[lendingbubblecontinues]

Hi everyone. This is for our favorite (current) resident nut-job:

Investor’s Business Daily
Shadow Supply Of Real Estate May Push Back Housing Revival
Thursday June 5, 7:00 pm ET
Joe Gose

Housing looks apt to get darker before a dawn, shadowed by unseen inventory.

Bank-owned homes typically don’t show up in headline figures, nor do ailing borrowers who are still in their homes or owners who want to sell but are waiting in hopes the market will improve. Yet this shadow supply of real and potential homes for sale is large and growing, pushing back a housing recovery, industry figures say.

Officially, 4.55 million existing homes were for sale in April, says the National Association of Realtors. At the current low sales pace, it would take 11.2 months to clear that inventory, well above the 3.6 months at the start of 2005.

That hefty supply reflects what’s found on traditional multiple listings services. But a lot more lurks.

A record 2.47% of all home loans were in the foreclosure process at the end of the first quarter vs. 1.28% a year earlier, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Thursday.

Beyond that, 6.35% of all loans on one-to-four-unit residential properties are behind on payments. That’s the highest delinquency rate since the MBA survey began in 1979. Nearly one-quarter of subprime adjustable-rate loans were seriously delinquent.

“Under normal circumstances, it would probably take a year or two to work through this kind of inventory,” said Rick Sharga, director of marketing for RealtyTrac, referring to times when the credit markets and economic outlook are more favorable. “We’re in anything but normal circumstances, and we see the housing slump going through at least 2009.”

The surge in the months’ supply so far has more to do with slowing sales than by rapidly rising inventory.

But an influx of homes from the shadow market could make inventory a bigger problem, and that influx may be starting as banks get bogged down with properties they’ve repossessed.

April existing-home sales fell 17.5% vs. a year earlier. Meanwhile, home inventory rose by 7.9%.

That included what NAR spokesman Walt Molony calls an unusual spike, partly due to lenders starting to list more repossessed homes on the MLS, he says.

Banks that sell repo properties usually use auctions or an independent broker to unload them. Those homes don’t show up in official supply stats. Nor do bank-owned homes that are not yet for sale.

But banks are getting backlogged as vacant homes flow in via foreclosures faster than they can be sold.

Banks own about 660,000 homes overall; about 1% of the nation’s housing stock as of April, according to First American CoreLogic, a residential mortgage data cruncher in Santa Ana, Calif. It expects the number to climb as homes work their way through the lengthy foreclosure process.

This year through April, banks took control of 197,802 properties, a 118% jump over the same period last year, says RealtyTrac, a Web site that tracks distressed homes for sale.

Banks have the same problem as other home sellers: There are fewer buyers in a declining market, and that downwardly pressures prices. U.S. home values fell 14.1% in the first quarter from a year earlier, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home-resale indexes.

“The trick with the REO (“real estate owned” by banks) space is not only how fast are the homes coming in, but also how fast are they going out,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist with First American CoreLogic. “It’s difficult to sell these properties and if you can’t sell … what do you do? You drop the price.”

Banks are pricing homes 15%-40% below market, depending on the city, according to Pat Lashinsky, chief executive for Emeryville, Calif.-based ZipRealty. REO sales accounted for roughly 35% of the residential brokerage’s first-quarter transactions.

“We need to get REO homes sold and off the market as fast as possible,” Lashinsky said, “because as long as we have a large number they’re going to prolong the slump.”

Future foreclosures will add to the shadow supply. In April, there were 243,353 filings related to some stage of foreclosure made on U.S. properties, says RealtyTrac. It says about 1.5 million homes are in a phase of foreclosure.

These properties will add to already bloated inventories of homes and push prices even lower, notes RealtyTrac CEO James Saccacio. That will push more homeowners underwater on their mortgages, fueling more foreclosures.

Sellers In The Shadows

A shadow supply component harder to get a count on is how many potential home sellers are on the sidelines waiting for a recovery. If they rush to the market at the first sign of improvement, it could cause prices to remain flat, suggests Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors.

That would be similar to how the phenomenon of “overhead supply” weighs down prices in the stock market. When many people who bought a stock before it dipped wait for a rebound to sell, to try to avoid taking a loss, their collective selling can push a stock price down again.

NAR doesn’t track frustrated home sellers who have pulled their houses off the market. Yet Lashinsky says the number “is significantly higher this year over last year.”

Changes in vacancy numbers hint at the heft of the shadow supply and scope of the housing problem. A record 18.6 million of the 129.4 million homes in the U.S. were empty in the first quarter, the Census Bureau said. Some 2.3 million of them were for sale, while abandoned homes, rentals, vacation properties, houses undergoing renovation and others tied up in legal proceedings — including but not limited to foreclosures — make up the balance.

