Housing and Economic Collapse - In Progress #4

[dolanbaker]

The Scariest Housing Market Chart Ever

Those charts really should be referenced against the long term average rather than the previous peak, that peak being the anomaly not the drop!

[SeaGypsy]

I like it the way it is, because nobody buys on the basis of long term averages, they buy on expecting price to grow, above purchase price at their entry point/ with any historical high as a guide post.

[Keith_McClary]

Uncle Sam’s Fire Sale. Minimum Investment: $1 Billion

the federal government is about to dump millions of the foreclosed homes at fire-sale prices to hedge funds and private-equity firms with government connections. If you’re an individual investor who might like to get in on the action, forget it! You’re shut out of this deal.
...
“The US taxpayer will get pennies on the dollar for these homes, and then be allowed to rent them back at market rates.”
...
The big boys can smell the money and they are lining up to play.

Among the players that expect to profit big from this government-sponsored scam are the private firms that already manage properties for the government. The Department of Housing and Urban Development calls them “management and marketing contractors.” Their principal owners and officers tend to consist of former high-ranking officials with HUD, the Treasury, FHA and so on.
...
No, the only way you’ll be able to make any money off these insider deals will come long after the feast is over and you’re allowed a few crumbs. “Once the privatization has occurred,” one analyst observes, “and the properties are generating rental income for the investors, the initial investors will cash out by forming real estate investment trusts (REITs), real estate operating companies (REOCs) or limited partnerships that will be made available to retail investors.”

[Keith_McClary]

[Keith_McClary]

There’s Never Been a Worse Time to Buy a House

Now that the banks are confident that a settlement will be reached in the $25 billion robo-signing scandal, they’ve started aggressively processing the mountainous backlog of delinquent mortgages on their books. As the process gains pace, a deluge of REOs will be dumped onto the market pushing down home prices and adding to the 10.7 million properties that are already underwater. Fitch Ratings Agency estimates that home prices could fall another 9.1 percent before the market touches bottom.
...
Fortunately, President Obama has devised a plan that will reduce the number of foreclosures, shore up dwindling home equity, and keep as many victims of this banking scam in their homes as possible.

How? By providing lavish subsidies to the same group of bottomfeeding card-sharks who triggered the crisis to begin with. Don’t believe me? Just look at this.
...

[Alohafax]

The Scariest Housing Market Chart Ever

Those charts really should be referenced against the long term average rather than the previous peak, that peak being the anomaly not the drop!

I agree to a large extent; the bubble at its peak was as much an aberration as the recession at its bottom (early 2009) was. Since I work in real estate here in Hawaii and have decades of experience in the market, I've watched these sorts of boom/bust cycles multiple times over the years, though the current recession is admittedly far worse than anything in living memeory. The good news is that, for Hawaii at least, home sales and home construction starts were both up in 2011, with 2012 looking solid so far - you can see my own calculations on this at http://www.alohatony.com/blog/turning-the-tide-in-hawaiis-real-estate-market.html. Hopefully the worst is behind us, at least as far as property goes.

[eXpat]

Just after hours
Fitch downgrades JPMorgan Chase

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The closing bell brought no relief for JPMorgan Chase on Friday, as a major credit rating agency moved to downgrade its debt almost exactly 24 hours after the bank revealed a $2 billion trading loss.

Fitch Ratings downgraded both JPMorgan's short-term and long-term debt, with the latter falling to A+ from AA-. The bank, the country's largest by assets, was also placed on ratings watch negative.
Fitch said it views the $2 billion loss as "manageable" but added that "the magnitude of the loss and ongoing nature of these positions implies a lack of liquidity."

"It also raises questions regarding JPM's risk appetite, risk management framework, practices and oversight," the agency said.

