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farbet
ParticipantFed ‘in a pickle,’ Pimco’s Gross says
Asserts falling home prices to dominate policy for years
By Rex Nutting, MarketWatch
Last Update: 12:40 PM ET Oct 1, 2007Print E-mail Subscribe to RSS Disable Live Quotes
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Falling home prices will dominate Federal Reserve policy for the next several years, despite “false hopes” of a bottom in housing, “faux economic strength” or worries about the dollar, says Bill Gross, managing director of Pacific Investment Management Co.
Chowderhead!!! are you reading this?The rest of the storyOctober 1, 2007 at 9:46 AM in reply to: Are you prepared to be ruled by a homeowners association? #86563ParticipantA clothesline in the backyard saves energy. Where is AL GORE?
ParticipantI want to join the”reverse flipper club”. Ditto
ParticipantI totally agree OC renter. Just the facts george
October 1, 2007 at 6:16 AM in reply to: Are you prepared to be ruled by a homeowners association? #86529ParticipantMean bastards these HOA’s are. Are the homeowners on the board of these associations?
ParticipantAnyone know what “George” is saying now? About his condo or about the mess housing is in. Who is he blaming now?
This is what he said August 11/07 before the Fed acted on August 17th..
American Dream is still aliveBy: GEORGE CHAMBERLIN – For the North County Times
Let me begin by passing along my congratulations to the many people who are celebrating the current situation in the housing market. In concert with much of the national and local media, they have been able to artificially construct something that has never —- I repeat, never —- been done before: drive down housing prices at a time when unemployment is low, the economy is booming and consumer confidence is approaching record highs.
A column I wrote about a year ago on the housing market triggered more hate mail than any other topic that I have discussed. I needed to check underneath my car and use a food taster for a couple of weeks after I suggested that the situation was dramatically overstated.
To be clear, in that column, I said right up front that I had no idea where housing prices were heading in the short term. Nor did I really care. I am not a speculator, so I could care less what changes might occur as far as the “market value” of my two personal residences is concerned. The value of these homes is better measured by the benefits they provide as a place to live for the rest of my life.
I also said that I couldn’t quite grasp the unbridled joy that the doom-and-gloomers seemed to have about the possibility that many families might lose their homes in a downturn. If flippers get burned, so be it. But there was elation being expressed that households would be disrupted in the correction.
To be sure, I know the ulterior motives behind these attitudes. But since I don’t want to crawl around and look under my car again or have someone taste my food, I’ll leave that alone.
I love a good debate, and there are many sides to the real estate argument. One of the biggest bears is David Rosenberg of Merrill Lynch, who said there is an additional 5 percent downside to housing prices. In other words, home prices could potentially dip over the next year the same amount that the stock market corrected in the last two trading sessions.
However, at Wachovia Securities, Mark Vitner says: “We are continuing to stand by our forecast that sales of both new and existing homes bottom out this summer. Once sales stop falling, the modest drop in physical inventories should begin to translate into a decline in the month’s supply figures.”
But never mind what a couple of Wall Streeters think about the housing market. I refer everyone to a new report, “California’s Deepening Housing Crisis.” It comes from the Department of Housing and Community Development and, somehow, the media seemed to ignore the news when it was released two weeks ago.
“Housing production has not kept pace with the state’s housing needs particularly in the coastal metropolitan areas,” cites the report. As populations swell and home availability ultimately shrinks, a crisis looms.
When I read in this paper last week that plans for a three-story housing development in Bonsall are in the works, I realized that we are, indeed,
approaching a crisis. There is little land left for development, and that will indeed create a crisis in housing availability.
So, lets all remain calm. Hate me if you want. I accept opinions, give me the same courtesy. Owning a home is still the American dream and, since 97.4 percent of homeowners pay their mortgages on time, the dream seems to be working out pretty well.
George Chamberlin is a regular contributor to the North County Times, and also is a TV and radio commentator. Contact him at [email protected].
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At a trustee sale isn’t the 2nd notified of an auction date of a property ?ParticipantSomething is missing here
ParticipantPatientlywaiting :If I had to sell a house now,I would go via FSBO. With all the Internet tools available, using a realtor imho is counterproductive.
How many listings on the MLS? How many open houses being held?Some people can’t contact the suckers after they get the listingsThey get the listings and “put it in on auto pilot”.
I remember in ’91 the street corners were full of open house signs on weekends, like a 4th of July.