The homeowner vacancy rate, the share of nonrental homes that were vacant and for sale, was 2.9%, its highest since at least 1960.

Banks have an advantage over homeowners, Lashinsky says, because they’re simply looking to exit bad investments. Traditional sellers typically have to use the proceeds to fund their next home.

“Traditional home sellers can’t out-negotiate banks,” he said, describing why a slump could be prolonged if REO properties don’t get off the market fast.

The race to rid the books of bank-owned properties marks a departure from two years ago when home values were rising and foreclosures were low. Banks could be patient and wait for better prices.

“That’s absolutely the opposite of what’s happening now,” said Cary Sternberg, first vice president of the home loan servicing and REO unit of Pasadena, Calif.-based IndyMac Bancorp, a lender that was on pace to sell 1,000 bank-owned homes in May after selling 942 in April.

No Time To Waste

“You can’t wait a few months for the market to catch up because in a few months the property’s going to be worth less than it is today.”

IndyMac reported $257 million in nonperforming REO assets in the first quarter vs. $33 million a year earlier. Carrying costs only add to losses. Like any owner, banks must pay for insurance, taxes and maintenance while they own homes.

Banks are also worried about vandalism, particularly as scavengers rip out copper or other precious metals to trade for cash, Sternberg adds. IndyMac is now hawking more than 4,000 bank-owned homes on its Web site, and every one is listed on a local MLS, he says.

“A lot of people are still of the mind-set that banks want to foreclose on houses because they want to make money,” Sternberg said. “Nothing could be further from the truth. Banks never make money when they own real estate.”

[lendingbubblecontinues]

Hi everyone. This is for our favorite (current) resident nut-job:

Investor’s Business Daily
Shadow Supply Of Real Estate May Push Back Housing Revival
Thursday June 5, 7:00 pm ET
Joe Gose

Housing looks apt to get darker before a dawn, shadowed by unseen inventory.

Bank-owned homes typically don’t show up in headline figures, nor do ailing borrowers who are still in their homes or owners who want to sell but are waiting in hopes the market will improve. Yet this shadow supply of real and potential homes for sale is large and growing, pushing back a housing recovery, industry figures say.

Officially, 4.55 million existing homes were for sale in April, says the National Association of Realtors. At the current low sales pace, it would take 11.2 months to clear that inventory, well above the 3.6 months at the start of 2005.

That hefty supply reflects what’s found on traditional multiple listings services. But a lot more lurks.

A record 2.47% of all home loans were in the foreclosure process at the end of the first quarter vs. 1.28% a year earlier, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Thursday.

Beyond that, 6.35% of all loans on one-to-four-unit residential properties are behind on payments. That’s the highest delinquency rate since the MBA survey began in 1979. Nearly one-quarter of subprime adjustable-rate loans were seriously delinquent.

“Under normal circumstances, it would probably take a year or two to work through this kind of inventory,” said Rick Sharga, director of marketing for RealtyTrac, referring to times when the credit markets and economic outlook are more favorable. “We’re in anything but normal circumstances, and we see the housing slump going through at least 2009.”

The surge in the months’ supply so far has more to do with slowing sales than by rapidly rising inventory.

But an influx of homes from the shadow market could make inventory a bigger problem, and that influx may be starting as banks get bogged down with properties they’ve repossessed.

April existing-home sales fell 17.5% vs. a year earlier. Meanwhile, home inventory rose by 7.9%.

That included what NAR spokesman Walt Molony calls an unusual spike, partly due to lenders starting to list more repossessed homes on the MLS, he says.

Banks that sell repo properties usually use auctions or an independent broker to unload them. Those homes don’t show up in official supply stats. Nor do bank-owned homes that are not yet for sale.

But banks are getting backlogged as vacant homes flow in via foreclosures faster than they can be sold.

Banks own about 660,000 homes overall; about 1% of the nation’s housing stock as of April, according to First American CoreLogic, a residential mortgage data cruncher in Santa Ana, Calif. It expects the number to climb as homes work their way through the lengthy foreclosure process.

This year through April, banks took control of 197,802 properties, a 118% jump over the same period last year, says RealtyTrac, a Web site that tracks distressed homes for sale.

Banks have the same problem as other home sellers: There are fewer buyers in a declining market, and that downwardly pressures prices. U.S. home values fell 14.1% in the first quarter from a year earlier, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home-resale indexes.

“The trick with the REO (“real estate owned” by banks) space is not only how fast are the homes coming in, but also how fast are they going out,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist with First American CoreLogic. “It’s difficult to sell these properties and if you can’t sell … what do you do? You drop the price.”

