diana just released an article referencing the conspiracy theories on blogs about banks sanbagging inventory. FWIW I do not believe they are sandbagging properties they have taken back already, based on my research, they sell them once they process them, however I do think they are purposely moving slow on the actual foreclosures because it pencils out better. The article points out a couple of things, that it takes a while to process a foreclosure, that their goal is to not foreclose if they can find another option and finally that the final step in the forclosure process is down about 50% in the past few months as they were waiting on yet another gov’t program. We’ve seen this happen a few times, as soon as some new program is in the pipeline, the banks hold off on the final step, then after they realize it’s mostly smoke and mirrors, they start to foreclose again.
One element the conspiracy theorists fail to adress is that most of the banks conducting the forclosures are just servicers of the loan, it isn’t their money to lose, it’s a third party investor or many third party investors. The other issue that never gets addressed is that there are many banks in competition, who would love to screw each other. If I was bank A and I could screw bank B and C out of existence by dumping all my foreclosures at once, I’d do it, so would they. But if I was bank A and I could foreclose now and lose my investors 300k or modify the loan, take in a grand less per month for the next three years, then back to full price and even tack back on the lost interest. I’d lose my investors 36k at most and probaby 10k or less if it’s the interest on the mod, I’d try that one first, because Bank A’s job isn’t to correct the market, it isn’t to decide who to reward, it isn’t to let patient and prudent people buy houses, bank A’s job is to make money or lose as little as possible.
