OREGON REAL ESTATE ROUND TABLE

Tag: Oregon Mortgage

  • Mortgage market over-correction, or a sign of things to come?


    In the past two days, mortgage rates have risen across the board by an average of 1/4%.  This is significant and affects buying power & payments.  Will this continue?  Watch today as I give my predictions!

  • America’s Credit and Housing Crisis: New State Bank Bills, Marketoracle.co.uk


    Seventeen states have now introduced bills for state-owned banks, and others are in the works.  Hawaii’s innovative state bank bill addresses the foreclosure mess.  County-owned banks are being proposed that would tackle the housing crisis by exercising the right of eminent domain on abandoned and foreclosed properties.  Arizona has a bill that would do this for homeowners who are current in their payments but underwater, allowing them to refinance at fair market value.

    The long-awaited settlement between 49 state Attorneys General and the big five robo-signing banks is proving to be a majordisappointment before it has even been signed, sealed and court approved.  Critics maintain that the bankers responsible for the housing crisis and the jobs crisis will again be buying their way out of jail, and the curtain will again drop on the scene of the crime.

    We may not be able to beat the banks, but we don’t have to play their game.  We can take our marbles and go home.  The Move Your Money campaign has already prompted more than 600,000 consumers to move their funds out of Wall Street banks into local banks, and there are much larger pools that could be pulled out in the form of state revenues.  States generally deposit their revenues and invest their capital with large Wall Street banks, which use those hefty sums to speculate, invest abroad, and buy up the local banks that service our communities and local economies.  The states receive a modest interest, and Wall Street lends the money back at much higher interest.

    Rhode Island is a case in point.  In an article titled “Where Are R.I. Revenues Being Invested? Not Locally,” Kyle Hence wrote in ecoRI Newson January 26th:

     

    According to a December Treasury report, only 10 percent of Rhode Island’s short-term investments reside in truly local in-state banks, namely Washington Trust and BankRI. Meanwhile, 40 percent of these investments were placed with foreign-owned banks, including a British-government owned bank under investigation by the European Union.

    Further, millions have been invested by Rhode Island in a fund created by a global buyout firm . . . . From 2008 to mid-2010, the fund lost 10 percent of its value — more than $2 million. . . . Three of four of Rhode Island’s representatives in Washington, D.C., count [this fund] amongst their top 25 political campaign donors . . . .

    Hence asks:

    Are Rhode Islanders and the state economy being served well here? Is it not time for the state to more fully invest directly in Rhode Island, either through local banks more deeply rooted in the community or through the creation of a new state-owned bank?

    Hence observes that state-owned banks are “[o]ne emerging solution being widely considered nationwide  . . . . Since the onset of the economic collapse about five years ago, 16 states have studied or explored creating state-owned banks, according to a recent Associated Press report.”

    2012 Additions to the Public Bank Movement

    Make that 17 states, including three joining the list of states introducing state bank bills in 2012: Idaho (a bill for a feasibility study), New Hampshire (a bill for a bank), and Vermont (introducing THREE bills—one for a state bank study, one for a state currency, and one for a state voucher/warrant system).  With North Dakota, which has had its own bank for nearly a century, that makes 18 states that have introduced bills in one form or another—36% of U.S. states.  For states and text of bills, see here.

    Other recent state bank developments were in Virginia, Hawaii, Washington State, and California, all of which have upgraded from bills to study the feasibility of a state-owned bank to bills to actually establish a bank.  The most recent, California’s new bill, was introduced on Friday, February 24th.

    All of these bills point to the Bank of North Dakota as their model.  Kyle Hence notes that North Dakota has maintained a thriving economy throughout the current recession:

    One of the reasons, some say, is the Bank of North Dakota, which was formed in 1919 and is the only state-owned or public bank in the United States. All state revenues flow into the Bank of North Dakota and back out into the state in the form of loans.