Banks are pricing homes 15%-40% below market, depending on the city, according to Pat Lashinsky, chief executive for Emeryville, Calif.-based ZipRealty. REO sales accounted for roughly 35% of the residential brokerage’s first-quarter transactions.

“We need to get REO homes sold and off the market as fast as possible,” Lashinsky said, “because as long as we have a large number they’re going to prolong the slump.”

Future foreclosures will add to the shadow supply. In April, there were 243,353 filings related to some stage of foreclosure made on U.S. properties, says RealtyTrac. It says about 1.5 million homes are in a phase of foreclosure.

These properties will add to already bloated inventories of homes and push prices even lower, notes RealtyTrac CEO James Saccacio. That will push more homeowners underwater on their mortgages, fueling more foreclosures.

Sellers In The Shadows

A shadow supply component harder to get a count on is how many potential home sellers are on the sidelines waiting for a recovery. If they rush to the market at the first sign of improvement, it could cause prices to remain flat, suggests Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors.

That would be similar to how the phenomenon of “overhead supply” weighs down prices in the stock market. When many people who bought a stock before it dipped wait for a rebound to sell, to try to avoid taking a loss, their collective selling can push a stock price down again.

NAR doesn’t track frustrated home sellers who have pulled their houses off the market. Yet Lashinsky says the number “is significantly higher this year over last year.”

Changes in vacancy numbers hint at the heft of the shadow supply and scope of the housing problem. A record 18.6 million of the 129.4 million homes in the U.S. were empty in the first quarter, the Census Bureau said. Some 2.3 million of them were for sale, while abandoned homes, rentals, vacation properties, houses undergoing renovation and others tied up in legal proceedings — including but not limited to foreclosures — make up the balance.

The homeowner vacancy rate, the share of nonrental homes that were vacant and for sale, was 2.9%, its highest since at least 1960.

Banks have an advantage over homeowners, Lashinsky says, because they’re simply looking to exit bad investments. Traditional sellers typically have to use the proceeds to fund their next home.

“Traditional home sellers can’t out-negotiate banks,” he said, describing why a slump could be prolonged if REO properties don’t get off the market fast.

The race to rid the books of bank-owned properties marks a departure from two years ago when home values were rising and foreclosures were low. Banks could be patient and wait for better prices.

“That’s absolutely the opposite of what’s happening now,” said Cary Sternberg, first vice president of the home loan servicing and REO unit of Pasadena, Calif.-based IndyMac Bancorp, a lender that was on pace to sell 1,000 bank-owned homes in May after selling 942 in April.

No Time To Waste

“You can’t wait a few months for the market to catch up because in a few months the property’s going to be worth less than it is today.”

IndyMac reported $257 million in nonperforming REO assets in the first quarter vs. $33 million a year earlier. Carrying costs only add to losses. Like any owner, banks must pay for insurance, taxes and maintenance while they own homes.

Banks are also worried about vandalism, particularly as scavengers rip out copper or other precious metals to trade for cash, Sternberg adds. IndyMac is now hawking more than 4,000 bank-owned homes on its Web site, and every one is listed on a local MLS, he says.

“A lot of people are still of the mind-set that banks want to foreclose on houses because they want to make money,” Sternberg said. “Nothing could be further from the truth. Banks never make money when they own real estate.”

[lendingbubblecontinues]

Hi everyone. This is for our favorite (current) resident nut-job:

Investor’s Business Daily
Shadow Supply Of Real Estate May Push Back Housing Revival
Thursday June 5, 7:00 pm ET
Joe Gose

Housing looks apt to get darker before a dawn, shadowed by unseen inventory.

Bank-owned homes typically don’t show up in headline figures, nor do ailing borrowers who are still in their homes or owners who want to sell but are waiting in hopes the market will improve. Yet this shadow supply of real and potential homes for sale is large and growing, pushing back a housing recovery, industry figures say.

Officially, 4.55 million existing homes were for sale in April, says the National Association of Realtors. At the current low sales pace, it would take 11.2 months to clear that inventory, well above the 3.6 months at the start of 2005.

That hefty supply reflects what’s found on traditional multiple listings services. But a lot more lurks.

A record 2.47% of all home loans were in the foreclosure process at the end of the first quarter vs. 1.28% a year earlier, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Thursday.

Beyond that, 6.35% of all loans on one-to-four-unit residential properties are behind on payments. That’s the highest delinquency rate since the MBA survey began in 1979. Nearly one-quarter of subprime adjustable-rate loans were seriously delinquent.

“Under normal circumstances, it would probably take a year or two to work through this kind of inventory,” said Rick Sharga, director of marketing for RealtyTrac, referring to times when the credit markets and economic outlook are more favorable. “We’re in anything but normal circumstances, and we see the housing slump going through at least 2009.”

