldstein gave in his recent WSJ column showed a writedown of $40,000, half of which was to be eaten by the lender and half to be paid (to the lender) using the taxpayers' money.
Given the above figures supplied by CR, Dr. Feldstein's formula would result in a $140,000 writedown, half of which we taxpayers would have the honor of paying. (Granted, the average loan balance which CR supplied includes interest, fees, and costs, all in addition to principal.) Dr. F's formula is as follows: refinance at 120 percent of the current value of the home. As for the amount of the principal forgiveness, the lender eats half and the taxpayers pay the other half. Given that there are now about 125,000 foreclosure sales scheduled (in CA alone), the total cost to the taxpayers would be about $8.75 billion (again, for CA alone). Watch out, folks, as dear Dr. F. is influential with the administration of BHO.
Phx Metro probably has 50% of the properties 50% underwater. The xurbs are worse.
The condos are toast, very toast.
total loan balance of $425,134 on a home that is now worth $236,739.
It's only a loss if you sell before the Recovery.
"....suggestion by economist Martin Feldstein that the taxpayers pay down the principal balance of those homeowners who would otherwise walk away. No doubt intentionally, the (one) example which Dr. Feldstein gave in his recent WSJ column showed a writedown of $40,000, half of which was to be eaten by the lender and half to be paid (to the lender) using the taxpayers' money."
This business of borrowers having to repay loans is so 20th century. Yawn.
I have not looked at the reasons they moved the Potter date up but usually it's because there are too many like movies
being released at Christmas and they'll canniblaize each other.
Harry Potter has typically been released during the holiday season, so WB wasn't worried about cannibalization. What they were concerned about was that the WAG strike left their summer pipeline bare, dependent solely on "Terminator: Salvation" (which turned out to be a turkey). Furthermore, WB was worried about 2009 revenues, especially given its phenomenal 2008 year (Dark Knight). By moving HP to the summer, they were able to realize almost all of its revenue in 2009. and fortunately, the Hangover turned out to be a pleasant surprise.
The condos are toast, very toast
The summer heat guaranteed that would happen, anyway.
But will they all cash flow as rentals at $236K?
Americans working much harder – for less pay
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32374533/ns/business-eye_on_the_economy/
Wage cuts and lost paychecks could seriously jeopardize the recovery of a U.S. economy that still relies on consumer spending for two-thirds of its power. “You have a very severely harmed, injured consumer in terms of income slow down, job uncertainly, job loss, wealth loss, inadequate savings, high debt levels,” said Laura Tyson, an Obama advisor who headed the Council of Economic Advisors in the Clinton administration.
“The consumer, I don’t see powering us out of this recession.”
Yowza !
km4, I don't feel like I'm working that mch harder.
In fact, it feels like... like I'm hardly working at all!
Obamanomics scorecard
$12 Trillion to "too-greedy-to-fail" Wall Street banks
$3 Billion to consumers for CFC
Yowza !
Swastika painted at congressman’s office
‘There's so much hatred out there for President Obama,’ Rep. Scott says
Swastika painted at congressman’s office - Capitol Hill- msnbc.com
I'm sure it has nothing to do with the two of them being black. Well, actually it does.
Playing the race card? How 'bout playing the extermination card?
Counterpointer is it always your tendency to call people names?
Practices of modern civilized people have changed dramatically over the last few hundred years. We generally call this progress, in honor of our belief that the trend is uni-directional, in favor of a consensus definition of improvement.
Has (full) repayment of loans become an historical relic? Something that will be as quaint in 50 years as doing laundry by hand is today? With most of our personal lending today guaranteed to be repaid by FNMA, or Freddie Mac, of the FHA, or backstopped by the FDIC if the loan is still held by the bank that made it, we are already there. Is this change permanent?
In California it takes 5 years before a sale for back taxes.
Can't you pay the taxes with IOUs?
Duke - if they have them, yes.
C
Duke I won't be drawn into this again tonight. I love your anecdotes but numbers are important on this site.
I'm sorry about your friend. It's no consolation but there's a good chance that his space was taken by someone who also had been kicked out of his home of 300 years. On my recent trip to Israel I met a Druze man whose family had to flee Lebanon after a few hundred years. In 1945, Poland certainly didn't want any stragglers coming back to claim their houses. Some Jews made it through the concentration camps only to be murdered on their return.
