Monday, October 21, 2013

Tuesday October 22 Housing and Economic stories


Realtor sells them a house then loots it while they are away, cops say - (www.nypost.com)  A real-estate agent sold an Upper West Side town house to the owner of an art gallery — then allegedly looted the home of more than $500,000 in high-end goods when the victim and her family were away in the Hamptons, The Post has learned. David Kim, 42, last employed by the Corcoran Group, was involved in the sale of the $7.6 million West 81st Street property to Tina Kim — who runs the Tina Kim Gallery in Chelsea — and her husband, Jae Chung, in December 2012, police sources said. The sale was not handled by Corcoran. Tina Kim’s family, which employs a maid, nanny and personal driver, never changed the locks on the doors, allowing the agent allegedly to slip inside the home and steal their pricey possessions, including rare statues and portraits. “He decorated his apartment by framing the artwork on his walls,” said one police source about David Kim, who was arrested last week on a slew of felony charges. The source added, “The guy stole almost everything from their home, even humidifiers, cigar boxes and all of the woman’s purses. “One was worth $90,000. He has a drug and gambling problem.”

Detroit defaults on $600 million of unsecured bonds - (www.washingtonpost.com) Detroit on Tuesday defaulted on more than $600 million of general obligation bonds deemed unsecured by the city’s emergency manager, a city spokesman said. The move marked the second bond default by the cash-strapped city after Kevyn Orr, the former corporate bankruptcy attorney who has been running Detroit since March, announced on June 14 a moratorium on unsecured debt payments. Spokesman Bill Nowling confirmed the city did not make debt service payments due Tuesday on the unsecured GO bonds, including $411 million of voter-approved unlimited tax debt. However, payments were made on about $349 million of GO bonds deemed secured debt by the city, he added. “Unsecured debts will be satisfied in the course of a plan of adjustment or by mutual agreement of the parties, and approval of the judge,” Nowling said, referring to Detroit’s bankruptcy filing.

Rising foreclosures hurt Long Island as nation recovers - (www.newsday.com)  New foreclosure cases on Long Island are spiking, even as the mortgage crisis fades in the rest of the United States. Despite rising home values that suggest a housing rebound on the Island, lenders filed 12,271 initial foreclosure cases here in the first eight months of this year, a nearly 53 percent surge compared with the same period in 2012, according to data from real estate information firm LI Profiles, based in Brightwaters. Nationwide the number of initial filings dropped 34 percent during the same period, national data provider RealtyTrac reported. "We're definitely seeing the Long Island area buck the national trend when it comes to foreclosure activity," said Daren Blomquist, vice president of RealtyTrac, based in Irvine, Calif.

The 'Smart Money' In The Stock Market Has Been Headed For The Exits Since May - (www.businessinsider.com) The "Smart Money Flow Index" has been headed lower since May, even though the stock market has continued to make new all-time highs since then. What is the SMFI? A description of the indicator from Bloomberg: The Smart Money Flow Index is calculated by taking the action of the Dow in two time periods: the first 20 minutes and the close. The first 30 minutes represent emotional buying, driven by greed and fear of the crowd based on good and bad news. There is also a lot of buying on market orders and short covering at the opening. Smart money waits until the end and they very often test the market before by shorting heavily just to see how the market reacts. Then they move in the big way. These heavy hitters also have the best possible information available to them and they do have the edge on all the other market participants. To replicate this index, just start at any given day, subtract the price of the Dow at 10 AM from the previous day's close and add today's closing price. Whenever the Dow makes a high which is not confirmed by the SMFI there is trouble ahead.

Uncle Sam Is Reluctant Landlord Of Foreclosed Homes - (www.nbcnews.com)  For sale or rent by distressed owner: 248,000 homes. That’s how many residential properties the U.S. government now has in its possession, the result of record numbers of people defaulting on government-backed mortgages. Washington is sitting on nearly a third of the nation’s 800,000 repossessed houses, making the U.S. taxpayer the largest owner of foreclosed properties. With even more homes moving toward default, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration are looking for a way to unload them without swamping the already depressed real estate market. Trouble is, they haven’t figured out how to do that. The government admitted as much in August, when Fannie, Freddie and FHA issued a joint plea to the public for ideas about how to solve the problem. (Give it your best shot: You have until Sept. 15 to email ideas to reo.rfi@fhfa.gov.) “They’re stuck,” says Karen Shaw Petrou, managing partner of Federal Financial Analytics, a Washington-based consultant that advises banks and other clients on government policy. “They don’t know what to do.”





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