The downgrade is a reaction to news that came via a hastily arranged conference call after the market close on Thursday, when CEO Jamie Dimon revealed that the bank had suffered $2 billion in losses over the past six weeks.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/05/11/markets/jpmorgan-fitch-downgrade/

[mattduke]

Unfortunately for those concerned that foreclosures are driving down home values, there doesn't seem to be any slowdown in the glut of distressed properties on the market, according to a new survey.
According to the latest data from RealtyTrac, an online marketplace for foreclosed properties, 26% of sales during the first quarter of 2012 were for homes in some stage of foreclosure. Short sales also hit a three-year high during that period.
Several states had foreclosure sales rates far exceeding the national average. More than half of all sales in Nevada -- 56% -- were for homes in some stage of foreclosure. In California and Georgia, nearly half of all home sales in the first quarter were foreclosures at 47% and 46%, respectively.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-fin ... home-sales

[Keith_McClary]

How to Build a Mortgage-free Small House for $5,900

We had a relative who worked at a lumber supply house and would call us whenever they had seconds on sale.
We purchased anything they had figuring we would need it eventually.

[autonomous]

Exclusive: U.S. banks told to make plans for preventing collapse

U.S. regulators directed five of the country's biggest banks, including Bank of America Corp and Goldman Sachs Group Inc, to develop plans for staving off collapse if they faced serious problems, emphasizing that the banks could not count on government help.

According to documents obtained by Reuters, the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency first directed five banks - which also include Citigroup Inc,, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co - to come up with these "recovery plans" in May 2010.

They told banks to consider drastic efforts to prevent failure in times of distress, including selling off businesses, finding other funding sources if regular borrowing markets shut them out, and reducing risk. The plans must be feasible to execute within three to six months, and banks were to "make no assumption of extraordinary support from the public sector," according to the documents.

Bank of America and Citigroup, in a sense, have already been executing the kind of moves called for in the recovery plans. Both have been selling off non-core operations and assets to streamline their sprawling businesses, after receiving multiple bailouts during the financial crisis.

http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/08/10/idINL2E8J6D7920120810

[Plantagenet]

Obama administration announces it won't prosecute ANYONE at Goldman Sachs for their role in creating and selling mortgage Credit-default swaps resulting in the 2008 financial meltdown.

Obama administration won't prosecute Goldman Sachs for financial shenanigans leading up to 2008 financial meltdown

The huge campaign donations Goldman Sachs made to the Obama campaign in 2008 have really paid off for them.

[pstarr]

Obama administration announces it won't prosecute ANYONE at Goldman Sachs for their role in creating and selling mortgage Credit-default swaps resulting in the 2008 financial meltdown.

Obama administration won't prosecute Goldman Sachs for financial shenanigans leading up to 2008 financial meltdown

The huge campaign donations Goldman Sachs made to the Obama campaign in 2008 have really paid off for them.

OMG! Planty doesn't like Obama! Send in the Marines.

[AdTheNad]

Obama administration announces it won't prosecute ANYONE at Goldman Sachs

Which bankers would your boy Mitt prosecute, and can we get a written unbreakable pledge to that effect?

[careinke]

Obama administration announces it won't prosecute ANYONE at Goldman Sachs

Which bankers would your boy Mitt prosecute, and can we get a written unbreakable pledge to that effect?

So, it is OK that Obama is not prosecuting, but from the person who is NOT the current president, we need a written guarantee that he will prosecute? Sounds fair to me..... No double standard here.

[Pops]

BS, you can't have it both ways.

"ultimately concluded that the burden of proof to bring a criminal case could not be met based on the law and facts as they exist at this time,"

This is a great victory for the right whose express goal is to reduce regulations!

Do you really think it is because they care about jobs for the proles?


Lets be clear about what a Romney administration stands for:

A Romney administration will act swiftly to tear down the vast edifice of regulations the Obama administration has imposed on the economy...

Repeal Dodd-Frank..

http://www.mittromney.com/issues/regulation

Crimney! How far do they have to go? What do they have to do to convince you that you are just a vote they can buy? Why not just hand over the keys?
It makes me crazy!