If you think I'm a "my country right or wrong guy" you haven't been paying attention to my posts. That goes for my views on Israel, too. But I will correct garbage from Mmckinl not backed up by a single fact any time I see it. Italy and the UK export more arms than Israel, simple fact.
I've been to Egypt and Jordan. My father visited Saudi Arabia. I can tell you this, religious minorities, women, workers, and voters have it much better in Israel, with all it's prejudices. As I said, no title to land on Earth is clean. It's a question of relative amounts of blood. That's it on this.
Can't you pay the taxes with IOUs?
No, but you can back them with HE-OWES-MEs.
Journey -- Option ARMs
Lying to Congress, here in the dark
Co-mingling your TARP cash with mine
Softly you whisper, you're second's unsecured
How could our loans be so blind
We failed on together
We grifted apart
And here your apps been denied
So now I come to you, with Option ARMs
Nothing to doc, believe what I say
So here I am with Option ARMs
Hoping you'll see what your loan means to me
Option ARMs
Living without you, living alone
This empty house seems so cold
Wanting to mod you, wanting you near
How much I wanted your home
But now that youve come back
Turned refi to pay
I need you to stay
So now I come to you, with Option ARMs
Nothing to doc, believe what I say
So here I am with Option ARMs
Hoping youll see what your loan means to me
Option ARMs
YouTube - Journey - Open Arms
California the state is the one issuing the IOUs.
The individual counties within the state hold the tax sales.
So . . . no.
error deleted
patientrenter is right, in that why should the bank write down anything, when we taxpayers are already guarantying payment in full? (Forget about the pmi entities, as they are failing rapidly.)
....
The foreclosure dilemma. No easy way out.
Cash flow will force the banks to take the hit, fake accounting can't fix that.
For a long time now people have bought homes not intending to pay them off in full. They planned on selling the house and buying a new house. They planned on doing this until they retired and sold the last house and rented. Or sold the bigger house to buy free and clear the smaller retirement house.
Anyone who buys a house with a 30 yr loan and is 50 yrs old does not intend to ever pay that loan off in full.
That all changed when you can't move up, when you can't sell the big house for the smaller retirement house. Or use the house appriciation to add to your retirement income.
The rules changed while the largest population numbers had planned to retire in the next decade or so.
i think this trend follows the popularity of "participation trophies" and no-score sports leagues.
""Here is the sad truth. 90% of the time it is more economical for a bank to do a foreclosure."
Here is another: 90% of the time, 80% of homeowners in an area are not underwater. Rent level is a function of supply and demand. Demand is a function of income.
Greater "income" from rent usually means less income to reward labor.
Has (full) repayment of loans become an historical relic?
Certainly for the Federal government it has. With the short 2 year exception under Clinton, Treasury always plans to roll maturing bonds in perpetuity.
@ josap (profile) wrote on Tue, 8/11/2009 - 6:27 pm
The rules changed while the largest population numbers had planned to retire in the next decade or so.
Bingo ...bye bye American Pie dream for many....
The government sure is cramming a lot more scarce capital into unproductive housing stock. The FHA, Ginnie Mae, Fed MBS purchases, the $8K home credit, the GSEs are still at it, the big homebuilders are subsidized through changes in the tax code...
point taken 1 currency!
I was trying to stay out of that fray... one thing I know is that mcckinl is a Crypto-Nazi. some of you make recognize this phrase as it was spoken live on CBS news in '64 in a heated exchange between Bill Buckley and Gore Vidal.
I don't see you as a 'my country right or wrong' type at all. Funny, you mention the Druse. I have a friend who attended Columbia the same time I did. I was hoping to be invited to his marriage ceremony in Israel thereby providing me with an excuse to visit that country, sadly, I wasn't it. Druse marriages can only be witnessed by Druse not outsiders.
Yeah, mmckinl was spewing a lot of garbage and I figured you could handle it, which you did.
"The rules changed while the largest population numbers had planned to retire in the next decade or so."
It appears to me that their elected Representatives have spent the Social Security money that they had contributed over the years already.
