Housing Doom

It’s Friday, and if you are part of our Doom’s typical demographic, likely as not you are an affluent white male- and this issue might not be near and dear to your heart.  For this mother of five though, I’m watching the battle of HOAs vs. clotheslines heating up- and I’m on the side of the clotheslines: [Hat tip Freedom's Phoenix!]

PERKASIE, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - Carin Froehlich pegs her laundry to three clotheslines strung between trees outside her 18th-century farmhouse, knowing that her actions annoy local officials who have asked her to stop.

Froehlich is among the growing number of people across America fighting for the right to dry their laundry outside against a rising tide of housing associations who oppose the practice despite its energy-saving green appeal.

Although there are no formal laws in this southeast Pennsylvania town against drying laundry outside, a town official called Froehlich to ask her to stop drying clothes in the sun. And she received two anonymous notes from neighbors saying they did not want to see her underwear flapping about.

"They said it made the place look like trailer trash," she said, in her yard across the street from a row of neat, suburban houses. "They said they didn’t want to look at my ‘unmentionables.’

It’s a tougher economy out there these days, and people are looking to save money where they can:

Although exact numbers are difficult to come by, a Pew Research study found the number of Americans who deem the clothes dryer a necessity has dropped significantly since 2006 — from 83 percent to 67 percent. While that statistic doesn’t indicate how many people have switched to line-drying, anecdotal evidence suggests that for both economic and environmental reasons, more people are doing so.

HOAs however, are the natural enemies of clotheslines:

Florida, Utah, Maine, Vermont, Colorado, and Hawaii have passed laws restricting the rights of local authorities to stop residents using clotheslines. Another five states are considering similar measures, said Lee, 35, a former lawyer who quit to run the non-profit group.

His principal opponents are the housing associations such as condominiums and townhouse communities that are home to an estimated 60 million Americans, or about 20 percent of the population. About half of those organizations have ‘no hanging’ rules, Lee said, and enforce them with fines.

9.6% of American homeowners are behind on their mortgages and budgets are tight.  If it helps keep people in their homes, HOAs might consider that a clothesline in the backyard beats a foreclosure in the neighborhood.

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A recent court ruling forcing Citibank to continue funding a New York development might be a case where developers win a battle, but loose the war:

A ruling that Citigroup Inc. must resume lending to a stalled Syracuse, N.Y., mall project could push banks to revisit how they draft construction-loan agreements.

The New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division, in a split decision, upheld an lower court’s injunction requiring Citigroup to continue funding a $155 million construction loan on the Destiny USA Holdings project, even though the bank believes the project is a failure. Citi says the ruling is unprecedented in the state’s history. Now, New York lawyers are pondering how to write construction loans that would allow banks to stop funding what they believe are failing projects.

The ruling isn’t a total victory for Robert Congel, the developer behind Destiny. The court required the company to post a $15 million bond before Citi has to fund the rest of the money, roughly $29 million.
 

Why is this so significant?

This ruling definitely puts further strain on the market for construction financing.  Lenders are willing to take a bit of risk if the yield is right and it is clear that they have the option to back out of their commitment if the developer does not live up to his end of the deal.  But I can’t think of a single lender who would walk into a risky financing—no matter how high the yield is—if they cannot be certain on whether or not they have the right to back out when the developer fails to perform.  NY State Supreme Court’s decision in this case does nothing to provide that certainty.  Until lenders and their counsel can figure out a way to build that certainty back into their lending agreements, we can say goodbye to ground-up construction financing.

Commercial real estate lending might not be the only casualty of court rulings:

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This had to be an easy call- no one suspected the Butler.  Toxic loans have been found to be the cause of death for many banks: [Hat tip Freedom's Phoenix!]

The coroner’s report left no doubt as to the cause of death: toxic loans.

That was the conclusion of a financial autopsy that federal officials performed on Haven Trust Bank, a small bank in Duluth, Ga., that collapsed last December.

In what sounds like an episode of “CSI: Wall Street,” dozens of government investigators — the coroners of the financial crisis — are conducting post-mortems on failed lenders across the nation. Their findings paint a striking portrait of management missteps and regulatory lapses.

At bank after bank, the examiners are discovering that state and federal regulators knew lenders were engaging in hazardous business practices but failed to act until it was too late. At Haven Trust, for instance, regulators raised alarms about lax lending standards, poor risk controls and a buildup of potentially dangerous loans to the boom-and-bust building industry. Despite the warnings — made as far back as 2002 — neither the bank’s management nor the regulators took action. Similar stories played out at small and midsize lenders from Maryland to California.

How’s this for understatement of the year?

“We all could have done a better job,” said Sheila C. Bair, the chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

The New York Times indicated that one of the dangers now is that banks will be held to a too rigorous standard.  Not everyone agrees:

The Obama Administration is prepared to do anything, including dramatically lowering mortgage lending standards, to keep real estate prices inflated, as demonstrated by statements, reports and events in the month of October.

First came the Federal Housing Authority inspector general’s report on the FHA’s lender approval process, which found that FHA was missing or ignoring relevant information, failing to document loans, not preventing convicted financial criminals from participating in its lending program, and in most other ways failing to "ensure that lenders met all applicable requirements." The IG’s spot check revealed, for example, that just one out of 22 approved applications contained all the documentation needed to meet the FHA’s own standard for guaranteeing a loan.

So which way will the wind blow then?  Will banks be too strict, or too lenient?

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Wall Street may not like it, but lower housing starts is good news for the housing market:

Privately-owned housing starts in October were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 529,000. This is 10.6 percent (±8.7%) below
the revised September estimate of 592,000 and is 30.7 percent (±8.3%) below the October 2008 rate of 763,000.

Single-family housing starts in October were at a rate of 476,000; this is 6.8 percent (±7.5%)* below the revised September figure of
511,000. The October rate for units in buildings with five units or more was 48,000.

Here’s how one analyst sees the situation: [Thanks L!]

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Unemployed people can’t pay their mortgages.  Unemployment is up, and so is mortgage delinquencies:

The pace at which people fell behind on their mortgages slowed during the summer for the third consecutive quarter, but the overall delinquency rate hit another record, a new report shows.

For the three months ended Sept. 30, 6.25 percent of U.S. mortgage loans were 60 or more days past due, according to credit reporting agency TransUnion.
That’s up 58 percent from 3.96 percent a year ago.

Being two months behind is considered a first step toward foreclosure, because it’s so hard to catch up with payments at that point.

CNBC quotes F.J. Guarrera, vice president of TransUnion’s financial services division who said:

Two things must get better before mortgage delinquency rates start reversing themselves, he said: home values and unemployment. "Until we see improvement in both of those areas, it’s possible that it will take longer for delinquency to improve," Guarrera said.

Guarrera said he doesn’t expect declines until the middle of 2010.

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Chris Low, chief economist of FTN financial recently said:

[A] stable housing market is essential to a stable banking system, and he believes “everything that can go wrong in the housing market already has.”

I would disagree. One of the things that housing can still suffer from is attrition.  Some problems get worse over time.

One of the factors that can wear over time for housing is employment.  There is no such thing as a "jobless recovery"

With the unemployment rate at 10.2%, the stock market might take some comfort in the thought that we are closer to the peak in the unemployment than the trough.  Unfortunately, we are likely a lot closer to the beginning of a long, jobless recovery than the end.

If 200,000 jobs could be added monthly to nonfarm payrolls starting in November (and that will not happen in November), we would recover all of the jobs lost so far in the Great Recession sometime around April 2013.

Unemployed people don’t buy houses.  Underemployed people don’t buy houses.  People who are worried about their jobs don’t buy houses. [Unless they are downsizing.]

I don’t agree with the politics of John Buell, a political economist, but I have to give him his point here: 

One need only look at a number of widely accepted measures of economic health. While nearly one of six American workers is unemployed or underemployed, almost a third of our productive facilities stand idle. While homelessness continues to grow, nearly one in seven rental properties stands vacant and foreclosure rates rise.

Put aside Economics 101 and ask a simple question. Isn’t there something wrong with an economy that fails to steer unemployed workers into the unused plants? And if some policy achieved this purpose, wouldn’t more workers earn enough to rent those vacant homes and apartments?

Americans often pride themselves on looking at facts on the ground. I find it hard to deny that as an economy we have already produced enough homes and factories that everyone could live comfortably.

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1:27:42 No, might go wrong. - Allan Meltzer

Doom Transcripts: Index & Guide

Almost 19 months later, Doomers may enjoy putting some of these opinions up against what actually took place.

Housing Doom is pleased to present a complete unauthorized annotated transcript for the American Enterprise Institute’s April 28, 2008 event "What Lies Beyond the Credit Crunch? Part II".¹ The event site has a variety of resources including a summary and both an audio and a video of the proceedings. There is an official transcript, but the link to it does not seem to be currently working.

Table of Contents

[link navigation works best when full article displayed]

1. 0:00:00 - Peter Wallison Intro
2. 0:07:43 - Charles Calomiris presentation
3. 0:24:33 - Kevin Hassett presentation
4. 0:36:53 - (interruption for computer problems)
5. 0:39:20 - Desmond Lachman presentation
6. 0:55:22 - John Makin presentation
7. 1:15:02 - Allan Metzer presentation
8. 1:36:04 - Vincent Reinhart presentation
9. 1:55:20 - Panel discussion
   1. 1:55:36 - Calomiris discussion
   2. 2:00:18 - Hassett discussion
   3. 2:01:55 - Lachman discussion
   4. 2:03:41 - Makin discussion
   5. 2:06:49 - Meltzer discussion
   6. 2:10:30 - Reinhart discussion
10. 2:12:34 - Q&A
    1. 2:12:59 - Jeff Wrase question
       1. 2:13:28 - Makin response
       2. 2:13:39 - Wallison digression
          • 2:14:33 - Calomiris response
          • 2:15:47 - Lachman response
       3. 2:16:26 - Lachman response
       4. 2:17:06 - Makin (with Wallison) response
    2. 2:18:34 - Bert Ely question
       1. 2:19:21 - Calomiris response
    3. 2:20:38 - Pieter Bottelier question
       1. 2:21:11 - Meltzer response
       2. 2:23:52 - Makin response
    4. 2:25:00 - Steve Entin question
       1. 2:26:05 - Meltzer reply
       2. 2:27:39 - Lachman reply
    5. 2:28:18 Wallison brief wrap-up
11. 2:28:54 (end)
    • Notes and References

Peter Wallison: [0:00:00] OK, I think we’ll get started. Everyone take his or her seat. I want to welcome you all on a pretty raining and nasty day. I’m delighted that all of you came out. This should be one of the more interesting conferences of the year, and I can understand why you’re all here.

