TOP
STORIES:
Big
corporations trying to reignite housing bubble - (www.sacbee.com) An investment firm that owns the Waldorf
Astoria hotel and the Weather Channel has bought more than
500 houses in Sacramento in the past few months, betting upward of $60 million
that home prices will rise. Blackstone, a
New York-based group with billions of dollars in investments and offices from
London to Tokyo, has been snapping up low-priced homes across the region, from
Elk Grove to Citrus Heights, at a rate of about 40
a week. It marks the first time a major investment firm has bought in
Sacramento on such a scale – a direct result of the thousands of houses left
vacant by foreclosures in recent years and offered at fire-sale prices. "Prior
to the current housing cycle, it was essentially unheard of" for major investment
funds to buy single-family homes, said Stuart Gabriel, director
of the Ziman Center for Real Estate at UCLA. "The exodus from home
ownership and the dislocation of homeowners has been
unprecedented."
Loan
modification defaults soar 24%, can-kicking fails - (www.ochousingnews.com) Whenever I make a prediction
that goes against the conventional wisdom, I take the risk of looking the fool.
On those occasions when I am right, it’s very satisfying. Even though I know I
shouldn’t, internally, I enjoy a silent I-told-you-so. Almost four years ago
now, lenders embarked on their plan to modify loans to get people over the
“rough patch” caused by the recession. From the beginning I said these programs would fail largely
because the people being helped simply couldn’t afford their homes. They were
Ponzis. When a borrower has gone Ponzi, the “rough patch” is when they are cut
off from more Ponzi borrowing. Their diminished income has nothing to do with
lower wages they earn due to the recession. Ponzis became dependent upon fresh
infusions of borrowed money to sustain their lives and their debts, and lenders
are foolish to continue to enable this behavior because Ponzis don’t have the
capacity to repay the loans. They don’t earn enough money.
What
about this for the Affordable Housing disaster? - (www.nytimes.com) They emerge unscathed from
rough seas and handling, but can those impregnable shipping containers on the
waterfront survive 5-year-olds with permanent markers? As thousands of families
left homeless by Hurricane
Sandy struggle to find lodging, New York City and federal
officials are pushing ahead with plans to develop a new line of temporary
housing that could be rolled out quickly for future disasters. Those plans,
city officials said, call for using shipping containers, or other types of
modular units, that — unlike trailers — could be stacked high to maximize space
in a city with little real estate to spare. The city’s disaster housing plan,
which has been under development for five years and was reported
Monday by The New York Observer, would not affect those
currently displaced by the storm. They have been scattered across the city in
hotels, friends’ homes and vacant apartments.
Realtor
stole for sale signs - (www.boston.com)
A Connecticut real estate
agent has been charged with stealing a competitor’s for sale signs from the
front lawns of area homes. Police say 54-year-old Robert Toth, of Shelton, was
charged Wednesday with third-degree larceny and first-degree criminal trespass.
Toth owns American Home Realty in Trumbull. Police say U.S. Asset Realty owner
Jihad Shaheer complained in September that his signs had been stolen from more
than a half-dozen sites in Bridgeport and from the front of two homes in
Stratford.
"Sovereign
Citizens" seek to avoid foreclosure - (www.ocregister.com) Faced with foreclosure after falling $19,000
behind on his mortgage, an Anaheim man took matters into his own hands. Sitting
at his keyboard, he tapped out an official-looking, one-page document stating
that his mortgage didn't exist. This picture shows the aftermath of a February
2012 incident in which anti-tax activist Joseph Andrew Stack flew a private
airplane into the Austin, TX offices of the IRS, killing himself and a federal
employee. Stack is believed to have been tied to the sovereign citizen
movement. "I have searched and inquired of your records and found that you
have no such record," he wrote. "Therefore, I demand that you remove
this recording immediately." The homeowner then took his document to the
county and attempted to file it at the Orange County Clerk-Recorder's Office. Had
he succeeded, more than $300,000 in debt would have vanished. His four-bedroom,
2.5-bath condo would be his free and clear. Instead, the county rejected his
filing as "unrecordable." His property is in the early stages of the
foreclosure process. Influenced by the "sovereign citizen" movement,
the Anaheim homeowner is among a growing number of people filing liens and
notices seeking to wipe out mortgages, eliminate car loans, cancel credit card
debt and halt foreclosures, according to county and law enforcement officials.
No comments:
Post a Comment