I worry about what their new plan will be, to get the younger generations to pay for the retirement that they did not save for?
If you are 50 and buy a house then you have lived through several real estate cycles and this one should have been easy to it was out of control. If they are bag holders they have not paid attention.
"For a long time now people have bought homes not intending to pay them off in full. They planned on selling the house and buying a new house. They planned on doing this until they retired and sold the last house and rented. Or sold the bigger house to buy free and clear the smaller retirement house.
Anyone who buys a house with a 30 yr loan and is 50 yrs old does not intend to ever pay that loan off in full.
That all changed when you can't move up, when you can't sell the big house for the smaller retirement house. Or use the house appriciation to add to your retirement income.
The rules changed while the largest population numbers had planned to retire in the next decade or so."
It may be no coincidence that the price of the biggest asset most people counted on for their retirement security is declining just as the largest number of people plan to retire within the next 2 decades. I hesitate to subscribe to any theory that claims to explain giant movements in markets, but the demographic theory of why we've had massive increases in asset prices over the last 30 years, and why that is beginning to level off, seems to fit major facts. And the demographics are too important to ignore.
But culturally, I wonder if we've left behind the notion of full personal repayment of loans. At this stage, all that has to be done to make that true is preventing change = change to the days of 15-20 years ago or more, when repaying loans in full was considered a personal obligation that was taken very seriously, legally and ethically. (There are always exceptions - I am talking about the broader culture.)
I've been to Egypt and Jordan. My father visited Saudi Arabia
Pahhhh on both of you.
I've been to Canada AND the Bahamas and my dad BLEW UP Europe and my mom ate Mexican food raw.
So there!
What kind of name is Horne, anyway? I know Broward is in Fl. Are you a Mayflowerchild?
Ah nostalgia is a great thing. Just pulled up SPX on the kaboomberger and did a sort by biggest % losers today, and guess what - it looks just like, um, real familiar, uhh, just like this time last year! Yay.
Or should familiarity breed contempt?
C
Interesting article in the WSJ, at FHA and Ginnie Mae: The Next Fannie and Freddie - WSJ.com
.
In it, the author points out the irrational pricing and risk of FHA loans, and wonders why the members of our House of Representatives are averting their gaze carefully. Do you know why the key people on Capitol Hill would do that?
Are you a Mayflowerchild?
English.
But it's not my original last name, which would be recognized in parts of Southern Florida.
I must maintain mystique to Conquer The Duke.
Basel, there is a helluva lot of truth in what you're saying. I'm a coach for an ostensible select/travel team and let's just say that at the age these kids are, they should have hugely greater appetites for aggression, competition, and plain old banging into one another, but at least 1/3 of them don't.
We have made it okay to "just show up and try." It's pathetic, and indicative that they will not ever figure out that just showing up won't cut it in the real world. Good thing most of them will have trust funds...
We have made it okay to "just show up and try." It's pathetic, and indicative that they will not ever figure out that just showing up won't cut it in the real world. Good thing most of them will have trust funds...
"Eighty percent of success is just showing up" - Woody Allen
"15-20 years ago or more, when repaying loans in full was considered a personal obligation that was taken very seriously, legally and ethically."
But not financially.
Mass bank failures and corporate BK (welfare) go back further. No publicly traded corporation has ever paid its debts in full. How could it compete?
Good luck, Ford. And the UAW homeowner should pay BAC and Wells Fargo, in full, right AFTER GM has made good on its contracts, in full. Oh, it's personal.
Maybe is America of yesterday but certainly not today.
I agree with Lothar the Rottweiler "It's pathetic, and indicative that they will not ever figure out that just showing up won't cut it in the real world"
Sorry to say it will be sobering reality for Americans under the age of 30 ( unless they have trust funds )
Hey MrM, I'm a big sports guy. Old school, Bobby Knight kind. I coach kids who will not even listen without coming close to physically touching them (which you can't do in such a way or you'll be sued).
I'm astonished by what I have to deal with and what it portends for the future. There is a lot of truth to be found on playing fields the world over, and the sport I love is loved by all, but especially the most destitute because it's their ticket out of whatever hellhole place they grew up in. The non-Americans here will know exactly what I'm talking about.
