Yesterday there was a slight month-to-month increase in the Case-Shiller home price index, and there was much rejoicing in Realtor-ville: Realtors are hoping an uptick in home prices reported on Tuesday is the beginning of a turnaround, but industry experts say it’s too soon to tell if the improvement is anything other than a seasonal blip. The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index reported that prices in April rose in 13 of the 20 cities tracked. Washington, D.C., saw the biggest price increases, followed by San Francisco, Atlanta and Seattle. The index, which covers metro areas that include about 50…
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HAMP, the administration’s loan modification program has been labeled a failure in most circles.  Dissatisfaction has run high: 76% of borrowers had a “negative” or “very negative” experience with the program, and fewer than 9% found it “positive” or “very positive.” Almost half of applicants waited longer than seven months to receive a decision on their application. Nearly 75% of the time loan servicers lost documentation – which they then used to turn down applications. A Congressional oversight panel labeled the program a failure in December 2010. The Treasury Department has asked loan servicers to fix the problems but has…
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The Fed’s own holdings of MBS dropped again this week, but by a tiny $0.180 billion and foreign central banks’ holdings of US obligations also dipped by less than $1 billion. For all the sound and fury of the markets, the official institutions don’t seem to be in any hurry to move. This week’s Reuters report1 was, as usual, based on the weekly update from the NY Fed’s H.4.1 table site,2. Here is Doom’s updated CSV version3 of the agencies and treasuries foreign central bank holdings data set. Treasury Debt holdings have now advanced $104.217 billion above their 11/17 ’10…
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I don’t always blame the MSM for not asking hard questions from “experts” in the housing industry. After all, if they don’t specialize in housing, they might not recognize baloney when they hear it. Often though, you have to wonder how they missed the obvious. Yesterday’s Orange County Register ran an article about the likely drop of the conforming limit in many areas this October: If conforming loan limits drop in October, more than 30,000 families in California will have to deal with higher down payments and mortgage rates and tougher loan qualification rules, the California Association of Realtors said…
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We often quote Rick Sharga of RealtyTrac here.  He often has better data and less spin to his analysis than we generally see quoted. Sharga appeared on Bloomberg on Monday.  I thought the interview was good enough to post here.  Sharga discusses the general state of the housing market, what’s selling and what’s not, as well as mortgage trends.   Note his comments about the lack of a move-up market.  While sales are generally brisk at the lower end of the spectrum, the upper end is dead.  That’s going to continue to put downward pressure on prices. It was also…
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Two days ago the Obama administration launched one more program to “help” homeowners facing foreclosure.  Here’s the thumbnail sketch of the program: The program functions by giving out interest-free loans to homeowners who meet the program’s guidelines. NeighborWorks says the borrowed funds will pay a portion of an approved applicant’s monthly mortgage including missed mortgage payments or past due charges including principal, interest, taxes, insurance, and attorney fees; a homeowner can borrow up to $50,000, or two years’ worth of loans to supplement mortgage payments, whichever comes first. The EHLP program is expected to assist 30,000 homeowners through the program, with…
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You know that a lot of folks must be walking away from their mortgage when developers decide to market a project just for them. [Hat tip M.R.!] Even some with high-paying jobs are leaving their homes and letting them slide into foreclosure when they owe more than their property is worth. For those people, buying another home isn’t an option, at least not in the immediate future. So what can they do? They can rent. Miramonte Homes, a Tucson-based builder, will soon unveil a new line of luxury rental homes in Tucson and Sierra Vista to fill just that niche,…
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… because they can no longer afford the membership fee.  Igor thinks the Association should waive the fee, seeing as the utility has suddenly become world-class on failure Bloomberg (6/20 ’11): “Tepco Leaves Group Founded By Fukushima Probe Chief to Cut Costs” The utility known as Tepco notified the Association for the Study of Failure in April it won’t renew its membership for the year ending March 2012 because of financial constraints, Kenji Iino, executive director of the research group, said by telephone from Tokyo today.

I suppose in the messed up world of robo-signing and fraud-closure, this shouldn’t be so surprising, but who knew you could buy a stolen house? Pity the poor Zahari family, who bought their first home last summer:  [Thanks L!] They custom painted the girls’ bedrooms and sodded the backyard. They stopped making improvements when they found out they’re not the legal owners of the home. “We actually got a call from the FBI who said we just wanted to inform you that your house has been part of a deed fraud scheme,” Zahari said. Karen Tappert is the person the…
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What with stock markets trying to collapse, the buck has been on a tear lately with the amero gap closing yesterday at just -168 basis points. Maybe the NA union will be part of the 40th anniversary celebrations (in less than two months) of America’s abandoning real money Meanwhile the Fed’s own holdings of MBS dipped a smallish $3.350 and foreign central banks’ agencies went down over twice that amount while treasuries surged strongly. What with Chairman Paul mischievously suggesting audits for US central banking and gold holdings we may soon discover just how much of those figures derive from…
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Jay Butler of ASU’s Realty Studies has released his housing market report for the month of May.  In spite of the fact that the median price in Phoenix has fallen so substantially, it fell another 13% YOY: The median resale price for a detached, single-family home in Maricopa County in May was $125,000, the same as it had been in April and March, but down considerably from the May 2010 median resale price of $144,000. Sales are up about 2% from last year: There were 6,580 existing-home sales in May, the report said, compared with 6,520 sales in April and…
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It’s been awhile since I’ve been slumming over at Realty Times. [As much as I used to criticize their former editor, Blanche Evans, I think it was a better site when she was in charge.] I was struck by the title of one of the current articles, Why Own My Own Home? I have slogged through many Dream of Homeownership articles over the years that explained why it was the dream of every American to own their own home and the duty of the U.S. government and the mortgage industry to get us one. I find it interesting that now…
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The Fed’s own holdings of MBS were unchanged again and foreign central bank holdings agencies were flat, while treasuries had another strong gain, though not as strong as last week. This week’s Reuters report1 was, as usual, based on the weekly update from the NY Fed’s H.4.1 table site,2. Here is Doom’s updated CSV version3 of the agencies and treasuries foreign central bank holdings data set. Treasury Debt holdings have now advanced $89.618 billion above their 11/17 ’10 level. Treasury Debt was up $8.539 billion, so that we’re only $0.222 billion short of the May 18th figure. Agencies continued down,…
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There are those who figure that not owning any rental properties shouldn’t keep them out of the property rental business.  All it takes is a vacant foreclosure, a Craigslist ad, and no conscience:  [Thanks L!] Victim Loses Over $800 in Rental Scam: MyFoxPHOENIX.com So how do you make sure that your dream rental property is actually owned by the folks that are leasing it out? Police say there are ways to protect yourself. A landlord should always ask for a credit check. Never pay cash for rent. Talk to neighbors before you rent a home and check the county website…
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Investors have been a huge part of the housing market recently.  There’s a lot of folks who figure that prices have neared the bottom, and it’s time to jump back in. So where are the investors seeing the biggest returns?  Multi-family, single family, commercial? It turns out that the late George Carlin was right.  He said that the reason that people owned houses was because they needed “a place to put their stuff”.  In a world where folks are foreclosed on, downsizing, and/or moving in with relatives, they need an alternate place to put their stuff– in their storage units….
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