I’ve had occasion to drive by Occupy Austin a time or two, as well as seeing the Occupy Wall Street protests on TV.  For the most part, I haven’t been impressed much by the signs I’ve seen. [I don't think signs that say, for example, tax the rich or corporations are evil are clever, informative, or very useful.] I saw one online today though that I really liked:

Feeling tired and rundown because you have an out of shape mortgage?  The FHFA is working on a plan for you to shed those excess dollars on your mortgage: WASHINGTON, Oct 26 (Reuters) – The regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was reviewing a proposal to help troubled homeowners by forgiving a portion of their outstanding mortgage debt, Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives said on Wednesday. The head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), which oversees the mortgage-financing companies, met with 19 Democrats and discussed a proposal that would allow bankruptcy judges to reduce principal amounts…
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From the website of PMI Mortgage Insurance: [Hat tip L!] To all policyholders, insureds, and servicers: On August 19, 2011, PMI informed you of regulatory decisions that impacted our ability to write new commitments of insurance. Specifically, PMI Mortgage Insurance Co. (“PMI”) was required to cease writing new commitments. Today, we are informing all policyholders, insureds, and servicers of loans insured by PMI that the Director of the Arizona Department of Insurance obtained an “Order Directing Full and Exclusive Possession and Control of Insurer” (the “Order”) with respect to PMI. Under the Order, the Arizona Department of Insurance now has…
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The proliferation of “too big to fail” banks may be playing havoc with our economy, but at least we can have fun singing about it.  Here’s the latest video from our friends at VersusPlus:   IPO, anyone?

Foreclosures have slowed and home prices are remaining relatively flat.  These sobering statistics, however, show why it’s still too early to think that the housing market has bottomed: – Median household income has fallen for three straight years, declining 6.4 percent from $52,823 in 2007 to $49,445 in 2010. –The portion of households living in poverty grew to 15.1 percent last year, encompassing a record 46.2 million people. For a family of four, that meant income of less than $22,314. – More families are “doubling up” because of the economy. The number of combined households rose to 21.8 million this…
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I couldn’t help but be struck by the similarity of these two articles this past week.  It appears that on both the federal and state (AZ) level, foreclosure assistance is going begging. First this federal program for the unemployed: The federal government can’t even give money away to help the unemployed pay their mortgage. A $1 billion program to assist the jobless will likely end up spending only half the funds, at most, because so few people met the strict criteria. The Housing Department, which had to approve the applications for the Emergency Homeowners’ Loan Program by Friday, expects that…
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A lot of folks don’t believe that “It’s always a good time to buy or sell a house” anymore. Homeownership is at its lowest point in years.  This is a trend that is likely to continue for awhile.  People don’t see a lot of reward, and are worried about the downside.

According to yesterday’s New York Times, Foreclosures Are Killing Us.  The article was written by Craig E. Pollack, an assistant professor of internal medicine at Johns Hopkins and Julia F. Lynch, associate professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania. If you believe the article, losing a house isn’t just an economic issue, but a health issue– and they describe the situation as “epidemic”: Foreclosure is not just a metaphorical epidemic, but a bona fide public health crisis. When breadwinners become ill, they miss work, lose their jobs, face daunting medical bills — and have trouble making mortgage payments as…
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A Mattia Mcintyre of Hannibal, New York was in talks with Citimortgage to refinance her home.  She was behind in her payments, but she had not received a Notice of Default.  Imagine her surprise when she came home to find that without giving notice, the lender hired a contractor to clean out her house. Safeguard Properties LLC was hired by Citimortgage to secure the property.  I found the following from their website ironic: At Safeguard, we believe that communication is the key to all areas of success.  Without it, we cannot successfully manage the preservation process or our relationships with…
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On of the bigger chuckles I’ve had this week was an explanation of how junk bonds work, forwarded to me by L.  For those of you who wondered what “mortgage bond securities” were and how they worked, this is one of the clearer explanations of how bond markets work that I’ve seen. I understand it’s been floating around the internet awhile, but it was new to me. Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Detroit. She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar. To solve…
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Stan Humphries, chief economist for Zillow, spoke yesterday about government intervention in the housing markets.  I loved his point that “government policy can only do so much against fundamental market movements.  He made three major points: First, don’t underestimate the market’s ability to fix itself. This is, in fact, already happening. We may not like the timetable, but economic recovery can’t always happen overnight. Second, many policies addressing foreclosures are simply addressing symptoms, not fundamental drivers of a healthy housing market. Yes, declining values have led to foreclosures, which have created an excess supply of housing. But eliminating this excess…
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It has been interesting watching the mantra of the National Association of Realtors change with the changing market.  At the peak it was “Buy before it’s too late!” As the market started to cool it was “It’s always a great time to buy or sell a house!” As it cooled further, the new mantra was “You don’t want to time the market.”  Here’s the latest version I’ve seen of that advice: QUESTION: We are tired of renting and want to buy a home but we are afraid that prices will keep falling. How do we know when it is the…
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Yesterday L sent me an article from the Arizona Republic titled 101-year-old Detroit Woman Evicted in Foreclosure. It sounds at first like an evil lender sends out some dastardly Snidely Whiplash-type to evict an aged grandmother.  When you read the story though, you realize there’s more to it: DETROIT – A 101-year-old woman was evicted from the southwest Detroit home where she lived for nearly six decades after her 65-year-old son failed to pay the mortgage. Texana Hollis was evicted Monday and her belongings were placed outside the home. Her son, Warren Hollis, said he didn’t pay the bill for…
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Sometimes things are stated so succinctly, you can post them with very little comment.  I’ve read a lot of opinions about the administration’s efforts to prevent foreclosure through loan modification.  For the most part, the experts agree that loan mods have failed and will continue to fail.  I found two statements that really get to the heart of the matter and explain why.  The first is from Wall Street Pit: It appears despite the record low mortgage rates, people are more or less tapped out even in terms of refinancing – i.e. almost everyone who is able to refinance has…
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I’ve seen agents roll their eyes and wring their hands when discussing short sales.  Dealing with the lenders is not often easy, and the process can be complex.  Even still, short sales are on the rise: [Thanks L!] Short sales are increasing as a percentage of home sales in many states, helping some neighborhoods and homeowners avoid the more devastating impacts of foreclosures. Short sales — when lenders allow financially strapped borrowers to sell homes for less than their unpaid mortgage — accounted for 12% of home sales nationwide in the second quarter. That’s up from 10% in the same…
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