According to the Arizona Republic this morning: The illegal-immigrant population has fallen an estimated 11 percent nationwide over the past year and perhaps even more in Arizona, with stricter law enforcement a likely cause, according to a report issued Wednesday by a Washington organization that promotes less immigration. The apparent drop preceded a spike in unemployment claims, suggesting enforcement, not the nation’s faltering economy, is responsible, said Steven Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies. The drop of about 1 million illegal residents happened from August to May, the report says, even as the number of legal…
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According to Paul Krugman in the RGE Monitor today, the new housing bill is a "temporary fix": Even if this bill succeeds…, it … will, at best, make a modest dent in … foreclosures. And it does nothing … for those who aren’t in danger of losing their houses but are seeing much if not all of their net worth wiped out — a particularly bitter blow to Americans … nearing retirement… He sees a need for more regulation:   Financial regulation needs to be extended to cover a much wider range of institutions. Basically, the financial framework created in…
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I thought we’d let the shills get a word in first thing this morning and get it over with: If you thought you heard Cramer call a bottom during Tuesday’s Mad Money, you were right. “It smells to me like something, in fact many things,” he said, “have at last changed for the better.” “I am indeed sticking my neck out right here, right now,” Cramer continued, “declaring emphatically that I believe the market will not revisit the panicked lows it hit on July 15. and I think anyone out there who’s waiting for that low to be breached is…
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John suggested we pull out a "Doom Classic" from early January this year.  Some things are worth repeating: ************************************************** January 2, 2008 Apparently the Bush administration decided to start out the New Year dishing out political double-talk on day one- no use putting it off I guess.  This from a chat with reporters on Air Force One yesterday: More steps by Congress and the Bush administration are likely needed to stabilize the imploding U.S. housing market, a senior White House official said on Tuesday, as more signs of distress appear. Ed Gillespie, counselor to Bush, pointed to efforts by the…
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  The following is a press release from James Lockhart, director of OFHEO: [No link provided.] “Today President Bush signed the ‘Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008.’  I thank President Bush and Secretary Paulson for their leadership in making government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) regulatory reform a reality.  The Act creates a world-class, empowered regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), with all the authorities necessary to oversee vital components of our country’s secondary mortgage markets — Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks — at a very challenging time.  As Director of the new agency I look…
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According to Reuters yesterday, profits at CB Richard Ellis were way down: NEW YORK (Reuters) – CB Richard Ellis Group Inc the world’s largest commercial real estate brokerage, said quarterly net income plunged 88 percent, partly on lower brokerage fees from sales that have all but dried up due to the severely constrained global credit markets. Several reasons were cited for the poor numbers , including this:

Apparently Arizonans aren’t the only one having difficulty selling their properties- the State of Arizona can’t unload them either: The State Land Department has halted almost all land sales "for quite some time," a state official said. The last attempted land sale, for a small parcel in northeast Phoenix on July 9, drew no interest. Several previous sales attracted no bidders, including large parcels in or near the desirable Desert Ridge area of northeast Phoenix. The State Land Department controls almost all undeveloped land in north and northeast Phoenix. It hoped to begin selling land north of Pinnacle Peak by…
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  Every now and then I stop by Broker Outpost to see what the mortgage brokers are chatting about.  I found the debate about "Fat Slob Rob" the appraiser fascinating. "HMDApproved" did the following post: I must say, every appraiser in this part of town is a money hungry, bottom feeding, low life swindler that would charge their own mothers for an appraisal. I had an incident where I told the appraiser (his name is "Fat Slob Rob"), that the only way the loan would work is if the house was worth $400k, I specifically told him to comp it…
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  On July 23, Marketwatch reported: Despite instability in the mortgage-banking arena, America’s credit unions remain strong and safe for homeowners seeking solutions to their woes. The simple fact is conservative and prudent management policies kept credit unions out of the subprime mortgage mess. Despite these comforting words though, it appears the pain is spreading:

More possible "unintended consequences" of the housing bill- it is now easier for Americans to lose their home to eminent domain: [Hat tip to Freedom's Phoenix!] Of all the unintended consequences of the housing bill that passed the House yesterday — of which there will likely be many — one of the most ironic and far-reaching may be this: that whatever security marginal homeowners have from foreclosures, their homes will be far less safe from being taken by a bureaucrat through eminent domain. That’s because the bill unveiled this week — as the result of negotiations between House Financial Services…
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  The Senate passed the housing bill Saturday, and now that it’s been rushed through, we will get the chance to see who wins and who looses with this new world.  According to Bloomberg this morning: July 28 (Bloomberg) — Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase and Co., Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Pacific Investment Management Co.’s Bill Gross are winners in the housing-bailout bill Congress passed last week. Losers in the bill include shareholders of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who may see their equity wiped out if the U.S. Treasury uses its new authority to take over the…
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According to the FDIC’s website, First Heritage Bank of Newport Beach and First National Bank of Nevada went into receivership yesterday.  Also according to the FDIC: [Thanks L!] On July 25, 2008, First National Bank of Nevada, Reno, NV, was closed by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). Subsequently, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was named Receiver. No advance notice is given to the public when a financial institution is closed.  As of June 30, 2008, the former First National Bank of Arizona, Scottsdale, AZ, merged with First National Bank of Nevada and is included in…
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Apparently the FDIC has a new policy- blame it on the blogs: [Hat tip to Mish!] The federal agency insuring bank deposits learned that it can’t afford to ignore the blogs following its seizure this month of IndyMac Bank, the largest bank failure since the 1980s. "The blogs were a bit out of control," Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., told the San Francisco Business Times after a speech in San Francisco this week. That’s putting it mildly. Following the FDIC’s takeover of IndyMac on July 11, widely followed blogs were speculating on bank runs on some…
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You just can’t help some people.  The 2005 "Extreme Makeover" home has gone into foreclosure. [Hat tip Jeremy!] An Extreme Home Makeover may be going bust. The first metro family who got a new home is facing foreclosure.  A foreclosure notice appeared last Friday, a $450,000 second mortgage they took out less than 15 months ago was in default. Patricia Harper, the homeowner, told Channel 2 she and her husband had struck a deal with Chase Home Finance to rescue their "extreme" home. Chase said they couldn’t confirm that claim. “I didn’t really know what the circumstances were, I was…
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More on the foreclosure front- a lot more: [Thanks G!] July 25 (Bloomberg) — U.S. foreclosure filings more than doubled in the second quarter from a year earlier as falling home prices left borrowers owing more on mortgages than their properties were worth. One in every 171 households was foreclosed on, received a default notice or was warned of a pending auction. That was an increase of 121 percent from a year earlier and 14 percent from the first quarter, RealtyTrac Inc. said today in a statement. Almost 740,000 properties were in some stage of foreclosure, the most since the…
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