Tuesday January 10 Housing and Economic stories

KeNosHousingPortal.blogspot.com

TOP STORIES:

Wealth gap widens between lawmakers and constituents - (www.bangordailynews.com) One day after his shift at the steel mill, Gary Myers drove home in his 10-year-old Pontiac and told his wife he was going to run for Congress. The odds were long. At 34, Myers was the shift foreman at the “hot mill” of the Armco plant in Butler, Pa. He had no political experience, little or no money, and he was a Republican in a district that tilted Democrat. But standing in the dining room, still in his work clothes, he said he felt voters deserved a better choice. Three years later, he won. Back when Myers entered Congress in 1975, it wasn’t nearly so unusual for a person with few assets besides a home to win and serve in Congress. But the financial gap between Americans and their representatives in Congress has widened considerably since then, according to an analysis of financial disclosures by The Washington Post.

Foreclosure free ride: Borrowers keep houses without paying - (www.cnn.com) Delinquent borrowers facing foreclosure are learning that they can stay in their homes for years, as long as they're willing to put up a fight.

Among the tactics: Challenging the bank's actions, waiting to file paperwork right up until the deadline, requesting the lender dig up original paperwork or, in some extreme cases, declaring bankruptcy. Nationwide, the average time it takes to process a foreclosure -- from the first missed payment to the final foreclosure auction -- has climbed to 674 days from 253 days just four years ago, according to LPS Applied Analytics. It takes much longer than that in Florida, where the process averages 1,027 days, nearly 3 years. In D.C., foreclosure averages 1,053 days and delinquent borrowers in New York often stay in their homes for an average of 906 days.

And while some borrowers are looking for ways to make good with lenders and get their homes back, many aren't paying a dime. Nearly 40% of homeowners in default have not made a payment in at least two years, according to LPS.

Looming decline in property tax revenues: "That storm has not yet hit" - (www.washingtonpost.com) The nation’s housing crisis is five years old, but for local governments across the country, the worst of the reckoning might only now be at hand. Because of the time it often takes for property assessments to reflect falling home values, the bust that began in 2007 has just begun to ravage tax revenues in communities from coast to coast. The problem is unlikely to subside soon. For instance, Baltimore collected $815 million in property taxes during the most recent fiscal year, according to Bill Voorhees, Baltimore’s director of revenue and tax analysis. Next year, the figure is predicted to shrink to $803.5 million. The following year, $773 million. The year after that, $735.7 million. The year after that, $729.4 million. Only in 2016 do city officials anticipate tax revenues increasing again. “I don’t see any quick fixes over the next four or five years, to be honest,” said Voorhees, noting that Baltimore already faces a budget deficit of more than $50 million next year. “Obviously, it means we have much lower revenues than we had in past. It’s creating gaps in our budget. . . . It’s a very large problem.”

How SOPA 2.0 Sneaks In Ability To Kill Any Website - (www.techdirt.com) I already wrote a big post about yesterday's SOPA markup day one. While we're moving forward on day two, I wanted to call out one key point that was really made clear by an amendment offered by Rep. Jared Polis late in the day yesterday, which hasn't received nearly enough attention. As you may recall, with the "manager's amendment" version of SOPA (i.e., SOPA 2.0), the "notice-and-shut off funding" section of the private right of action in Section 103 was removed. This was good, because we've seen how the notice-and-takedown provision of the DMCA has been widely abused.

OTHER STORIES:

If Our Debt Is So Dangerous, Why Are People Begging for More? - (www.theatlantic.com)

SOPA Bill Would Censor Your Search Results, Shred 1st Amendment - (www.vortex.com)

GoDaddy Withdraws SOPA Support After Backlash - (www.pcmag.com)

Princeton Brews Trouble for Us 1 Percenters - (www.bloomberg.com)

Mortgage insurance (MI) tax deductibility ending? - (www.mortgagenewsdaily.com)

Unlimited Presidential Fundraising: The Curse Of Steve - (www.opensecrets.org)

Whistleblower documents illuminate case against BNY Mellon - (www.yahoo.com)