For our Phoenicians- [Or anyone else who wants to see something scary on a Saturday morning] L sent me this great interactive map.  If you enter your city and zip code, you can see all the foreclosures in the area.  If you are not a Phoenician and want to check it out, look up my old zip code in Gilbert, 85296.  I sold my home in 2005, but you’ll note that not everyone else has been as lucky.

Here’s how this video was described on Google: Delaying foreclosure can give you the time you need to take action on your foreclosure. People have used these techniques to assist them in doing loan modifications, erasing their mortgage, selling on a short sale and just delaying the foreclosure so they can live in their home as long as possible.

The U.S. bond market is increasingly encumbered by the prospect of rising government borrowing, which will deliver a wholesome dose of new debt into the market and is already pressuring yields higher. [1] “The signal this sends is not good” for ties between the two nations, said Charles Freeman, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and former top trade negotiator for China at the U.S. Trade Representative’s office. “It opens a Pandora’s box. We need the Chinese to hold onto their Treasury and agency debt.” [2] That’s a heck of a reception the new guy just…
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  We’ve poked fun at the "statistics" used by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) in the past, but the NAR has hit new lows in a recent survey that they have sent out to agents. [Many thanks to M for forwarding this!] How is this for a leading question?

  It’s a good thing I’d finished my GrapeNuts by the time I read this one- they’d have been all over my keyboard: “Banks are becoming the whipping boy for the Treasury’s failed policies,” said Joseph Mason, a Louisiana State University professor in Baton Rouge who previously worked at the Treasury’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Really Mr. Mason? Or has the Treasury become the tool of banks and their failed policies?

Long time doomers will recall that my blogging specialty has always been worrying about the effect excessive amounts of QSPEs might have on the health of Fannie Mae.  So it was a bit disturbing to dig a bit deeper into the Vanity Fair article Doom featured last Saturday.[1]  Here’s something to get us oriented about the backstory to the story: Consider for a moment that former Fannie CFO Tim Howard was featured several times in the VF article.  As CFO he may just have hatched the biggest pile of those SFAS 140 off-balance-sheet vehicles ever.  Now as you can see…
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I was surfing last night on Broker’s Outpost [A forum for mortgage brokers.] and ran across a debate I thought Doomers would find interesting.  The question is who’s bamboozling whom.  Here’s the question asked by Atlloanlady: [I have done some light editing.] Here’s the story. Lender sent a letter of notification for foreclosure scheduled 1/6/2009. The borrower called the lender and got a loss mitigation package. Fannie/Freddie suspended all of their foreclosures through 1/9/2009. The borrower called the servicer to inquire if she would qualify. (she has an FHA loan) The lender told her yes and confirmed that her 1/6/09…
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Yes sir, Mr. Young Sir! Roll Over, Robert Frost … like, this is so totally outside Doom Family Values, but what the heck:

Hat tip to CRisk for finding this: Part II is below (don’t miss the last 30 seconds )

… All those phrases were used to describe a man you may never have heard of: Jim Johnson, the C.E.O. of mortgage giant Fannie Mae in the 1990s. Fannie was then one of the largest, most profitable companies in the world, with a stock-market value of more than $70 billion and more earnings per employee than any other company in America. (By comparison, G.M. at its peak, in 2000, was worth only $56 billion.) On one level, Johnson, now 65 years old, was just another businessman with a lot of money and multi-million-dollar houses in desirable locations from D.C. to…
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  Mish gave his nomination for "The Most Galling Statement Of The Week" today with this quote from President Bush: "The actions taken by my administration in response to the financial crisis have laid the groundwork for a return to economic growth and job creation, and they are beginning to show some early results." I couldn’t top that with a more galling statement, but thought this quote from Bud Weinstein, director of the Center for Economic Development at the University of North Texas was up there for inane: If the stimulus package actually works, then we will see some job growth….
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Just a thought (and maybe not original — I haven’t checked).  It is quite likely that Obama will be outlining a rapidly evolving economic program for the next several months not unlike what Sullenberger and his crew brought off in the real world in bare seconds, and then over a couple more minutes with further help, yesterday. UPDATE: He received a congratulatory phone call from President-elect Obama on Friday night. Now, a trip to D.C. could be "in the works" for Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger and family, says the heroic pilot’s wife. [1] The blast of uniforms at the 2005…
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There are a lot of us who have been of the opinion that modest homes should have modest prices.  Not the NAR.  They are advocated higher loan limits.  From their chief economist, Lawrence Yun yesterday: Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said restoring higher mortgage loan limits is critical to this part of the market. “Buyers in higher price ranges are at a severe disadvantage because they have to pay higher interest rates,” he said. “Lower loan limits are having a pronounced impact on trade-up activity at the upper end of the market, which depends more on large downpayments to keep…
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Bush did as he was told: “Mr Bush gave an order to Secretary of State Rice and she did not vote in favour of it—a resolution she cooked up, phrased, organised, and manoeuvred for,” said Olmert triumphantly. “She was left pretty shamed, and abstained on a resolution she arranged.” The Security Council passed the resolution 14-0, but the United States, its principal author, abstained. [1] No way Rahm Emanuel’s going stand for this sort of thing after Tuesday, never mind Obama.

As he added to the government debt holdings last month, Gross sold mortgage-backed bonds, sending the fund’s holdings of the securities down to 62 percent from 81 percent a month earlier, data on the Web site show. [5] [new stuff from Bloomberg with more detail] Looks like the keenly awaited burst of the T-bill bond bubble will have to wait for some other week. After the New Year’s pit stop, the folks in East Asia seem to be back to their old tricks. And speaking of tricky, there’s a fascinating tidbit in the preview to this WSJ story.[1] Pimco’s $132.267…
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