In the Nineties we gauged an employee how knew and could produce 80% of their job was top notch. It has gone down from there.
I've started to look at buying in the DC market, considering making a move this winter. We're in no hurry-- in Arlington it is still around 35% cheaper to rent and there are a lot of option ARMs getting ready to blow up.
Wife and I also went to VA "hunt country" to scout properties this weekend-- Loudon County mostly. Major greenfield developments from Toll and other developers battling it out on lower and mid-level. Further out, massive haircuts on the listings, seemed they are getting nervous as the selling season rolls into late summer. Nice realtor said some of the asking prices are pretty soft. One property was reduced from $850,000 to $599,000 this summer. As it was a dilapidated barn on ten rough acres I think there's a lot further downside. There are no more "move-up" buyers cashing out their DC condos/townhouses and overpaying for something bigger in the countryside.
Two years ago I suggested here that there could be a million foreclosures in CA alone before the RE collapse ended.
Anybody know if we've reached that number yet?
"It isn't cheating if the ref doesn't call it."
---US Soccer goalie Brianna Scurry, on coming out of the crease early to save a penalty kick, giving the US women the World Cup over China.
Now that's proper GS material.
Lowthar
easy on the Bobby Knight hagiography ... I know a man who was his asst coach for 12 years...
and the stunts Bobby use to play... do you want to hear one?
"Eighty percent of success is just showing up" - Woody Allen
Obviously wasn't enough for his daughter.
> "Eighty percent of success is just showing up" - Woody Allen
Maybe is America of yesterday but certainly not today.
With unemployment benefits extended for more than a year, what is the incentive to show up? People are dropping out of the labor force en masse.
We live in the time of unintended consequences
Oh, well
I know exactly what you're talking about
We live in the time of unintended consequences
Yes, it's the fault of unemployment benefits, it couldn't possibly be massive outsourcing and "investors" gutting the country while boosting RE prices to the sky.
@ MrM (profile) wrote on Tue, 8/11/2009 - 6:57 pm
With unemployment benefits extended for more than a year, what is the incentive to show up? People are dropping out of the labor force en masse.
I agree this is more political BS trying to kick the can down the road but the sobering reality of Structural unemployment* is skyrocketing will ultimately take hold and splash cold water on the faux American dream
*“Structural” is a polite way of saying there won’t be any jobs for the long-term unemployed this year, next year, or the year after that.
It possibly could be all of those things
I am not saying I am against UI. I am saying the system often operates not as intended.
A few weeks ago a House committee approved legislation to keep the FHA’s loan limit in high-income states like California at $729,750.
So, still no one's willing to take away the stimulus crack.
basel - OMFG - no WONDER the CA home sales have picked up in the 400-800k range like I saw on that disgusting ABC news piece. I didnt realize you could do FHA to that level. Good gawd, we are completely FORKED!
I know more about that program than you'd probably want to know, Duke. Could be less than six degrees of separation between whom you know and whom I know, even.
Or we could talk about those hated Kentucky Wildcats, about whom I know more dirt than will ever be published by anyone who wants to work in the state, ever.
Bobby made kids run for missing class. Nowadays a freaking felony charge, if lowered, isn't half enough to keep most hoops players from stepping on a college basketball court (or football field, for that matter).
That was my point.
""15-20 years ago or more, when repaying loans in full was considered a personal obligation that was taken very seriously, legally and ethically."
But not financially.
Mass bank failures and corporate BK (welfare) go back further. No publicly traded corporation has ever paid its debts in full. How could it compete?
Good luck, Ford. And the UAW homeowner should pay BAC and Wells Fargo, in full, right AFTER GM has made good on its contracts, in full. Oh, it's personal."
Limited liability companies are a good example of the historical change in our culture that I'll call "progress". Before the invention of LLCs, entrepreneurs and their financiers might become personally liable in an unlimited amount for losses of any business venture they became involved with. Nowadays, the limitation of responsibility afforded to investors by a LLC is considered normal, and has been for a long time. Nothing new there.