The surge in the months’ supply so far has more to do with slowing sales than by rapidly rising inventory.

But an influx of homes from the shadow market could make inventory a bigger problem, and that influx may be starting as banks get bogged down with properties they’ve repossessed.

April existing-home sales fell 17.5% vs. a year earlier. Meanwhile, home inventory rose by 7.9%.

That included what NAR spokesman Walt Molony calls an unusual spike, partly due to lenders starting to list more repossessed homes on the MLS, he says.

Banks that sell repo properties usually use auctions or an independent broker to unload them. Those homes don’t show up in official supply stats. Nor do bank-owned homes that are not yet for sale.

But banks are getting backlogged as vacant homes flow in via foreclosures faster than they can be sold.

Banks own about 660,000 homes overall; about 1% of the nation’s housing stock as of April, according to First American CoreLogic, a residential mortgage data cruncher in Santa Ana, Calif. It expects the number to climb as homes work their way through the lengthy foreclosure process.

This year through April, banks took control of 197,802 properties, a 118% jump over the same period last year, says RealtyTrac, a Web site that tracks distressed homes for sale.

Banks have the same problem as other home sellers: There are fewer buyers in a declining market, and that downwardly pressures prices. U.S. home values fell 14.1% in the first quarter from a year earlier, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home-resale indexes.

“The trick with the REO (“real estate owned” by banks) space is not only how fast are the homes coming in, but also how fast are they going out,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist with First American CoreLogic. “It’s difficult to sell these properties and if you can’t sell … what do you do? You drop the price.”

Banks are pricing homes 15%-40% below market, depending on the city, according to Pat Lashinsky, chief executive for Emeryville, Calif.-based ZipRealty. REO sales accounted for roughly 35% of the residential brokerage’s first-quarter transactions.

“We need to get REO homes sold and off the market as fast as possible,” Lashinsky said, “because as long as we have a large number they’re going to prolong the slump.”

Future foreclosures will add to the shadow supply. In April, there were 243,353 filings related to some stage of foreclosure made on U.S. properties, says RealtyTrac. It says about 1.5 million homes are in a phase of foreclosure.

These properties will add to already bloated inventories of homes and push prices even lower, notes RealtyTrac CEO James Saccacio. That will push more homeowners underwater on their mortgages, fueling more foreclosures.

Sellers In The Shadows

A shadow supply component harder to get a count on is how many potential home sellers are on the sidelines waiting for a recovery. If they rush to the market at the first sign of improvement, it could cause prices to remain flat, suggests Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors.

That would be similar to how the phenomenon of “overhead supply” weighs down prices in the stock market. When many people who bought a stock before it dipped wait for a rebound to sell, to try to avoid taking a loss, their collective selling can push a stock price down again.

NAR doesn’t track frustrated home sellers who have pulled their houses off the market. Yet Lashinsky says the number “is significantly higher this year over last year.”

Changes in vacancy numbers hint at the heft of the shadow supply and scope of the housing problem. A record 18.6 million of the 129.4 million homes in the U.S. were empty in the first quarter, the Census Bureau said. Some 2.3 million of them were for sale, while abandoned homes, rentals, vacation properties, houses undergoing renovation and others tied up in legal proceedings — including but not limited to foreclosures — make up the balance.

The homeowner vacancy rate, the share of nonrental homes that were vacant and for sale, was 2.9%, its highest since at least 1960.

Banks have an advantage over homeowners, Lashinsky says, because they’re simply looking to exit bad investments. Traditional sellers typically have to use the proceeds to fund their next home.

“Traditional home sellers can’t out-negotiate banks,” he said, describing why a slump could be prolonged if REO properties don’t get off the market fast.

The race to rid the books of bank-owned properties marks a departure from two years ago when home values were rising and foreclosures were low. Banks could be patient and wait for better prices.

“That’s absolutely the opposite of what’s happening now,” said Cary Sternberg, first vice president of the home loan servicing and REO unit of Pasadena, Calif.-based IndyMac Bancorp, a lender that was on pace to sell 1,000 bank-owned homes in May after selling 942 in April.

No Time To Waste

“You can’t wait a few months for the market to catch up because in a few months the property’s going to be worth less than it is today.”

IndyMac reported $257 million in nonperforming REO assets in the first quarter vs. $33 million a year earlier. Carrying costs only add to losses. Like any owner, banks must pay for insurance, taxes and maintenance while they own homes.

Banks are also worried about vandalism, particularly as scavengers rip out copper or other precious metals to trade for cash, Sternberg adds. IndyMac is now hawking more than 4,000 bank-owned homes on its Web site, and every one is listed on a local MLS, he says.

“A lot of people are still of the mind-set that banks want to foreclose on houses because they want to make money,” Sternberg said. “Nothing could be further from the truth. Banks never make money when they own real estate.”