Lazy bastards just want the 5 or 6 %ParticipantYou took the words out of my mouth-I mean out of my hands. Thanks
ParticipantWe are in deep doodoo and it’s getting worst. If the neo cons get us into another war -It will be the mother of all depressions IMHO- Who is gonna pay for this new adventure?
We are overtaxed and Overmaxed.ParticipantOOps..The above from OC renter’s blog
http://bubbletracking.blogspot.com/2007/09/tail-is-wagging-dog.htmlSeptember 27, 2007 at 9:54 AM in reply to: VOTE: state of the bubble collapse, Worse, OR Better than your expectation? #86091ParticipantRustico Just a matter of time. The rates have to go up. helicopter Ben is “The Great Appeaser” haven’t you noticed.Its election time,dollar plumetting.Must go up.
ParticipantStumbles Upon This..REO,NOD NOT are now in fashion
stumble.comO.C. agents talk foreclosures
September 26th, 2007 · 6 Comments · posted by Matt
They packed the house.Nearly 300 real estate agents filled a conference hall on Tuesday at the Orange County Association of Realtors’ office in Laguna Hills. Several of the agents are independent smaller shops making up a subunit of OCAR. They all came to learn the devilish details of buying and selling foreclosed homes as well as homes facing foreclosure.
Such meetings normally draw crowds of 50 to 75 people. On Tuesday, they filled every available seat and stood along the walls, volleying questions at speakers from all corners of the room. (An aside: before saying the pledge of allegiance one speaker said they salute the flag even in a down market.)
Harry Solomon, one of the speakers and owner of Nova Real Estate Services in Laguna Hills, invited me. He’s been in the REO (real estate owned) biz since 1982. He was really hopping in the 1990s and then retired in 1999 when the market picked up and REOs practically vanished.
Now he’s back.
“It’s my turn now, sorry,” Solomon joked with the audience.
Homes become REO when bids at a foreclosure auction fail to cover the money owed a lender, so the lender buys the property. The bank then turns around and hires an agent like Solomon to market the property and sell it.
Solomon said buying REO can be a lengthy and complicated process. Banks hire asset managers and the larger the loan the more people that have to sign off on the process.
He said lenders will push hard for the current market value, partly because they may own other loans nearby. They want to avoid dragging down property values.
Still, Solomon said he updates banks or their asset managers at least once a month on what properties are worth based on recent sales in an area. That means banks are well aware if home prices are trending down.
Two other speakers at the conference were Howard Fallman, an attorney with the California Association of Realtors, and Debbie Tognetti of Fidelity National Title.
Tognetti spoke at length about short sales, when a lender allows a distressed homeowner to sell his property for less than the outstanding mortgage. A short sale can be less costly to a lender than foreclosure.
Short sales are not as damaging to a homeowner’s credit as foreclosure or bankruptcy, but any debt forgiven by a lender could be taxed by the IRS, according to Tognetti and Fallman.
However, lenders only approve one in five short sales, Tognetti said. On average it takes 30 to 45 days to get approval, she said.
She said lenders and loan servicers don’t have enough experienced staff to handle the growing demand for short sales. This downturn is different from the 1990s, which was driven by job losses, she said.
“People have jobs. People have money,” Tognetti said. “They don’t want to spend it on a mortgage that is skyrocketing up.”
But a lender won’t approve a short sale if the borrow can pay, she said. The bank must see all the borrower’s financial statements, she said.
Fallman outlined some of the legal hurdles of short sales. For one thing, the contract is between buyer and seller and the lender is under no obligation to agree. That means a buyer could think he’s got a lock on a short sale, only to have the lender reject it, possibly for a better offer at the last minute, Fallman said. There are any number of reasons why a lender may reject a short sale, he said.
“Lenders can be capricious,” he said.
He also discussed potential pitfalls of buying a property when a notice of default has been filed. For example, if the owner is on the do-not-call registry, than agents should avoid calling.
If an investor wants to buy a property with an NOD on it, then an agent can’t represent the buyer without posting a bond for twice the purchase price. I doubt that happens often.
And how do such legal obstacles apply to a normal sale when an NOD is filed during escrow? Fallman said the courts are split on the issue, with at least one judge saying the deal is null and must go back to square one. In Orange County, where NODs are rising fast, that could be a sticky issue we’ll be hearing more about. Stay tuned.
Stumble it!
This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 26th, 2007 at 1:00 pm and is filed under Defaults -
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