My question was about something different, that might be in the middle of a sea change: a cultural acceptance of non-repayment of personal loans, taken out by individuals for their own personal spending. Since most of the dollars for such lending comes in the form of home loans, and the repayment of most new home loans today falls to the govt if the borrower doesn't repay, I wonder if we've reached that inflection point, where our culture is about to make a permanent change that we'll later call a contribution to "progress".
I have a crush on Hope Solo, so I'm conflicted on the Scurry-Solo issue!
I wonder if the California foreclosers will sell to Chinese dollar holders and savers?
I wonder if Proposition 13 will be revisited when 60% of homes are bank or absentee landlord-owned.
Real estate is still local. Real estate law and taxes, too.
basel - OMFG - no WONDER the CA home sales have picked up in the 400-800k range like I saw on that disgusting ABC news piece. I didnt realize you could do FHA to that level. Good gawd, we are completely FORKED!
They are just trying to recycle foreclosures with higher government loan limits. They know prices have to come back down to sane loan to income levels. No real secret as to where the prices are going to land, just slow the free fall.
GDD9000:
The FHA limits are set at the MSA level, so not all of CA is eligible for that amount.
https://entp.hud.gov/idapp/html/hicostlook.cfm
Nikki's had enough for this morning, down 0.78% at 10,502. Time for tea and noodles. And maybe something medicinal for a post-prandial uptick.
C
A few weeks ago a House committee approved legislation to keep the FHA’s loan limit in high-income states like California at $729,750.
States of the United States of America by income
California median household income – $59,948
So that FHA limit is 12X median income. WTF is FHA insuring loans if that type? It would seem to me that Californians can not afford the houses in thier own state. They are not fit to own.
States of the United States of America by income - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
on cali property taxes. i, as well as many others have said, it is 5 years before he comes a knockin.
my neighbor is a classic example. he is underwater to the tune of 320k. but not to worry. he had a loan that was 400k more than mine and he was paying the same pmt. how you ask...oh surely you do not ask.
well, he has paid prop tax "0." he is currently behind 30k in taxes that accrue at 1.5% a month (uhmmm that is 18% a year)...but again do not fret because he is not gonna pay that 18% either. he will instead come across the road in 2010 and tell me the "man" is screwing him now and when he got his loan, and he wants it to be "made right."
he is a good guy you know.
//My question was about something different, that might be in the middle of a sea change: a cultural acceptance of non-repayment of personal loans, taken out by individuals for their own personal spending.//
I think that may be true, in part.
If you know people who have filed BK, walked away from a home loan, racked up credit cards to the max and stopped paying, you are more likey to do the same. There is no stigma in your social group.
If many of the people you know are angry at the banks, the large corps, the gov and blame all the woos on them, you will probably do so as well. if you don't have an enviroment of personal responciblity, you don't have that view yourself.
the bottom line is i think i am gonna buy the house across the street in 2010 when this joker cannot make the taxes. it is a nice house. and of course, I do live in a nice neighborhood.
josap wrote:
If many of the people you know are angry at the banks, the large corps, the gov and blame all the woos on them, you will probably do so as well.
Are you saying the banks and government bear no responsibility for the collapse?
That this was caused by personal lack of responsibility of individuals?
Lack of responsibility all the way from top to bottom. The biggest failure was our government, regulators, Fed and politicians.
Basel -thx, but Im quite sure that this is one of those areas...since it's basically the high end of the east bay SF - poic and picosec know what Im talkin bout.
MrM, para ti: http://adage.com/globalnews/article?article_id=138389
The story is as good as the advertisement. Riquelme, the maestro.
The biggest failure was our government, regulators,
Blame the policemen, not the crooks?
No, not saying the banks and gov have no responcibility.
What I am saying is that when J6P sees the banks and gov running up debt, not paying, going BK, getting bailed out, J6P wants the same deal. And if you, as an individual, are in a social group that holds no stigma for doing just what the banks have done - you are more likely to do the same.
Birds of the same feather sort of thing.
The only volleyball match I ever watched in full or cared about was Russia vs. China, women's gold medal match in 2004 Olympics.
The Russian coach was famous for decades of Soviet dominance, and made Bobby Knight look like a human being. The Russians were heavy favorites, much taller than the Chinese. Russia took the first 2 sets, coming back from a deficit in both. But the Chinese did not lose heart and took the lead in the third, with spectacular defense and teamwork, smiling every point.
