TOP
STORIES:
Why
the Foreclosure Crisis is Getting Worse - (www.usnews.com) Although the housing market is showing signs of
recovery, other indicators show the foreclosure crisis is getting worse. In a
September interview with U.S. News, Austan Goolsbee, the former chairman
of the Council of Economic Advisers, said, "I think there's a lot wrong in
the housing market. If Fannie and Freddie would start enabling people to rent
out the vacant homes, that would also help." Some foreclosure facts:
·
The
mortgage loans which are currently under the foreclosure process, is amounting
to almost $45 billion (that is mainly in terms with negative equity)
·
More
than almost 12 million homeowners are currently considered to be underwater,
who are still making payments
Valley
Real Estate Agent Pleads Guilty to $2M Ponzi Scheme - (www.patch.com) A North Hills real estate agent and
self-described investor pleaded guilty Monday to a federal charge stemming from
a Ponzi scheme that conned dozens of victims out of at least $2 million. Celia Gallardo, 42, entered her plea to a
single count of wire fraud in Los Angeles federal court and is expected to be
sentenced on March 11. She was arrested in July by FBI agents and charged in a
16-count federal indictment with wire and mail fraud. According to the U.S.
Attorney's Office, Gallardo -- who is also known as Celia Zagha -- bilked investors who
put money into her purported year-long real estate investment program. The
defendant didn't speak at the hearing other than to respond to the judge's
questions, including whether she understood the rights she was giving up. "Guilty,"
Gallardo replied when U.S. District Judge Dean D. Pregerson asked for her plea.
Japan real estate
prices back down to 1981 levels - (www.japantimes.co.jp) Jesper Koll, an economist who has lived in
Japan for 26 years, says it's not easy for him to keep faith in a country
that's shrinking, aging, stuck in protracted economic gloom and fast losing
ground to China as the region's dominant power. "I am the last Japan
optimist," Koll said in a recent speech in Tokyo. Indeed, the once-common
species has been virtually wiped out. It was only two decades ago that Japan's
boosters — mainly foreign diplomats and authors, economists and entrepreneurs —
touted the nation as a global model for how to attain prosperity and power. But
the group has turned gradually into nonbelievers, with several of the last
holdouts losing faith only recently, as the country has failed to carry out
meaningful reforms after the March 2011 disasters.
Building
restrictions amplify housing bubble swings? - (www.capefearbusiness.com) As a specialist in housing
policy, he realized that blending all the local housing trends into a single
national average obscured what was really going on. It led analysts of all
political persuasions to try to attribute the origins of the Great Recession entirely
to the actions of clumsy congressmen, clueless regulators, greedy bankers, or
the Federal Reserve’s easy-money policies. And it led them to ignore the fact
that housing booms and busts had plagued many other economies around the world
during the same period. In his new book American Nightmare: How Government
Undermines the Dream of Homeownership, O’Toole set out to correct the record.
After defining a housing bubble as prices growing by more than 50 percent and
then falling by more than 10 percent from their peak, O’Toole examined home
price data for all 50 states and 381 metropolitan areas.
Foreclosed
family watches helplessly as craigslist crowds strip house bare - (www.11alive.com) A family in Woodstock, who
just lost their home of 20 years to foreclosure and are preparing to move out,
lost even more on Wednesday. And it was all because they inadvertently
triggered what they now call "mayhem" when they posted a craigslist
ad Tuesday night. Their online post was just a well-meaning ad for a
giveaway of furniture and other household items in their driveway outside the
small house, a giveaway scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. Wednesday. But big
crowds showed up early, while the family was out, breaking into the house and
taking practically everything inside, in part because the way that the
craigslist ad was written gave them the idea that everything on the property
was up for grabs.
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