Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Wednesday June 6 Housing and Economic stories



TOP STORIES:

Real Estate Agent from Sacramento Found Guilty on 13 Counts of Mortgage Fraud - (www.loansafe.org) According to the evidence presented at trial, Badie, with co-defendants Derek Davis and Dino Rosetti (both of whom previously pleaded guilty), participated in a scheme to defraud mortgage lenders from June 2005 through December 2006. Badie was the buyer’s real estate agent for the purchase of 16 residential properties by four straw buyers. Rosetti served as the mortgage broker for 15 of the purchasers, and Davis orchestrated the scheme. With Badie’s assistance, Harriette Davis, Derek Davis’ ex-wife, purchased six residential properties. Kristina Harvey, Davis’ girlfriend, purchased five. William Emmons, an elderly friend of Davis’, purchased four. Alan Bolton, a person to whom Davis owed money, purchased one. Each of the purchase agreements drafted by Badie indicated the offer was being submitted by one of the foregoing buyers who intended to occupy the property as his or her primary residence. In fact, Badie knew the properties were really being purchased by Davis, who planned to remodel the properties and then sell them. The individuals named on the purchase agreements, at least two of whom Badie never even met, never planned on residing in the properties. Badie submitted the offers on behalf of the buyers so that 100 percent financing could be obtained for each purchase. In furtherance of that goal, Rosetti submitted loan applications that, in every case, substantially overstated the income and understated the liabilities of each buyer.

Large depositors beginning to make withdrawals from UK bank - (www.telegraph.co.uk) Customers with large deposits have started withdrawing cash from Santander, the bank has admitted, as it tried to reassure concerned members of the public that their money is safe. The high street bank also saw an increase in enquiries by worried savers to its call centres and in its 1,380 branches across Britain yesterday. Customers are worried that the bank will be dragged into the eurozone crisis because it is owned by Spain’s Banco Santander. On Thursday, Banco Santander, its UK subsidiary and 15 other Spanish banks had their credit ratings downgraded due to their exposure to the struggling Spanish economy. The Spanish banks were hit with more bad news yesterday, as official figures showed bad debts had risen to their highest level in 18 years. However, shares across the sector shrugged off the concerns to rally strongly, as treasury minister Inigo Fernandez de Mesa said there was little reason for concern as “Spanish banks have plenty of liquidity”. Lenders have about two years of funding, due to the European Central Bank’s emergency support.

Court-bound housing meltdown is stark at Plumas Lake - (www.sacbee.com) At the height of the housing bubble, Plumas Lake seemed like a good deal to buyers willing to trade a long commute for a big house. Sales were brisk for a while in the sprawling subdivision about 40 minutes north ofSacramento on Highway 70 in rural Yuba County. Today, the equation is much different. Homes closer to jobs and services are more affordable than they've been in decades, and much ofPlumas Lake looks like a suburban ghost town. Only a fraction of the thousands of homes planned there have been built. Along streets named High Noon Drive and Long Horn Trail, vacant lots are choked with weeds. Roads dead-end into concrete barriers. Construction trailers sit empty. Home prices have crashed hard, and residents are underwater and upset.

IMF call for drastic action to rescue Britain's economy - (www.telegraph.co.uk)  Warning that weak growth was putting the country at risk of permanently high unemployment, the Bretton Woods institution called for swift and co-ordinated action between the Bank and the Treasury. If the joint efforts had failed to have much effect by November, the Government should then consider cutting taxes and boosting infrastructure spending by as much as £30bn, said the IMF. In an unusually alarmist annual assessment of the UK, IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said that "growth is too slow and unemployment too high, and policies to bolster demand before low growth becomes entrenched are needed".

Fitch downgrades Japan - (money.cnn.com) Fitch Ratings cut Japan's credit rating Tuesday, citing "growing risks" from the country's "rising public debt ratios." Fitch forecast that the Japanese government's debt will reach 239% of gross domestic product by the end of the year, which would be the highest of any countries rated by Fitch. Fitch also criticized Japan's plan to control in its debt as being too "leisurely." The rating agency downgraded Japan's long-term foreign and local currency issuer default ratings to A+ from AA and AA-, respectively, with negative outlooks for both. The yen continued to weaken against the U.S. dollar, falling nearly 0.5% to ¥ 79.70 early Tuesday. The Japanese currency is down nearly 4% against the greenback so far this year. But the rating agency praised Japan for maintaining "exceptional financing flexibility" and its ability to "fund itself at low nominal yields."

Rows break out over eurozone woes - (www.telegraph.co.uk) On a day when angry comments were exchanged over France’s call for eurobonds, Adam Posen, a member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, said it was undercapitalised lenders that were the real cause of the region’s woes and urged authorities not to be afraid of nationalising them if necessary. “The source of current problems is not Greece ... The source of current problems in the eurozone is that various financial exposures we all have in the interbank market are not yet resolved because certain financial institutions are insufficiently capitalised,” Mr Posen told a conference in Tokyo. His comments came as Spain revealed that the state-backed Bankia would need another €7.5bn of equity, which would leave it almost entirely taxpayer owned and French President Francois Hollande sparked an angry exchange with Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy by saying the rest of the sector should also be recapitalised.






1 comment:

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