--
Plant, do you ever investigate the stuff rush tells you before regurgitating it? By your metric it is pretty obvious who GS thinks will kiss their ass this go 'round

GS Contributions
Candidate ................Amount
Romney, Mitt (R) $601,580
Obama, Barack (D) $100,424

[careinke]

Ahh, spoken as a true looter at heart. BTW my comment was based on the argument given by Ad, not the fact that Obama was correctly taking no action.

BS, you can't have it both ways.

"ultimately concluded that the burden of proof to bring a criminal case could not be met based on the law and facts as they exist at this time,"

This is a great victory for the right whose express goal is to reduce regulations!
(True, it is nice to see that the O admin actually followed the law this time.)
Do you really think it is because they care about jobs for the proles? (Why should they care about jobs for the proles, the proles don't, they would rather suck on the teat of the producers in society.)


Lets be clear about what a Romney administration stands for:

A Romney administration will act swiftly to tear down the vast edifice of regulations the Obama administration has imposed on the economy...

Repeal Dodd-Frank..

http://www.mittromney.com/issues/regulation

(See, even Mitt has some positive attributes.)

Crimney! How far do they have to go? What do they have to do to convince you that you are just a vote they can buy? Why not just hand over the keys?
It makes me crazy! (What makes you crazy, is some people hold different views than you do, get over it.)

--
Plant, do you ever investigate the stuff rush tells you before regurgitating it? By your metric it is pretty obvious who GS thinks will kiss their ass this go 'round

GS Contributions
Candidate ................Amount
Romney, Mitt (R) $601,580
Obama, Barack (D) $100,424

So, if you take less than $101,000 from an "Evil Corporation" it's OK, but if you take more than $601,000 it's bad. To grossly paraphrase WC Fields, we already know they are both whores, they just have a different price.

[Plantagenet]

Plant, do you ever investigate the stuff rush tells you before regurgitating it?

Pops, do you ever read the news before dismissing everything critical of Obama as dishonest slander coming from Rush?

The news about the Obama administration deciding to not prosecute anyone at Goldman Sachs for their role in pushing billions in sketchy mortgage credit default swaps prior to the 2008 financial collapse was all over the media. PBS, NBC, ABC, and CBS all covered it. So did CNN, NYT and WaPo. The link in my post is to the story in Reuters.

[Pops]

Of course I know what the story is about Plant, too little regulation to allow prosecution. That is all on the right. Accusing me of defending everything Obama is just you laying your single-mindedness off on me.

I was pointing out the ridiculousness your regurgitation of propaganda saying there is already too much regulation - when the story is there wasn't enough regulation!

Your every post is exactly the same, different only in the contortions you preform to blame O for the headline of the day, it would be comic if it wasn't so representative of the power of the great dittohead.


Here is the view you just outlined:
O is on the take because he won't prosecute GS for ripping people off.
But it is good that there aren't enough regulations to prevent GS from ripping people off.
Romney would ensure there are even fewer laws so GS can rip even more people off
The proles want to suck off the producers.
GS are the producers

Removing the remaining constraints to plutocracy is what it is about and it will come as a shock when you finally realize you are just another moocher whose jealousy of the "Looters & Moochers" was played like a fiddle by the plutocrats.

[Plantagenet]

Of course I know what the [failure to prosecute Goldman Sachs] story is about Plant, too little regulation to allow prosecution.

So there were enough laws and regulations on the books in 2001 for the Bush administration to charge and successfully prosecute the CEO, CFO, and other officers of ENRON, but somehow there just weren't enough laws and regulations there in 2009-12 for the Obama administration to charge even a single top executive at Goldman Sachs or Countrywide or WaMu or indeed at any other Wall Street Bank or bankrupt financial institution involved in the much much larger CDS mess and other financial shenanigans that led into the 2008 US financial collapse?

Where did all those pesky federal laws against fraud and financial misrepresentation used to prosecute a myriad of ENRON officials during the Bush administration disappear to after 2009, I wonder?

[Pops]

Come on Plant, Enron was accounting fraud, this is about the abacus bit where they bet against their own product and investors.

Just business as usual for the producers.