    Since 2008, while servicing student, agricultural and energy— including wind — sector loans within North Dakota, every dollar of profit by the bank, which has added up to tens of millions, flows back into state coffers and directly supports the needs of the state in ways private banks do not.

    Publicly-owned Banks and the Housing Crisis

    A novel approach is taken in the new Hawaii bill:  it proposes a program to deal with the housing crisis and the widespread problem of breaks in the chain of title due to robo-signing, faulty assignments, and MERS.  (For more on this problem, see here.)  According to a February 10th report on the bill from the Hawaii House Committees on Economic Revitalization and Business & Housing:

    The purpose of this measure is to establish the bank of the State of Hawaii in order to develop a program to acquire residential property in situations where the mortgagor is an owner-occupant who has defaulted on a mortgage or been denied a mortgage loan modification and the mortgagee is a securitized trust that cannot adequately demonstrate that it is a holder in due course.

    The bill provides that in cases of foreclosure in which the mortgagee cannot prove its right to foreclose or to collect on the mortgage, foreclosure shall be stayed and the bank of the State of Hawaii may offer to buy the property from the owner-occupant for a sum not exceeding 75% of the principal balance due on the mortgage loan.  The bank of the State of Hawaii can then rent or sell the property back to the owner-occupant at a fair price on reasonable terms.

    Arizona Senate Bill 1451, which just passed the Senate Banking Committee 6 to 0, would do something similar for homeowners who are current on their payments but whose mortgages are underwater (exceeding the property’s current fair market value).  Martin Andelman callsthe bill a “revolutionary approach to revitalizing the state’s increasingly water-logged housing market, which has left over 500,000 ofArizona’s homeowners in a hopelessly immobile state.”

    The bill would establish an Arizona Housing Finance Reform Authority to refinance the mortgages of Arizona homeowners who owe more than their homes are currently worth.  The existing mortgage would be replaced with a new mortgage from AHFRA in an amount up to 125% of the home’s current fair market value. The existing lender would get paid 101% of the home’s fair market value, and would get a non-interest-bearing note called a “loss recapture certificate” covering a portion of any underwater amounts, to be paid over time.  The capital to refinance the mortgages would come from floating revenue bonds, and payment on the bonds would come solely from monies paid by the homeowner-borrowers. An Arizona Home Insurance Fund would create a cash reserve of up to 20 percent of the bond and would be used to insure against losses. The bill would thus cost the state nothing.

    Critics of the Arizona bill maintain that it shifts losses from collapsed property values onto banks and investors, violating the law of contracts; and critics of the Hawaii bill maintain that the state bank could wind up having paid more than market value for a slew of underwater homes. An option that would avoid both of these objections is one suggested by Michael Sauvante of the Commonwealth Group, discussed earlierhere: the state or county could exercise its right of eminent domain on blighted, foreclosed and abandoned properties.  It could offer to pay fair market value to anyone who could prove title (something that with today’s defective title records normally can’t be done), then dispose of the property through a publicly-owned land bank as equity and fairness dictates.  If a bank or trust could prove title, the claimant would get fair market value, which would be no less than it would have gotten at an auction; and if it could not prove title, it legally would have no claim to the property.  Investors who could prove actual monetary damages would still have an unsecured claim in equity against the mortgagors for any sums owed.

     

    Rhode Island Next?

    As the housing crisis lingers on with little sign of relief from the Feds, innovative state and local solutions like these are gaining adherents in other states; and one of them is Rhode Island, which is in serious need of relief.  According to The Pew Center on the States, “The country’s smallest state . . . was one of the first states to fall into the recession because of the housing crisis and may be one of the last to emerge.”

    Rhode Islanders are proud of having been first in a number of more positive achievements, including being the first of the 13 original colonies to declare independence from British rule.  A state bank presentation was made to the president of the Rhode Island Senate and other key leaders earlier this month that was reportedly well received.  Proponents have ambitions of making Rhode Island the first state in this century to move its money out of Wall Street into its own state bank, one owned and operated by the people for the people.

