Obama’s Housing Shell Game; Short Sales and Relocation Assistance
by ilene - March 9th, 2010 5:02 pm
Obama’s Housing Shell Game; Short Sales and Relocation Assistance
Courtesy of Mish
We’ve now come full circle. Instead of trying to get people to stay in their homes, Obama is willing to pay them to leave. Please consider Program Will Pay Homeowners to Sell at a Loss.
In an effort to end the foreclosure crisis, the Obama administration has been trying to keep defaulting owners in their homes. Now it will take a new approach: paying some of them to leave.
This latest program, which will allow owners to sell for less than they owe and will give them a little cash to speed them on their way, is one of the administration’s most aggressive attempts to grapple with a problem that has defied solutions.
Under the new program, the servicing bank, as with all modifications, will get $1,000. Another $1,000 can go toward a second loan, if there is one. And for the first time the government would give money to the distressed homeowners themselves. They will get $1,500 in “relocation assistance.”
Short sales are “tailor-made for fraud,” said Mr. Lawler, a former executive at the mortgage finance company Fannie Mae.
Under the new federal program, a lender will use real estate agents to determine the value of a home and thus the minimum to accept. This figure will not be shared with the owner, but if an offer comes in that is equal to or higher than this amount, the lender must take it.
Big Shell Game
Diana Olick describes the situation perfectly in Mortgage Principal Writedown Won’t Save Housing.
And so it begins. Big gun lawmakers are making the move toward principal writedowns as the last resort to save the housing market.
The problem is prices. Home prices have fallen so far in the hardest hit areas, the areas where the bulk of the troubled loans are, that banks would have to write down principal 30 to 50 percent to put borrowers back in the green. Accounting rules require that banks write down the value of those loans on their books, and experts tell me that if banks really accounted for all the losses in the home loan market, they’d all be insolvent.
That’s why the Obama Administration has created this kind of shell game in the first place.
I stole that shell game idea from
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THE STOCK MARKET IS DISLOCATED FROM REALITY
by ilene - October 18th, 2009 12:36 am
THE STOCK MARKET IS DISLOCATED FROM REALITY
Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist
David Rosenberg is still unwavering in his belief that the rally is built on quicksand:
There are some very serious headwinds facing the U.S. economy, and one of them is access to credit for people who are at the lower end of the income spectrum (and who also represent the greatest default risk). A great article on this can be found on the front page of the weekend WSJ (The ‘Democratization of Credit’ Is Over – Now It’s Payback Time). Families at the lower end of the income spectrum spend nearly all of their income, so this is a vital part of the economy and it is going to be very difficult for lower-income families to secure credit going forward. The ratio of credit card debt outstanding to income is 50% higher for the bottom 40% of the income strata than is the case for the upper 40%. The highest default rates are the folks at the bottom of the pay scale. In 2007, fully 35% of poor families had a balance owing on their credit card compared with 21% in 1989. This is the byproduct of government policy inducing lenders to make credit cards available to high-risk, low-income individuals — a reckless policy drive that started in the late 1970s (the policy did help drive homeownership rates up and crime rates down).
Now that lenders have started to respond to their record-high delinquency rates by rationing credit, a mad scramble for cash is occurring to replace the loans — food stamp usage is up 22% year-over-year, pawn shop business is up nearly 40%, and there is a tidal wave of applications for Social Security disability benefits that are not explained alone by workplace mishaps.
In any event, so much effort is being expended by the government to keep the credit cycle going that it isn’t even funny, nor is it useful, anymore. Allowing households to still finance almost 100% of a new house purchase has meant that the FHA default rate for loans made in the last year has surged to 20%; and to 24% for loans made since 2007. Private lenders are now requiring a 20% downpayment, and the credit officers at the FHA only need a 3.5% downpayment. The U.S. taxpayer could be facing up to…
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW.