Bailout Payback? Realtors Double-Counted Home Sales For Last Five Years

In 2011, Forbes’ 23rd ‘Most Powerful Woman In The World’, HHS Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius was caught double-counting in the ObamaCare budget. Since then, the scandal has been ‘forgotten‘ – deep sixed.

Long shot, I know… but it’s as if Kathleen Sebelius, Goldman Sachs, GE, GM, Solyndra, Verizon, Toyota, National Association of Realtors and so many others knew all along there would be zero penalty for cooking the books.

Try double-counting your tax write-off’s…

The good news is, we know for sure that reported US Unemployment and National Debt figures are spot on.

Bailout Payback? Realtors Double-Count Home Sales For Five Years

(CNBC) Data on sales of previously owned U.S. homes from 2007 through October this year will be revised down next week because of double counting, indicating a much weaker housing market than previously thought.

The National Association of Realtors said a benchmarking exercise had revealed that some properties were listed more than once, and in some instances, new home sales were also captured.

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via Bailout Payback? Realtors Double-Counted Home Sales For Last Five Years.

Re-Defaults Flood Foreclosure Inventory

Nearly half, 45 percent, of October foreclosure starts were redefaults—mortgages which had previously defaulted and were modified unsuccessfully either by the lender or the federal government. About 105,000 redefaults increased total foreclosure starts in October to 232,865, 11.5 percent more than the level of a year ago.

These double losers are flooding the foreclosure inventory at a time when foreclosure sales are so slow that starts outnumber sales by a factor of three to one. The national foreclosure inventory hit an all-time high at the end of October of 4.29 percent of all active mortgages. Some 3.9 million loans are delinquent 90 days or more or in foreclosure, according to Lender Processing Services’ November Mortgage Monitor. LPS also reported that processing has slowed to point that the average foreclosure takes 632 days to process and sell.

The result is a huge inventory of empty homes that is still growing faster than it can be absorbed by the marketplace despite fewer defaults. The very existing of this glut of foreclosed properties, even if they are not yet listed for sale, depresses local home values and delays the housing recovery. Even as overall defaults have declined by about 30 percent, redefaults have increased this year, from about 32 percent of all defaults in January, increasing the foreclosure inventory with modification failures.

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via Two-time Losers Flood Foreclosure Inventory – UPI.com.

You Want to See a Sobering Real Estate Chart?

For most people, Friday’s just the day before the weekend. Here at Wall Street Daily, though, it’s much more.

It’s the day I sum up the week’s most important economic and investment news. And I do it without all the claptrap. Instead, I let some carefully selected graphics do most of the talking for me.

This week, we have a sobering reminder that the U.S. residential real estate market still stinks. (Don’t kill the messenger.) But before we get to such a depressing note, let’s start with an interesting observation about the never-ending debt crisis in Europe…

The Euro Crisis That Never Ends

This is the crisis that doesn’t end,

Yes, it goes on and on my friend,

Some people are worrying how bad Europe’s debt problem was

And they’ll keep worrying about it forever just because.

You’ve got to be just as tired of it as me. Every financial newscast, blog, newsletter, magazine, newspaper and conversation with friends is dominated by the dreaded debt crisis in Europe.

I get it. Fear sells. People are really worried. Not to mention, stocks are getting whipsawed back and forth on each new development.

But you know what almost no one’s talking about? That stocks in the beloved BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China – are getting clobbered, too.

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via You Want to See a Sobering Real Estate Chart? | Wall Street Daily.

via You Want to See a Sobering Real Estate Chart?.

“Does Anyone Really Know What is Going on with Foreclosures?”

Patrick Pulatie at LFI Analytics has noticed a huge discrepancy in the number of reported foreclosures by varying organizations. Via Email Pulatie writes …

Much of my off time is spent in reviewing the reports of other entities regarding the foreclosure crisis, correlating data and trying to forecast what to expect in the future.

Frankly, I am at the point where I am wondering whether anyone has a true reading on what is happening.

Office of the Comptroller of the Currency

At the end of the 2nd Quarter, the OCC reports:

It Monitored 32.7 million first mortgages out of 53 million total, representing 62% of all first mortgages.