The famous Russian coach started to get pissed. China won the set and took the lead in the 4th. During every time out, the Russian coach screamed at the players so viciously that the sell-out crowd was totally silent with embarrassment. China took the 4th, and the coach kept screaming. His players were all near tears. China took the gold in a huge upset. Tears of joy all around, even viewers at home. Bobby Knight was an asshole.
Blame the policemen, not the crooks?
In many cases, interchangeable. GS CEO -> Treasury Secretary. Treasury functionary -> SEC. Mix and match and spread the fund raising around.
Not that there wasn't plenty of individual fraud, but the big damage was up the chain IMO.
@josap,
OK, good point.
2x
YouTube - RUSSIA CHINA ATENAS 2004
"The biggest failure was our government, regulators, Fed and politicians."
But all those sweet campaign contributions... If they did not take it and provide a little quid pro quo, it would go to the opposition or primary challenger...
In many cases, interchangeable
So you're blaming Bush?
.
Four of my twenty LinkedIn pals exhibit atypical behavior in the past 60 days.
I deduce that at least two of them are were laid off (they joined 20 social networking groups in 3 weeks)
The other two appear to be in jeopardy.
So you're blaming Bush?
Among many others, yes.
Lothar - my thanks to you - YouTube - Football Dribble in LeidsePlein Amsterdam
I'd probably pay the property tax, however.
I'm thinking so, too, if for no other reason that it might look a little better in court eventually.
She's a very sympathetic situation. This is a person who owns maybe $2000 worth of stuff, and no other debt, in the whole world. She rides a bike around her metropolitan area. The house is, let's politely call it "modest."
She got here because of a divorce and job loss.
"Blame the policemen, not the crooks?"
The Greenspan/Bush "Cops" were on the take. Charged with protecting the public, they were looking the other way...
From what I see and hear, more people are blaming the banks for forclosures. They tried to mod, they tried a short sale, nothing worked.
These same people are not taking any responciblity for buying above their means. They are not taking responciblity for not thinking before they signed the HELOC loan and bought the new can and went to Europe for vacation. It has become acceptable to blame someone - anyone- else.
Others who bought within their means, seen their property values drop like a rock and lost jobs have cause to blame. Many of those don't complain.
Many of those don't complain.
I just buy ammo and wait.
Lothar
google the name Ron Felling for starters, I've knew him before he ever became a coach for Knight...
highly successful coach at Lawrenceville, IL HS... the mind games that Knight pulled were beneath that of
a grown man, he's just like Bill Parcell's... odd, how both are the best of friends,
personally, they are sociopaths...
You don't need both hands to count how many of his players not just graduated, but within four years and what they have done and are continuing to do with their lives and careers.
He was only an asshole (on the court) when a point needed to be made. Tidbit for Duke: you ever get a firsthand report about when the ball went on the floor or, perhaps, whoops, into the bleachers and it was last-one-there didn't really want to be?
Yeah there's a good little story for you to corroborate or not, innit?
In general (ha ha) life, he alternates between tolerable and an asshole, the skew to the asshole side.
His off-court life is his own business. His on-court behavior is seen by millions.
By the same token, I don't care who Spitzer fucked if he did excellent public service. (He was a hypocrite for harsh public comments about a prostitution ring.)
I don't follow 'last one there?"... I was talking about the way he treated his coaching staff not players...
thank God there are avenues for such people to go into as opposed to politics. he thought he was above the
rules - the cult of personality as worshipped by loser windbags like that announcer who calls him the General -
What's not front page news but should be:
50% of those in trouble REFUSE to talk to the bank, despite phone calls, mailings and even visits? wonder why?
How about those re-defaults, like 60% of those after a loan mod?
How about the FHA "quick defaults"? The ones that go into default without ever making a single payment.
we're screwed
I missed this last night, what sport do you coach Lothar?
Note that NoDs at 44k/month are running at the same volume as total new and resale home sales volume in June as per Dataquick. (Seasonally, June is one of the best months of the year.) Sales volumes will have to rise to absorb this volume of eventual foreclosures. Either the economy is going on another bender, or prices have to collapse further to spur the volume to absorb this distressed inventory.