    Ellen Brown is an attorney and president of the Public Banking Institute, http://PublicBankingInstitute.org.  In Web of Debt, her latest of eleven books, she shows how a private cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back.  Her websites are http://WebofDebt.com and http://EllenBrown.com. 

    Ellen Brown is a frequent contributor to Global Research.  Global Research Articles by Ellen Brown

    © Copyright Ellen Brown 2012

    Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Centre for Research on Globalization. The contents of this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). The Centre for Research on Globalization will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements contained in this article.

    http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article33365.html

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  • Financial Force Majeure


    Financial Force Majeure: The Virtual World Taylored to Our Real World

    If any of you have ever played the virtual reality game, Sim City or any similar, you will probably appreciate the point to be made more immediately than those unfamiliar. For the unfamiliar, this is a game in which you are the master of the land, tasked with taking what amounts to any empty field and building, expanding, and developing yourself a thriving metropolis.

    This entails tapping into the natural resources that are available within your splotch of land, thereby harnessing those resources to grow your community. As master of your domain, you have to the politician, the banker, the shopkeeper too, making wise decisions with your electronic currency inasmuch as budgeting and investment are concerned. You have to provide the infrastructure, exploiting what resources you have to attract more Sims (the inhabitants of your city) to further grow your town.

    You zone the land for residential, commercial, and industrial zones and providing for greenbelt, park, and recreational zones. You build schools, banks, retail and shopping centers, single-family and multi-family residential, industrial, and hospitals. As in the real world, this is done through various types of investment deals in the both the private and public sectors, involving commercial and investment banks, private investors and businesses. Your metropolis’ success depends on good investment strategies.

    Mother Nature is an ever present threat, just as in the real world, throwing a natural disaster your way now and again. Of course, disaster strikes when least expected, testing the validity of your decisions, most of all your infrastructure. It is than you discover if value engineering the levy walls was such a good idea. Should news of cutting corners for costs leaks out, it costs your city, as restitution to flood victims is yours to bear.

    Of course, the entirety is based on a designed program consisting of a language, codes, and locks. As with any program there savvy programmers, some might say hackers, having the learned knowledge to manipulate codes, language, and changing locks or even to remove locks. Purposes in hacking games might be to expand the games capabilities or to be able to be able to skip ahead to more advanced levels without having to play through the levels not desired.

    Virtual reality games are rooted in fantasy, even if based on real situations, there is no tangible result. Emotional personal satisfaction or perhaps of monetary award if in some sort of competition is the best reward one can hope for. You can’t physically walk the streets of your city, go to one of its schools, or benefit from the investment dividends in terms of attaining real dollars.

    For the developers, the tangible aspects are realized by sales which return in real dollars to the owners of the rights to the game. The developers might not necessarily be the owners either, depending on whether the developers retain rights or assigned them away to another.

    The point to take away from this little piece is more of a question. What if, with highly sophisticated programming, it was possible to design investment strategies, for instance and than somehow apply them to the real world? What if it has already been done…..What if our whole entire economy has been modeled in the virtual world, brought forth into the real world?

    Sound ridiculous? ………think again…….

     

    INFORMATION PROCESSING SYSTEM FOR SEAMLESS VIRTUAL TO REAL WORLD OPERATIONS      

    US Patent Pub. No.: US 2002/0188760 Al

     

    SECURING CONTRACTS IN A VIRTUAL WORLD    

    US Patent Pub. No.: US 2007/0117615

     

    WEB DEPENDENT CONSUMER FINANCING AND VIRTUAL RESELLING METHOD      

    US Patent Pub. No.: US 2001/0056399 A1

     

    TRANSACTIONS IN VIRTUAL PROPERTY      

    US Patent Pub. No.: US 2005/0021472 Al

     

    VIRTUAL FINANCE/INSURANCE COMPANY       

    US Patent Pub. No.: US 2003/0187768 A1

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • MERS


    What we need to do is take a survey, the population being made up of mortgage borrowers between the years 2002-2008. Why these years would become apparent with the results, which can be predicted before ever tallying the results. It would be a one question survey:

    “Upon loan origination, was it required, in addition to completing a loan 1003 loan application, that you also provide specific documents for verification and loan qualification purposes, or did you simply have to complete a loan 1003 loan application?”