This is the 2nd conference on exactly the same subject. The last time these esteemed AEI economists got together to discuss the future of the credit crunch and the US economy was in December of 2007. At that conference there was sharp disagreement at to whether the US, as a result of that housing meltdown, the credit crunch and other factors was headed for a deep recession, a shallow recession, or merely a slowdown for a quarter or two.

The data presented at that conference showed a serious breakdown in trading in the credit markets, and major losses in housing values. These factors would suggest a serious recession. But at that point there was no clear evidence of a recession, during the 4th quarter of 2007, at least. The Dow, which opened at 13,339 that morning, was down from its high of 14,000, but certainly was not signaling a serious recession.

All the participants in the December conference thought that their predictions would be proved correct when several months of additional data was available, so we scheduled this conference to see [laughs] whether in fact their positions have changed, and whether things have become any clearer to our AEI economists.

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Dr. Jay Butler of ASU’s Realty Studies has released his monthly report on the Phoenix housing market.  He says he see’s "signs of recovery" in the market, but then goes on to say the market is "still bottoming out".  Here’s what Butler said about sales:

In October, foreclosures on 3,815 homes accounted for 38 percent of the total market, according to Butler. This is an increase from September’s 32 percent, but a drop from the 46 percent of a year ago. That’s not the whole story, however. Approximately 45 percent of traditional transactions — 6,140 sales — involved properties that had been in foreclosure. That means foreclosure-related activity was 66 percent of the market in October — about level with September.

While sales have returned to the levels of the boom years, the market is being driven by speculation and foreclosures.  October sales undoubtedly received a bump from the concern of buyers that the $8,000 credit would not continue.  Speculators, however, are having a hard time finding renters for these properties–the rental market is glutted.  The Phoenix economy continues to be poor and is unlikely to sustain it’s former rate of immigration.  What we are basically seeing is the activity of vultures picking over the carcass–this is not healthy activity.

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Well I think at some point we’re going to have a government in power that’s going to make a choice between the American people and our creditors, who are predominantly foreign. And I think that choice will involve letting the dollar depreciate. I don’t think we’ll ever actually repudiate our debts, as long as we can print more dollars. But I think that’s the fundamental political issue that faces our entire society … - Chris Whalen

Doom Transcripts: Index & Guide

Housing Doom is pleased to present a eighth and final selection from our under-construction transcript of the American Enterprise Institute’s October 22, 2009 event "The Deflating Bubble, Part VI: The Lessons of the Bubble and Crisis".¹

The event site has a number of resources, including an audio and video of the proceedings. There is as yet no official transcript.

The lively Question and Answer session that closed the conference featured everything from Roubini’s lurid medium term scenarios to Zimmernan’s surprising advice that Re-remics, along with just about any other recent real estate securitizations, are perfectly safe to buy.

Alex Pollock: [1:31:26] Let me come to our questions. We’re going to, we have microphones, a microphone in the back. Please remember how this works. Wait for the microphone, please tell us your name and your affiliation, and then ask your question. For those of you who may feel the urge to make an assertion in addition to your question, may I ask you to keep your assertion short and to the point, otherwise I’ll feel compelled to ask you to come to your question. … I have a hand way in the back, here. … Oh, it’s Bert [laughs] …

Bert Ely: I was hiding on you, Alex. Bert Ely, banking consultant. A suggestion and a question. In terms of describing the kind of recovery you have, let me offer another suggestion to you that I’ve been using. I call it a washboard recovery. Slow and very bumpy over the next few years.

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I’m not sure what to make of Fannie’s new "Deed for Lease" program: [Thanks Coffee!]

WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) is implementing the Deed for Lease(TM) Program under which qualifying homeowners facing foreclosure will be able to remain in their homes by signing a lease in connection with the voluntary transfer of the property deed back to the lender.

 

"The Deed for Lease Program provides an additional option for qualifying homeowners who are facing foreclosure and are not eligible for modifications," said Jay Ryan, Vice President of Fannie Mae. "This new program helps eliminate some of the uncertainty of foreclosure, keeps families and tenants in their homes during a transitional period, and helps to stabilize neighborhoods and communities."

 

The new program is designed for borrowers who do not qualify for or have not been able to sustain other loan-workout solutions, such as a modification. Under Deed for Lease, borrowers transfer their property to the lender by completing a deed in lieu of foreclosure, and then lease back the house at a market rate.

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