[lendingbubblecontinues]

Hi everyone. This is for our favorite (current) resident nut-job:

Investor’s Business Daily
Shadow Supply Of Real Estate May Push Back Housing Revival
Thursday June 5, 7:00 pm ET
Joe Gose

Housing looks apt to get darker before a dawn, shadowed by unseen inventory.

Bank-owned homes typically don’t show up in headline figures, nor do ailing borrowers who are still in their homes or owners who want to sell but are waiting in hopes the market will improve. Yet this shadow supply of real and potential homes for sale is large and growing, pushing back a housing recovery, industry figures say.

Officially, 4.55 million existing homes were for sale in April, says the National Association of Realtors. At the current low sales pace, it would take 11.2 months to clear that inventory, well above the 3.6 months at the start of 2005.

That hefty supply reflects what’s found on traditional multiple listings services. But a lot more lurks.

A record 2.47% of all home loans were in the foreclosure process at the end of the first quarter vs. 1.28% a year earlier, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Thursday.

Beyond that, 6.35% of all loans on one-to-four-unit residential properties are behind on payments. That’s the highest delinquency rate since the MBA survey began in 1979. Nearly one-quarter of subprime adjustable-rate loans were seriously delinquent.

“Under normal circumstances, it would probably take a year or two to work through this kind of inventory,” said Rick Sharga, director of marketing for RealtyTrac, referring to times when the credit markets and economic outlook are more favorable. “We’re in anything but normal circumstances, and we see the housing slump going through at least 2009.”

The surge in the months’ supply so far has more to do with slowing sales than by rapidly rising inventory.

But an influx of homes from the shadow market could make inventory a bigger problem, and that influx may be starting as banks get bogged down with properties they’ve repossessed.

April existing-home sales fell 17.5% vs. a year earlier. Meanwhile, home inventory rose by 7.9%.

That included what NAR spokesman Walt Molony calls an unusual spike, partly due to lenders starting to list more repossessed homes on the MLS, he says.

Banks that sell repo properties usually use auctions or an independent broker to unload them. Those homes don’t show up in official supply stats. Nor do bank-owned homes that are not yet for sale.

But banks are getting backlogged as vacant homes flow in via foreclosures faster than they can be sold.

Banks own about 660,000 homes overall; about 1% of the nation’s housing stock as of April, according to First American CoreLogic, a residential mortgage data cruncher in Santa Ana, Calif. It expects the number to climb as homes work their way through the lengthy foreclosure process.

This year through April, banks took control of 197,802 properties, a 118% jump over the same period last year, says RealtyTrac, a Web site that tracks distressed homes for sale.

Banks have the same problem as other home sellers: There are fewer buyers in a declining market, and that downwardly pressures prices. U.S. home values fell 14.1% in the first quarter from a year earlier, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home-resale indexes.

“The trick with the REO (“real estate owned” by banks) space is not only how fast are the homes coming in, but also how fast are they going out,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist with First American CoreLogic. “It’s difficult to sell these properties and if you can’t sell … what do you do? You drop the price.”

Banks are pricing homes 15%-40% below market, depending on the city, according to Pat Lashinsky, chief executive for Emeryville, Calif.-based ZipRealty. REO sales accounted for roughly 35% of the residential brokerage’s first-quarter transactions.

“We need to get REO homes sold and off the market as fast as possible,” Lashinsky said, “because as long as we have a large number they’re going to prolong the slump.”

Future foreclosures will add to the shadow supply. In April, there were 243,353 filings related to some stage of foreclosure made on U.S. properties, says RealtyTrac. It says about 1.5 million homes are in a phase of foreclosure.

These properties will add to already bloated inventories of homes and push prices even lower, notes RealtyTrac CEO James Saccacio. That will push more homeowners underwater on their mortgages, fueling more foreclosures.

Sellers In The Shadows

A shadow supply component harder to get a count on is how many potential home sellers are on the sidelines waiting for a recovery. If they rush to the market at the first sign of improvement, it could cause prices to remain flat, suggests Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors.

That would be similar to how the phenomenon of “overhead supply” weighs down prices in the stock market. When many people who bought a stock before it dipped wait for a rebound to sell, to try to avoid taking a loss, their collective selling can push a stock price down again.

NAR doesn’t track frustrated home sellers who have pulled their houses off the market. Yet Lashinsky says the number “is significantly higher this year over last year.”

Changes in vacancy numbers hint at the heft of the shadow supply and scope of the housing problem. A record 18.6 million of the 129.4 million homes in the U.S. were empty in the first quarter, the Census Bureau said. Some 2.3 million of them were for sale, while abandoned homes, rentals, vacation properties, houses undergoing renovation and others tied up in legal proceedings — including but not limited to foreclosures — make up the balance.