    My bet would be that most everyone who was in receipt of a loan prior to September 2005 was required to submit documents to a human person which were used to verify loan qualification. Most nearly everyone subsequent that date was not required to submit anything by way of supporting documents.

    This gives us two separately defined groups:

    GROUP A: borrowers whose loans were humanly underwritten and verified

    GROUP B: borrowers whose loans were underwritten entirely by automation

    We can argue about the underlying reasons for economic collapse all day long, as there are certainly many, but one fact remains as being integral. This is acknowledging that there were borrowers that never, ever should have been approved for a loan, yet were. It was this very small subset of borrowers in Group B however, those that defaulted nearly immediately, that is within the first through third months out of the gate. It was these ‘early payment defaults (EPD’s ) that spread throughout the investment community causing fear, bringing into question the quality of all loan originations, thereby freezing the credit markets in August 2007, a year later the entire economy collapsed.

    Of course, it is much more complex than that, but the crucial piece that provided the catalyst was these EPD’s. It was the quality of the borrowers from these EPD’s that became the model by which was used to stigmatize all borrowers. What was needed was a fall guy, to first lessen the anger towards the bailouts in providing a scapegoat, and second to divert attention away from the facts underlying the lending standards the failed and/or intentionally purposeful failure of the automation. From my research, it was with purposeful intent come hell or high water is my mission in life to bring forth into the public light.

    Putting intent aside for the moment and just focusing on the EPD’s and the domino effect they caused which resulted in millions of borrowers, from both Groups A and B, to lose their homes or struggling to hold on. How could one small group of failed borrowers affect millions of other borrowers, especially those who were qualified through the traditional methods of underwriting?

    The answer is an obvious one, coming down to the one common element that is the structuring of the loan products, that as it relates to the reset. Anyone whose reset occurred just prior and certainly after the economic collapse was as the saying goes…..Screwed. It is within is this, that the Grand Illusion lay intentionally concealed and hidden. It is within the automation wherein all the evidence clearly points to the fact that a mortgage is not a mortgage but rather a basket of securities….Not just any securities, but debt defaultable securities. In other words, it was largely planned to intentionally give loans to those whom were known to result in default.

    But, even without understanding any of the issues as to the ‘basket of securities” there is one obvious point that looms, hiding in plain sight, which I believe should be completely exploited. This as it directly relates to our mortal enemy, that which takes the name of MERS. I know there are those that disseminate the structure of Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc and Merscorp as it relates to the MIN number and want to pick it apart, and all this is well and good. However, they miss the larger and more obvious point that clearly gives some definition.

    There is one particular that every one of those millions upon millions of borrowers, those in both Group A and Group B along with the small subset of Group B, all have in common. ……MERS. MERS was integrated into every set of loan documents, slide past the borrowers without explanation without proper representation in concealing the implied contracts behind the trade and service mark of MERS.

    MERS does not discriminate between a good or a bad loan, a loan is a loan as far it is concerned, whether it was fraudulently underwritten or perfectly underwritten. If it is registered with MERS the good, the bad, the ugly all go down, and therein lays an issue that is pertinent to discussion.

    MERS was written into all Fannie and Freddie Uniform Security Instrument, not by happenstance, rather mandated by Fannie and Freddie. It was they who crafted verbiage and placement within the document. Fannie and Freddie are of course agency loans, however nearly 100% of non-agency lenders utilized the same Fannie and Freddie forms. Put into context, MERS covers both agency and non-agency, and not surprisingly members of MERS as well. Talk about fixing the game!!

