Housing Doom

I received a call from CNBC this morning.  They  would like a chance to speak with someone who is facing foreclosure due to issues with either an adjustible rate mortgage reset, a  subprime mortgage, or predatory lending practices.  They specifically need someone who is currently facing foreclosure, not someone who has had a problem in the past, or has refinanced out of the situation.  This would be for a story they are doing for "Business Nation," dealing with subprime and predatory loans.

CNBC requests that if you meet this criteria, you contact either Lauren Kesner @ (201) 735-2370 or Diane Simon at (201) 735-3181.  You can also send an email to lauren.kesner@nbcuni.com.
Read the rest of this entry »

The South Pacific isn’t the only place experiencing underground tremors. Last week another little piece of Fannie rattled off the table. They pulled the plug on their "Fannie Mae LIBOR" Indices, and who knows what traction that will now give lawyers trying to wiggle out of their clients’ ARM resets.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hat tip to Phxagent for our first March sales number, and to M for an additional update.

Phxagent posted on the evening of 3/31 that sales for March in the Phoenix metro area were at 5798.  In the usual fluid way of the MLS however, M reported that by Sunday morning sales had crept up to 5,927.  [It is possible to go in and edit the close of escrow by hand, so the number can change even after month's end.]

We won’t have an "official" number until ARMLS releases their report in a couple of weeks, but it appears that sales will be down around 20% from last year’s levels, and back to around the level of sales in 2001-2002. While there are those in the industry who would assure consumers that this indicates that sales are back to "normal" levels, the fact that those sales have to eat through about 80% more inventory than they did in 2002 [Current inventory broke 50,000 last week; March of 2002 inventory was at 27,702.] indicates a lot more stress in the market.

Sales are expected to rise from February to March as part of seasonal variability in the real estate market. In the past five years, the month-over-month (MOM) increase from February to March in the Phoenix metro averaged 27%.  It appears this year that the MOM will be around 20%.  However, that is in the normal range of variability, and as such has virtually no significance.
Read the rest of this entry »