The homeowner vacancy rate, the share of nonrental homes that were vacant and for sale, was 2.9%, its highest since at least 1960.

Banks have an advantage over homeowners, Lashinsky says, because they’re simply looking to exit bad investments. Traditional sellers typically have to use the proceeds to fund their next home.

“Traditional home sellers can’t out-negotiate banks,” he said, describing why a slump could be prolonged if REO properties don’t get off the market fast.

The race to rid the books of bank-owned properties marks a departure from two years ago when home values were rising and foreclosures were low. Banks could be patient and wait for better prices.

“That’s absolutely the opposite of what’s happening now,” said Cary Sternberg, first vice president of the home loan servicing and REO unit of Pasadena, Calif.-based IndyMac Bancorp, a lender that was on pace to sell 1,000 bank-owned homes in May after selling 942 in April.

No Time To Waste

“You can’t wait a few months for the market to catch up because in a few months the property’s going to be worth less than it is today.”

IndyMac reported $257 million in nonperforming REO assets in the first quarter vs. $33 million a year earlier. Carrying costs only add to losses. Like any owner, banks must pay for insurance, taxes and maintenance while they own homes.

Banks are also worried about vandalism, particularly as scavengers rip out copper or other precious metals to trade for cash, Sternberg adds. IndyMac is now hawking more than 4,000 bank-owned homes on its Web site, and every one is listed on a local MLS, he says.

“A lot of people are still of the mind-set that banks want to foreclose on houses because they want to make money,” Sternberg said. “Nothing could be further from the truth. Banks never make money when they own real estate.”

[lendingbubblecontinues]

Hi everyone. This is for our favorite (current) resident nut-job:

Investor’s Business Daily
Shadow Supply Of Real Estate May Push Back Housing Revival
Thursday June 5, 7:00 pm ET
Joe Gose

Housing looks apt to get darker before a dawn, shadowed by unseen inventory.

Bank-owned homes typically don’t show up in headline figures, nor do ailing borrowers who are still in their homes or owners who want to sell but are waiting in hopes the market will improve. Yet this shadow supply of real and potential homes for sale is large and growing, pushing back a housing recovery, industry figures say.

Officially, 4.55 million existing homes were for sale in April, says the National Association of Realtors. At the current low sales pace, it would take 11.2 months to clear that inventory, well above the 3.6 months at the start of 2005.

That hefty supply reflects what’s found on traditional multiple listings services. But a lot more lurks.

A record 2.47% of all home loans were in the foreclosure process at the end of the first quarter vs. 1.28% a year earlier, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Thursday.

Beyond that, 6.35% of all loans on one-to-four-unit residential properties are behind on payments. That’s the highest delinquency rate since the MBA survey began in 1979. Nearly one-quarter of subprime adjustable-rate loans were seriously delinquent.

“Under normal circumstances, it would probably take a year or two to work through this kind of inventory,” said Rick Sharga, director of marketing for RealtyTrac, referring to times when the credit markets and economic outlook are more favorable. “We’re in anything but normal circumstances, and we see the housing slump going through at least 2009.”

The surge in the months’ supply so far has more to do with slowing sales than by rapidly rising inventory.

But an influx of homes from the shadow market could make inventory a bigger problem, and that influx may be starting as banks get bogged down with properties they’ve repossessed.

April existing-home sales fell 17.5% vs. a year earlier. Meanwhile, home inventory rose by 7.9%.

That included what NAR spokesman Walt Molony calls an unusual spike, partly due to lenders starting to list more repossessed homes on the MLS, he says.

Banks that sell repo properties usually use auctions or an independent broker to unload them. Those homes don’t show up in official supply stats. Nor do bank-owned homes that are not yet for sale.

But banks are getting backlogged as vacant homes flow in via foreclosures faster than they can be sold.

Banks own about 660,000 homes overall; about 1% of the nation’s housing stock as of April, according to First American CoreLogic, a residential mortgage data cruncher in Santa Ana, Calif. It expects the number to climb as homes work their way through the lengthy foreclosure process.

This year through April, banks took control of 197,802 properties, a 118% jump over the same period last year, says RealtyTrac, a Web site that tracks distressed homes for sale.

Banks have the same problem as other home sellers: There are fewer buyers in a declining market, and that downwardly pressures prices. U.S. home values fell 14.1% in the first quarter from a year earlier, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home-resale indexes.

“The trick with the REO (“real estate owned” by banks) space is not only how fast are the homes coming in, but also how fast are they going out,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist with First American CoreLogic. “It’s difficult to sell these properties and if you can’t sell … what do you do? You drop the price.”