4.9% or 1.57 million were more than 60 days late, or at least 1 month late while in Bankruptcy.

5.5 million are late by over 30 days, or in the foreclosure process.

1.3 million in some stage of foreclosure.

88% of mortgages were current. (This would mean that 3.944 million were not current of the 32.7 million being monitored.)

800,000 REO’s

If 1.57 million loans are more than 60 days late and 5.5 million are late by over 30 days, then 3.8 million must be between 30 days and 60 days late.

Continue reading:

via Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis: “Does Anyone Really Know What is Going on with Foreclosures?”.

Foreclosure backlog deepens

Foreclosure backlog deepens

Les Christie, On Wednesday October 5, 2011, 1:15 pm EDT

As the foreclosure backlog continues to build up, delinquent borrowers are spending even more time in their homes without making mortgage payments.

Once borrowers start missing payments, they spend an average of a year and nine months, or 611 days, in foreclosure before banks repossess their homes, according to LPS Mortgage Monitor. That’s more than twice as long as three years ago, when the average was 251 days. Earlier his year, the average was 523 days.

“The number of defaults in the pipeline has been huge and we had more problem loans than ever before,” said Herb Belcher, who supervises analytics for Lender Processing Services (LPS), which provides mortgage industry information and analytics to big banks.

With so many bad loans, servicers have had to prioritize which ones they can deal with and which ones to push aside.

“It’s like your boat has all these holes in it and is taking in water. You have to plug up the worst holes first,” said Belcher.

Squatter nation: five years with no mortgage payment

The bottlenecks are particularly severe in judicial states where the foreclosures are processed through the courts, he said. In non-judicial states, where trustees handle the cases, the average foreclosure is six months shorter.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which account for the majority of all mortgage lending these days, have been actively lobbying their industry partners — the servicers and attorneys who handle the foreclosure process — to either quickly get paperwork filed and push defaults through the system or put borrowers into a foreclosure prevention program, said Belcher.

The industry has gotten better at dealing with the deluge; it has hired staff and refined procedures to improve efficiency. But a return to more normal processing times will take time given the enormous backlog.

Continue reading:

via Foreclosure backlog deepens – Yahoo! Finance.

Don’t Expect A Housing Market Recovery Until 2014 – Forbes

Don’t Expect A Housing Market Recovery Until 2014 – Forbes.

I think this author is a tad optimistic.  The author makes an unsupported underlying assumption, that the job market will have improved rather than degenerated between now and 2014, with no evidence that the jobs market is recovering in fact quite the contrary.  A dismal housing market is only the symptom of the economic disease, not the actual disease.  If unemployment is still hovering near historic levels and remains stubbornly persistent…where are all the buyers of these homes going to come from?  China?

It’s difficult to see a 2014 recovery in the housing market when the FED is holding interest rates at historic lows, Fannie and Freddie government loan guarantees continue, and a massive backlog of bank foreclosures remains in the pipeline.  With all of this effort to prop up the housing market,  how can we expect to see market clearing prices in housing to materialize?  It won’t until all of these market interventions are abandoned and housing prices are allowed drop substantially.  Only after the market is allowed to bottom,  can any hope for a recovery in housing exist.

 

The Coming Currency Crisis

The Coming Currency Crisis – Casey Research.

California shacking – three trends crushing the California housing market. Young workers moving back home, household incomes back to 1990s levels, and lack of an entry level market.

California shacking – three trends crushing the California housing market. Young workers moving back home, household incomes back to 1990s levels, and lack of an entry level market. » Dr. Housing Bubble Blog.

 

Of course a weak housing market is the result of a weak jobs market.

Don’t Buy A House In 2011 Before You Read These 20 Wacky Statistics About The U.S. Real Estate Crisis

Don’t Buy A House In 2011 Before You Read These 20 Wacky Statistics About The U.S. Real Estate Crisis.

Homeowners facing foreclosure race to get help from mortgage assistance program

Homeowners facing foreclosure race to get help from mortgage assistance program – The Washington Post.