TOP
STORIES:
Man
refuses to sell house he couldn't afford, complains about foreclosure - (www.ochousingnews.com) Larry Faulks says his bank robbed him of over a quarter of a million
dollars. By selling Faulks’ San Francisco house at a foreclosure auction, Wells
Fargo wiped out all his equity, he said. Unlike most struggling homeowners,
Faulks, 59, was not underwater on the home his family bought in 1962; it was
worth considerably more than he owed on it. Wells Fargo did not rob him of his
equity. Mr. Faulks was foolish and ignorant. He could have sold his home by
choice as he didn’t require short sale approval. The fact that he chose not to
sell doesn’t mean he was robbed; it means he was stupid. Wells Fargo says it
tried to work with Faulks but couldn’t find a way to avoid foreclosure, as his
income was too limited. Outside legal experts who reviewed his case said it
highlights how California law doesn’t safeguard the rare homeowners with equity
in a foreclosure. Foreclosure law isn’t designed to protect a homeowner with
equity. It’s not supposed to. Foreclosure law is designed to force a sale so a
lender can obtain their loaned capital. It’s supposed to be a threat to compel
an owner with equity to sell on their own.
Federal
agency asks to add big fee to mortgages - (www.timesunion.com) Foreclosures in New York typically take longer than in most states due
to the protections and backstops that the courts and Legislature have put in
place to try to keep people in their homes. That's the good news. But
in what housing advocates say is a case of no good deed going unpunished, the
federal agency that oversees mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie
Mac wants to add a special fee to its New York loans — precisely because of the
long period of time it takes to complete a foreclosure here. The slow
pace, which advocates view as a consumer protection, is viewed as a negative
by lenders. "It's a real threat," said Kirsten Keefe, senior staff
attorney at the Empire Justice Center, who
notes that this increased fee could add more than $2,000 to the cost of a
$200,000 mortgage over the life of a 30-year loan.
Fed Exit Plan May Be Redrawn as Assets Near $3 Trillion - (www.bloomberg.com) A decision by the Federal Reserve to expand its bond buying
next week is likely to prompt policy makers to rewrite their 18-month-old
blueprint for an exit from record monetary stimulus. Under the exit strategy, the
Fed would start selling bonds in mid-2015 in a bid to return its holdings to
pre-crisis proportions in two to three years. An accelerated buildup of assets
would also mean a faster pace of sales when the time comes to exit --
increasing the risk that a jump in interest rates would crush the economic
recovery. “There is certainly an issue about unwinding the balance sheet” in a
way that “is effective and continues to support the recovery without creating
inflation,” St. Louis Fed Bank President James Bullard said in an interview in
October. The central bank might have to “revisit” the 2011 strategy, he added.
Suppressed
Inventory - (www.usawatchdog.com)
Real estate expert Fabian Calvo says there’s more to the story about
rising prices in the housing market than what’s reported by the mainstream
media. Calvo charges, “There’s a tremendous amount of manipulation .
. . Yes, prices have gone up 3%. I see it, but it’s because the
inventory has been suppressed on purpose by big players . . . not foreclosing
on properties.” Calvo should know because he runs a company called TheNoteHouse.us. It buys and sells $100
million annually in distressed debt and real estate. Calvo says, “Over
20 million houses, on any given night in America, are completely sitting
vacant.” According to Calvo, the economy is being helped by “shadow
stimulus.” It’s coming from millions of underwater homeowners who
have stopped making mortgage payments. Calvo says, “Money that would
have been otherwise allocated towards a housing payment is going into consumer
spending.”
Right
After The Election, New Home Sales Tumble From Downward Revised - (www.zerohedge.com) There are those who may be surprised that last month's number of
Seasonally Adjusted New Home Sales, which was then reported at 389K, and which
number hit the airwaves days before the Obama reelection, was the highest since April 2010. We are
not among them, as we were fully expecting today's number to be a major
revision of the September number lower - as just happened, with the whopper of
a print revised far lower to 369K - but doubled down with the additional miss
of expectations of Seasonally Adjusted annualized new home sales of 390K for
October when in reality only 368K were sold. All these numbers are annualized.
When observed on an as is basis, in October there was a grand total of 29,000
new homes sold in the entire USA, with the Northeast representing a whopping...
2,000 of this.
No comments:
Post a Comment