Banks are pricing homes 15%-40% below market, depending on the city, according to Pat Lashinsky, chief executive for Emeryville, Calif.-based ZipRealty. REO sales accounted for roughly 35% of the residential brokerage’s first-quarter transactions.

“We need to get REO homes sold and off the market as fast as possible,” Lashinsky said, “because as long as we have a large number they’re going to prolong the slump.”

Future foreclosures will add to the shadow supply. In April, there were 243,353 filings related to some stage of foreclosure made on U.S. properties, says RealtyTrac. It says about 1.5 million homes are in a phase of foreclosure.

These properties will add to already bloated inventories of homes and push prices even lower, notes RealtyTrac CEO James Saccacio. That will push more homeowners underwater on their mortgages, fueling more foreclosures.

Sellers In The Shadows

A shadow supply component harder to get a count on is how many potential home sellers are on the sidelines waiting for a recovery. If they rush to the market at the first sign of improvement, it could cause prices to remain flat, suggests Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors.

That would be similar to how the phenomenon of “overhead supply” weighs down prices in the stock market. When many people who bought a stock before it dipped wait for a rebound to sell, to try to avoid taking a loss, their collective selling can push a stock price down again.

NAR doesn’t track frustrated home sellers who have pulled their houses off the market. Yet Lashinsky says the number “is significantly higher this year over last year.”

Changes in vacancy numbers hint at the heft of the shadow supply and scope of the housing problem. A record 18.6 million of the 129.4 million homes in the U.S. were empty in the first quarter, the Census Bureau said. Some 2.3 million of them were for sale, while abandoned homes, rentals, vacation properties, houses undergoing renovation and others tied up in legal proceedings — including but not limited to foreclosures — make up the balance.

The homeowner vacancy rate, the share of nonrental homes that were vacant and for sale, was 2.9%, its highest since at least 1960.

Banks have an advantage over homeowners, Lashinsky says, because they’re simply looking to exit bad investments. Traditional sellers typically have to use the proceeds to fund their next home.

“Traditional home sellers can’t out-negotiate banks,” he said, describing why a slump could be prolonged if REO properties don’t get off the market fast.

The race to rid the books of bank-owned properties marks a departure from two years ago when home values were rising and foreclosures were low. Banks could be patient and wait for better prices.

“That’s absolutely the opposite of what’s happening now,” said Cary Sternberg, first vice president of the home loan servicing and REO unit of Pasadena, Calif.-based IndyMac Bancorp, a lender that was on pace to sell 1,000 bank-owned homes in May after selling 942 in April.

No Time To Waste

“You can’t wait a few months for the market to catch up because in a few months the property’s going to be worth less than it is today.”

IndyMac reported $257 million in nonperforming REO assets in the first quarter vs. $33 million a year earlier. Carrying costs only add to losses. Like any owner, banks must pay for insurance, taxes and maintenance while they own homes.

Banks are also worried about vandalism, particularly as scavengers rip out copper or other precious metals to trade for cash, Sternberg adds. IndyMac is now hawking more than 4,000 bank-owned homes on its Web site, and every one is listed on a local MLS, he says.

“A lot of people are still of the mind-set that banks want to foreclose on houses because they want to make money,” Sternberg said. “Nothing could be further from the truth. Banks never make money when they own real estate.”

[lendingbubblecontinues]

“NO one is claiming any of the permabears are wrong about the outcome just the timing.”

C’mon, sdr….is it fair to paint someone like myself, who arrived in SD in 2003 and scoffed at the ridiculous prices being paid for homes and the methods being used to do so, as a “permabear”?

I don’t think so. Not anymore than suggesting that you, being in the real estate business, must be a permabull.

Perhaps your patience is wearing thin and you are feeling a bit bitter lately? Or, perhaps, you simply didn’t mean to paint everyone with the same broad brush.

LBC

not a “permabear” but also STILL not interested in buying your STILL overpriced POS

[lendingbubblecontinues]

“NO one is claiming any of the permabears are wrong about the outcome just the timing.”

C’mon, sdr….is it fair to paint someone like myself, who arrived in SD in 2003 and scoffed at the ridiculous prices being paid for homes and the methods being used to do so, as a “permabear”?

I don’t think so. Not anymore than suggesting that you, being in the real estate business, must be a permabull.

Perhaps your patience is wearing thin and you are feeling a bit bitter lately? Or, perhaps, you simply didn’t mean to paint everyone with the same broad brush.

LBC

not a “permabear” but also STILL not interested in buying your STILL overpriced POS

[lendingbubblecontinues]

“NO one is claiming any of the permabears are wrong about the outcome just the timing.”

