investing in real estate: Housing Starts Move Up a Bit
- 10/19/10 04:45 AM
Housing starts unexpectedly moved up in September. Starts jumped 10.5% in August and continued on that trend by moving from 598,000 to 610,000 in September. This is above the expected forecast and is also up 4.1% as compared to last year's numbers. The main component of this rise was a 4.4% gain in single-family starts. The multifamily component dropped, however. On the other hand, permits dropped 5.6% with the main cause being attributed to the multifamily component. Single-family permits actually increased slightly. The annualized rate of permits is down 10.9% as compared to a year ago. The region which had the … (0 comments)
investing in real estate: Will the Massive Mortgage Mess Mean the End of Mortgages?
- 10/14/10 08:43 AM
The only entity which has the legal standing to foreclose on a homeowner is the note-holder. The note is the actual IOU signed by the homeowner promising to pay back the loan. In the old days, before Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS), most loans were kept locally by the originating bank and the banks held the notes and, thus, could easily foreclose. One of the reasons for Mortgage Backed Securities is that the bonds created could have different levels of security. Bonds which held high-quality mortgages would be relatively safe, bonds which were based on sub-prime mortgages would be more risky, but … (2 comments)
investing in real estate: Now mortgage releases are in doubt!
- 10/11/10 04:55 AM
The massive mortgage mess just keeps getting more and more complex. The robo-signature problem hit home this morning on the 4closureFraud.org blog. He demonstrates that mortgage releases will also be in doubt. The example used is a release for a mortgage in the name of President Obama. The signature demonstrably doesn't match up with other alleged signatures of the bank executive who signed Obama's release of mortgage. I've already asked this, but here it is again. How can you sell a house if there is some doubt whether the previous mortgage has been released? If the title company won't insure the … (2 comments)
investing in real estate: A quick summary of the Foreclosure Mess
- 10/08/10 08:43 AM
Bank of America announced that they would halt foreclosure proceedings in all 50 states pending review of the thousands of documents that they use to process foreclosures. This is part of the growing scandal relating to foreclosures nationwide. There are two parts to this problem. The first is that the banks have apparently been using unverified documents to process foreclosures. Public knowledge of this has been growing over the last several days. Some bank-hired foreclosure mills seem to have been providing the banks with documents which lack some measure of validity. The banks seem to have been approving the foreclosure actions … (0 comments)
investing in real estate: Pending home sales increases may be deceptive
- 10/04/10 04:27 AM
The National Association of Realtors developed the pending home sales index to be used as a leading indicator of housing sales. It is specific to existing home sales and does not represent new home sales. The Pending Home Sales Index jumped 4.3% in August, having previously jumped 4.5% in July. A quick take on this would be that housing is coming back from the bottom it made due to the end of the stimulus payout. But, wait a minute! Is this really the good news that it seems? Think about it a minute. Pendings include all of those wonderful short-sales which … (1 comments)
investing in real estate: Will it become too expensive for banks to foreclose?
- 09/24/10 08:44 AM
Just when we'd all heard that housing indications were trending upward, today's new home sales number came in at a lackluster 288,000 units annually. This is essentially unchanged from July's number. Total housing supply fell to 206,000 which is the lowest level since 1968. The problem is that sales have slipped, perhaps due to the loss of buyers who were persuaded to purchase earlier in the year by the tax rebate stimulus. This oversupply led to a decline in the median price which slipped 0.6% to a new seven-year low of $204,700. The potential of the rapidly increasing shadow inventory of … (0 comments)
investing in real estate: Title problems may interfere with foreclosure actions.
- 09/20/10 09:11 AM
A recent court case in Florida signifies problems for banks wanting to foreclose. A bank filed for foreclosure and submitted an assignment of mortgage as basis for the case. The court found that the mortgage was carried on the books of Fannie Mae and, thus, didn't belong to the servicing bank. Apparently only Fannie Mae, the owner of the mortgage, had the right to foreclose, yet the servicing bank filed the case. The judge found that the servicing bank's actions amount to a knowing deception and are therefore fraud. How often does this type of fraud occur? Are there a large number of … (30 comments)
investing in real estate: A Financial Report Card just came out and it looks like we're flunking!
- 09/18/10 06:13 AM
The Federal Reserve Flow of Funds report was released on the 17th. It shows that household net worth, which is defined as assets less liabilities, plunged by over one and one-half trillion dollars during the second quarter of this year. This huge decline seems to be mostly due to drops in corporate equity and in pension fund holdings. Net worth of US households apparently tracked the stock market's performance. Total US household financial assets declined by $1.7 trillion to $43.7 trillion. This means that US households are back at the same net worth level they had in the third quarter of … (0 comments)
investing in real estate: Bank-owned Properties Hitting the Market at an Increasing Rate
- 09/17/10 05:49 AM
Fannie and Freddie now own more than 191,000 homes and they are foreclosing on homes at a higher rate than the homes are selling. They are warning lenders to reclaim homes quickly once the available foreclosure alternatives are exhausted. The two mortgage companies now own more than twice as many homes as they owned at the close of last year. New foreclosure actions are up to more than 150,000 in July according to the Wall Street Journal quoting LPS Applied Analytics. Some pundits think that this action will possibly be enough to start the housing market on its next leg down. … (0 comments)
investing in real estate: Is this the Right Time to Invest in Real Estate?
- 09/16/10 09:14 AM
RE/MAX founder, Dave Liniger, recently stated that "Investor Business Will Grow." According to Liniger, who cited surveys by Campbell Communications, investors have purchased approximately 20% of the homes in the national market during the past year. Liniger states that first-time buyers will account for fewer transactions than they have in the past and current homeowners who need to sell are unlikely to gain much more market share then their current position of slightly less than 40%. Despite the 12.5 months of oversupply of existing homes in July (according to the National Association of Realtors), Dave thinks that more and more … (1 comments)
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Housing starts unexpectedly moved up in September. Starts jumped 10.5% in August and continued on that trend by moving from 598,000 to 610,000 in September. This is above the expected forecast and is also up 4.1% as compared to last year's numbers. The main component of this rise was a 4.4% gain in single-family starts. The multifamily component dropped, however.
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