According to this BusinessWeek article, Obama administration expands housing plan, the Obama Administration is expanding the coverage of its previous $50 billion housing rescue plan in order to cover more distressed homeowners. The previous plan has helped 55,000 homeowners avoid foreclosure via loan refinances and payment modifications. This new expansion will only aid homeowners by [...]

According to this Forbes article, Meet Your Landlords: Fannie And Freddie, collectively Fannie and Freddie own 1 out of every 9 foreclosed properties with Fannie owing 64,000 single family homes and Freddie 29,000. The article mentions that foreclosures are going to accelerate due to the moratorium on foreclosures being lifted. Both GSE’s are working on [...]

According to this Inman News article, Foreclosures plateau at new high, RealtyTrac data indicated that foreclosures in April 2009 increased by less than 1% from March 2009, which was the previous high. However, this represents a 32% increase over April 2008. According to the folks at RealtyTrac the recent March-April surge in foreclosures is due [...]

According this article in The Birmingham News, City Federal auction ends abruptly due to low bids, the auction was originally scheduled to sell off 20 condo units, but was stopped after only 11 sold due to what the condo project owners, Synergy Realty Services LLC, called “low bids”. Condos that once were listed for $239,000 [...]

According to this interview with William Black, a former bank regulator, author and current law and economics professor at the University of Missouri, the “Stress Tests” are a “sham”and US banks need $2 trillion dollars to remain solvent. Since he directly attributes this figure to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner I am guessing that the real [...]

According to this New York Times article, U.S. Says Ailing Banks Need $75 Billion, US Banks need $75 Billion in additional capital in order to pass the government stress tests and this is good news!?  First, it is not good news.  It means that US banks need a lot of additional capital.  Second, it is [...]

I have read many articles that are stating facts that the mainstream media is not covering.  The most important one is that commercial real estate loans are defaulting at an alarming rate.  While the mainstream media continues to debate whether or not the residential housing bust has reached it bottom they continue to ignore the [...]

According to this New York Times article, Sweetening the Pot for Home Buyers, the $8,000 Federal Tax Credit for first time home buyers created by the Obama administration will not have much of an impact (I believe I told you this previously) due to most first time buyers not having enough money for a down [...]

According to this Ritholtz.com article, Voluntary Foreclosure Abatements Ending, banks are starting to end their volunatry foreclosure abatements due to the increasing number of delinquent loans piling up.  This is after the banks have changed the definition of a delinquent loan from 60 days to 120 days and even 180 days.  Per my previous post, [...]

According to this RISMEDIA article, Are Banks Withholding Foreclosed Homes to Prop Sales?, banks are only marketing 30%-50% of the foreclosed homes they have on their books.  The article cites the possible reasons for this including government intervention in the form of foreclosure moratoria, banks’ hopes that the government will offer them more than the [...]

According to this Forbes.com article, How Low Will Real Estate Go?, home prices need to decline substantially in or der to bring them in line with median incomes, especially given the rising unemployment and increasing foreclosures environment.  Predictably, the article lists the top 10 (or worst 10) markets as being in Florida, California, Arizona and [...]

According to this article in the Memphis Busines Journal, RealtyTrac: Tennessee foreclosures up in March but trending down in 1Q, foreclosures increased in March 2009 compared to February 2009 by 19.7% and by 13.1% when March 2009 was compared to March 2008.  According to the article, the overall foreclosures in the 1st Quarter of 2009 are [...]

Home affordability is a reltaive thing.  However, that affordability should not be based on interest rates.  It should be based on income and housing prices – in other words the cash value of the home.  According to this Wall Street Journal article, Home Prices: Low, But Still No Bargain, home prices do indeed need to [...]

According to this Inman News article, Negative Equity: a housing timebomb, President Obama’s Making Home Affordable Program (MHA)  will only have a small impact on reducing foreclosures because it igores one of the key drivers of foreclosures: negative equity.  The article also mentions that investors being excluded is also a problem with MHA.As usual, I [...]

According to this New York Times article, unemployment increased in March 2009 with another 663,000 jobs lost bringing the total jobs lost in this recession to over 5,000,000.  No doubt this will mean more foreclosures.

According to this Forbes.com article, Riskiest Places for U.S. Homeowners, there are several places in the country (mainly parts of CA, FL, MI, TX and parts of the Midwest) where things will get significantly worse.  However, even outside of those places things are not likely to improve. “While the National Association of Realtors estimates existing-home [...]

How We Got HereGovernment – The problems were caused by the relationship between Fannie Mae/Freddie and the Community Reinvestment Act (pushed by social agenda politicians (think Bill Clinton, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, etc.).  The result was that more and more high risk loans were made to financially unstable and under-capitalized borrowers under the guise of social [...]

According to this New York Times article, Looking for Bottom in N.Y. Real Estate, Manhattan real estate prices hav already fallen by 25% according to some people involved in New York real estate.  In the summer of 2008 I told my wife that the Manhattan real estate market would collapse since it was absurdly over [...]

According to this New York Times article, Job Losses Hint at vast Remaking of Economy, job losses are increasing rate.  This will definitely lead to more foreclosures and more bank failures.  The job losses have escalated since December with the job loss numbers for December and January being revised higher.  In my opinion this is [...]