patrick.net

Instead of the negative:

“The US housing bust is like a leaking ship.” and “Home prices expected to drop”

They could have been positive and said: "Good news in housing market - savers and responsible borrowers see increasing affordability"

Where is the Love?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SI-MHhEJxI

I thought was mine o' mine

'til the end of time...

Can anyone summarize the new bankruptcy laws? Or the fraud laws? I have certainly seen my fair share of fraud in my neighborhood. Watching homes pass from owners, to realtors, to undocumented immigrants. With no income documentation they are able to buy $650k homes, cash $30k out of the home in just a few months, buy cars and other toys, then just wander off to the next town.

What I want to know is how much of this can be recovered? Can the system take back the goods, the cash, the bonuses? How much is shielded by bankruptcy? How far can financial recovery go in fraud?

For the Wall Street types, remember when the unethical, biased research was used to pump stock prices? The firms had to pay back billions. Will we get that here? All of that Wall Street leakage on bonuses. How much of that can be recovered.

May as well think about it now - its going to get very, very ugly.

Since when is it a big deal to place illegals in loans there's NFW they can honor, get cash back at close and have realtors get "just and due compensation" for steering unqualified buyers to their MB buddies?

Really Duke, you can be such a busy body sometimes!

In a nutshell the new BK laws require that anyone that files be "means tested". You can't just file b/c it's convenient for you at the time. There has to be documented hardship and demonstrated inability to pay.

HR 3648 will basically "do away" with the term "fraud". It's so... 2005?

SP,

I think Financial Times and Bloomberg have been pretty good on the subject for some time now.

Inside the print media world, it's been pretty much a given that NYT plays brontosaurus to Bloomberg's velociraptor - it takes the old girl a while to make course corrections, but she eventually does. However, once the Grey Lady is finally on the job, the tide turns in NY and at all those affiliated mid-market papers.

By the time Reuters or, especially, the Associated Press are aroused from their stupor, it's something everyone already knows about excepting possibly Readers' Digest.

Market Wrapup from Gary Dorsch at Financial Sense.
Red Chips! Greenspan's comments on the chart are very amusing. ...that or they'll just piss you off.

http://tinyurl.com/1w56

I predict many more sob stories.

Like this one:

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=business&id=5662611

Let's see, who am I mad at for that particular story. . .

Of course Countrywide has no business putting a single mother of 9 who is a housecleaner into a home. I hope Countrywide loses their shirt.

But at what point does the borrower feel she is owed a home? Low income and high expenses (God bless the little ones) is no recipe for home ownership.

eburbed,

You are correct sir. The human tragedy of this mess will be the MSM's trusty topic for months if not years.

Unfortunately, these stories will also serve those that had a hand in it. Quotes like; But the California Association of Mortgage Brokers believes lenders should work with homeowners. “As long as its a person who played by the rules and didn't cut corners, we are strong advocates of lenders helping homeowners stay in their homes," said Ed Craine from the California Association of Mortgage Brokers.

Hey Ed, how about you brokers refund your Yield Point Spread kickbacks to help the lender, help the borrower that you helped into a loan with higher interest rates than there would have been? That should cover a couple payments and get a few FBs through Christmas.

Steveoh,

Precisely! And... it further supports the notion that we should pay no mind to "foreclosure figures". My guess is, going forward they are going to be as "cooked" as any other NAR bs.

What we need to focus on is "How many of your loans are paying EXACTLY "as agreed". I don't give a sweet mother f@ck about what percentage are in NOD/"distress" etc! (Hell, you guys won't issue that unless you're absolutely left with no other alternative!)

Boys, the SSOTW's have been coming along at a steady clip for well over a year now. It's nothing new. What I've noticed is that without fail they all somehow fail to find a true "victim", meaning there's always a catch where one could argue the FB either got what they deserved or should never have been given a loan in the first place.

Case in point, eburbed's link - since when should a single income housecleaner be given a home loan? Or the WSJ article from earlier this week about the "United States of Subprime":

Kristine McMahon has a six-figure income as a mortgage broker and lives in a four-bedroom home in East Hampton, N.Y., valued at more than $2.7 million. Yet Ms. McMahon, who works for Manhattan Mortgage, chose a subprime loan for herself when she refinanced last year to turn some of her home equity into cash. Ms. McMahon says that at the time of the refinancing, a conventional lender would not allow her to take out as much cash during the refinancing as her subprime lender, New Century Financial Corp., which is now operating under bankruptcy-court protection. Ms. McMahon chose a subprime loan that carried a fixed-rate of 6.45% for the first two years before turning into an adjustable rate. She plans to sell the house before the higher adjustable rates kick in.

So exactly how much MEW did this be-atch take out? Should we bail her out if her plan doesn't go as expected???

From William Poole (Fed president of St Louis)
"There is no new lesson here: Sound mortgage underwriting should always be based on analysis of the borrower’s capacity to repay and not on the assumption that a bad loan can be recovered through foreclosure without loss because of rising property values."

Our topic thread a few days ago was a lender bashing realtors, what we need is a thread where realtors, Wall Street, appraisers, etc all weigh in on the lenders.

Unfortunately, when banks fail, the tax payers pay. And as a tax payer I want to recover as much as possible from those who profited by the poor lending standards.

skibum,

So right. (Calming down.... Serenity now....)

It just gets my goat when these stories:
- put entitlement where there is none
- exonerate the many architects of this debacle
- spin half truths into something that makes no sense to a discerning audience

The problem is that if a lie is told enough, it can become truth to many. Then policy changes…

skibum,

Why do you hate Amerika? Why can't someone that fills out forms and makes a few follow up calls live in a 2.7 mil. home?

Pffftt.

Oh and she had her "exit strategy" scripted before she even signed doc's! This is "self dealing" at it's finest. Remember, she probably got paid a commission (or drastically reduced her fees) above and beyond what any of her "clients" would have had access to!

I'm sorry, that 'should' read:

"she probably got paid a HEFTY commission"

Which she... in turn used as qualifying income (before it was actually paid)... to qualify for the loan (she otherwise would not have gotten) on a 2.7 mil. investment w/nothing down, that... appreciated @ 30% a year... that lived in the house that Kristine built!

Please tell me I'm not the only person that sees something wrong w/ this?

Pffftt is right.

There is no poster child. You can almost spot the precise point where each journalist realizes they have a zero on their hands, and not a victim.

I think people who read these little trainwrecks are getting it. I certainly hope so.

I mean... why go to the trouble of doing some sort of 'Ponzi scheme' when you can do all this yourself without running the risk of engaging in what might be "misconstrued" as "criminal activity"?

After all, her girlfriend at New Century was her processor? What did Kristine have to fear? Crissakes, she's so sure of her position she's openly talking to the paper!

(If I pulled a little stunt like that I wouldn't be talking at all...) :(

DinOR,

It's blaring. ...and probably pretty common.

Is this a realistic scenario? Realtor represents self as buyer in transaction, charges full commission, 110% / 0 down financing on overpriced property, calls it owner occupied but never moved in, relisted it minutes before driving to the closing meeting or kept the property a pocket listing, represented self as sellers agent, phantom bidding, etc...

It's like a dance really. Until it stops with a lack of buyers. Then the alligator tears are drummed up. In fact, if I were one of these people, I would right the news story myself and mail it in.

right >>write