    It would seem logical, considering we, the American Taxpayer own Fannie Mae, that we should be entitled some answers to some very basic questions……The primary question: If Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mandated that MERS play the role that it does, why than were there no quality control measures in place, and should they not have been responsible for putting in some safety measures in place?

    The question is a logical one; any other business would have buried in litigation had a product it sponsored or mandated, as the case may be here, resulted in complete failure. From the standpoint of public policy, MERS was a tremendous failure. Why? The answer derives itself from the facts as laid out above regarding the underwriting processes and the division of borrowers: Group A and B.

    This becomes a pertinent taking into account Fannie Mae on record in its recorded patents.

    US PATENT #7,881,994 B1– Filed April 1, 2004, Assignee: Fannie Mae

     ‘It is well known that low doc loans bear additional risk. It is also true that these loans are

    charged higher rates in order to compensate for the increased risk.’

     

    System and method for processing a loan

    US PATENT # 7,653,592– Filed December 30, 2005, Assignee: Fannie Mae

    The following from the Summary section states:

    ‘An exemplary embodiment relates to a computer-implemented mortgage loan application data processing system comprising user interface logic and a workflow engine. The user interface logic is accessible by a borrower and is configured to receive mortgage loan application data for a mortgage loan application from the borrower. The workflow engine has stored therein a list representing tasks that need to be performed in connection with a mortgage loan application for a mortgage loan for the borrower. The tasks include tasks for fulfillment of underwriting conditions generated by an automated underwriting engine. The workflow engine is configured to cooperate with the user interface logic to prompt the borrower to perform the tasks represented in the list including the tasks for the fulfillment of the underwriting conditions. The system is configured to provide the borrower with a fully-verified approval for the mortgage loan application. The fully-verified approval indicates that the mortgage loan application data received from the borrower has already been verified as accurate using information from trusted sources. The fully-verified approval is provided in a form that allows the mortgage loan application to be provided to different lenders with the different lenders being able to authenticate the fully-verified approval status of the mortgage loan application’

    Computerized systems and methods for facilitating the flow of capital

    through the housing finance industry

    US PATENT # 7,765,151– Filed July 21, 2006, Assignee: Fannie Mae

    The following passages taken from patent documents reads:

    ‘The prospect or other loan originator preferably displays generic interest rates (together with an assumptive rate sheet, i.e., current mortgage rates) on its Internet web site or the like to entice online mortgage shoppers to access the web site (step 50). The generic interest rates (“enticement rates”) displayed are not intended to be borrower specific, but are calculated by pricing engine 22 and provided to the loan originator as representative, for example, of interest rates that a “typical” borrower may expect to receive, or rates that a fictitious highly qualified borrower may expect to receive, as described in greater detail hereinafter. FIG. 2b depicts an example of a computer Internet interface screen displaying enticement rates.’

     ’If the potential borrower enters a combination of factors that is ineligible, the borrower is notified immediately of the ineligibility and is prompted to either change the selection or call a help center for assistance (action 116). It should be understood that this allows the potential borrower to change the response to a previous question and then continue on with the probable qualification process. If the potential borrower passes the eligibility screening, the borrower then is permitted to continue on with the probable qualification assessment.’

    ‘Underwriting engine 24 also determines, for each approved product, the minimum amount of verification documentation (e.g., minimum assets to verify, minimum income to verify), selected loan underwriting parameters, assuming no other data changes, (e.g., maximum loan amount for approval, maximum loan amount for aggregating closing costs with the loan principal, and minimum refinance amount), as well as the maximums and minimums used to tailor the interest rate quote (maximum schedule interest rate and maximum number of points) and maximum interest rate approved for float up to a preselected increase over a current approved rate. It should be appreciated that this allows the potential borrower to provide only that information that is necessary for an approval decision, rather than all potentially relevant financial and other borrower information. This also reduces the processing burden on system.’