C’mon, sdr….is it fair to paint someone like myself, who arrived in SD in 2003 and scoffed at the ridiculous prices being paid for homes and the methods being used to do so, as a “permabear”?

I don’t think so. Not anymore than suggesting that you, being in the real estate business, must be a permabull.

Perhaps your patience is wearing thin and you are feeling a bit bitter lately? Or, perhaps, you simply didn’t mean to paint everyone with the same broad brush.

LBC

not a “permabear” but also STILL not interested in buying your STILL overpriced POS

[lendingbubblecontinues]

“NO one is claiming any of the permabears are wrong about the outcome just the timing.”

C’mon, sdr….is it fair to paint someone like myself, who arrived in SD in 2003 and scoffed at the ridiculous prices being paid for homes and the methods being used to do so, as a “permabear”?

I don’t think so. Not anymore than suggesting that you, being in the real estate business, must be a permabull.

Perhaps your patience is wearing thin and you are feeling a bit bitter lately? Or, perhaps, you simply didn’t mean to paint everyone with the same broad brush.

LBC

not a “permabear” but also STILL not interested in buying your STILL overpriced POS

[lendingbubblecontinues]

“NO one is claiming any of the permabears are wrong about the outcome just the timing.”

C’mon, sdr….is it fair to paint someone like myself, who arrived in SD in 2003 and scoffed at the ridiculous prices being paid for homes and the methods being used to do so, as a “permabear”?

I don’t think so. Not anymore than suggesting that you, being in the real estate business, must be a permabull.

Perhaps your patience is wearing thin and you are feeling a bit bitter lately? Or, perhaps, you simply didn’t mean to paint everyone with the same broad brush.

LBC

not a “permabear” but also STILL not interested in buying your STILL overpriced POS

[lendingbubblecontinues]

“The reality of airfare for five people, hotel costs, meals out or even having to drive somewhere far was too much,” said Jodi Ross, a real estate agent and mother of three. “It just seemed a lot more reasonable to do the beach right here in Carlsbad.”

should read:

“The reality of BEING 200 THOUSAND DOLLARS UPSIDE DOWN ON OUR McMANSION, eating food that doesn’t come 6 packages for $1, or even having to siphon gas from the neighbors SUV to get to Wal-Mart was too much” said Jodee. “It just seemed a lot more reasonable to feed the squirrels right here in Carlsbad.”

[lendingbubblecontinues]

“The reality of airfare for five people, hotel costs, meals out or even having to drive somewhere far was too much,” said Jodi Ross, a real estate agent and mother of three. “It just seemed a lot more reasonable to do the beach right here in Carlsbad.”

should read:

“The reality of BEING 200 THOUSAND DOLLARS UPSIDE DOWN ON OUR McMANSION, eating food that doesn’t come 6 packages for $1, or even having to siphon gas from the neighbors SUV to get to Wal-Mart was too much” said Jodee. “It just seemed a lot more reasonable to feed the squirrels right here in Carlsbad.”

[lendingbubblecontinues]

“The reality of airfare for five people, hotel costs, meals out or even having to drive somewhere far was too much,” said Jodi Ross, a real estate agent and mother of three. “It just seemed a lot more reasonable to do the beach right here in Carlsbad.”

should read:

“The reality of BEING 200 THOUSAND DOLLARS UPSIDE DOWN ON OUR McMANSION, eating food that doesn’t come 6 packages for $1, or even having to siphon gas from the neighbors SUV to get to Wal-Mart was too much” said Jodee. “It just seemed a lot more reasonable to feed the squirrels right here in Carlsbad.”

[lendingbubblecontinues]

“The reality of airfare for five people, hotel costs, meals out or even having to drive somewhere far was too much,” said Jodi Ross, a real estate agent and mother of three. “It just seemed a lot more reasonable to do the beach right here in Carlsbad.”

should read:

“The reality of BEING 200 THOUSAND DOLLARS UPSIDE DOWN ON OUR McMANSION, eating food that doesn’t come 6 packages for $1, or even having to siphon gas from the neighbors SUV to get to Wal-Mart was too much” said Jodee. “It just seemed a lot more reasonable to feed the squirrels right here in Carlsbad.”

[lendingbubblecontinues]

“The reality of airfare for five people, hotel costs, meals out or even having to drive somewhere far was too much,” said Jodi Ross, a real estate agent and mother of three. “It just seemed a lot more reasonable to do the beach right here in Carlsbad.”

should read:

“The reality of BEING 200 THOUSAND DOLLARS UPSIDE DOWN ON OUR McMANSION, eating food that doesn’t come 6 packages for $1, or even having to siphon gas from the neighbors SUV to get to Wal-Mart was too much” said Jodee. “It just seemed a lot more reasonable to feed the squirrels right here in Carlsbad.”

[Author]

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