    The two patents above was Fannie Mae’s means of responding to its competition, that being the non-agency who had surpassed the agencies in sales volume (those stats I will have to dig up and repost as they are not handy at the moment), as the non-agencies had dropped all standards back in and around September 2005.

    The point being though, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mad were the caretakers of MERS, so to speak, inasmuch as mandating MERS upon the borrowers. Had there been safety measures in place that caught the fact that the loans that were dumping out quickly, that is the EPD’s, there might have been a stoppage in place, thereby preventing MERS from executing foreclosures upon every successive mortgage.

    I know that this is all BS though, because it is a cover up, a massive one that cuts into the heart of the United States government. This is perhaps one avenue by which to get there, as the questions asked are easily understood, as opposed to digging into the automation processes which people apparently are not ready to accept as of yet.

  • Mass Court May Rule on Retroactivity of some Foreclosures Tied to ‘Naked Mortgages’, by Jann Swanson Mortgagenewsdaily.com


    Another next major marker in the convoluted foreclosure landscape will probably come in the next few weeks when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) is expected to rule on Eaton v. Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae).  This is another in a series of cases challenging the right of various lenders and nominees to foreclose on delinquent mortgages based on assertions that those parties do not own or at least cannot prove they own the enabling legal documents.

    Eaton raises an additional point that has excited interest – whether or not that foreclosure can be challenged and compensation enforced on a retroactive basis or whether such retroactivity exacts too high a cost or permanently clouds title.

    The details of the case are fairly standard, involving a note given by Henrietta Eaton to BankUnited and a contemporaneous mortgage to Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS).  The mortgage was later assigned by MERS to Green Tree servicing and the assignment did not reference the note.  The Eaton Home was subsequently foreclosed upon by Green Tree which assigned its rights under the foreclosure to Fannie Mae which sought to evict Eaton.  Eaton sued, charging that the loan servicer did not hold the note proving that Eaton was obliged to pay the mortgage.

    The Massachusetts Superior Court relied on a January, 2011 ruling in U.S. Bank V. Ibanez in which the court held that the assignment of a mortgage must be effective before the foreclosure in order to be valid and that as holder of the note separated from the mortgage due to a lack of effective assignment, the Plaintiffs had only a beneficial interest in the mortgage note and the power of sale statute granted foreclosure authority to the mortgagee, not to the owner of the beneficial interest.

    In Eaton the lower court said it was “cognizant of sound reason that would have historically supported the common law rule requiring the unification of the promissory note and the mortgage note in the foreclosing entity prior to foreclosure. Allowing foreclosure by a mortgagee not in possession of the mortgage note is potentially unfair to the mortgagor. A holder in due course of the promissory note could seek to recover against the mortgagor, thus exposing her to double liability.”

    In its brief to the Supreme Judicial Court, Fannie Mae contests the lower court ruling on the grounds that:

    1.  Requiring unity of the note and mortgage to foreclose would create a cloud on the Title and result in adverse consequence for Massachusetts homeowners.

    2.  A ruling requiring unity of the note and mortgage to conduct a valid foreclosure should be limited to prospective application only (because)

    A.  Such a ruling was not clearly foreshadowed and

    B.  Retroactive application could result in hardship and injustice.

    The case has been the impetus for filings of nearly a dozen amicus briefs from groups such as the Land Title Association, Real Estate Bar Association, and foreclosure law firms, most in response to a SJC request for comment on whether any ruling should be applied retroactively and if so what the impact would be on the title of some 40,000 homes foreclosed in the last few years.

    Of particular interest is a brief filed by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, conservator of both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which some observers said might be the first time the agency had intervened in a particular foreclosure case.

    FHFA asked the court to apply any decision to uphold the lower court decision prospectively rather than retrospectively.  It’s argument:  applying a ruling retroactively would be “a direct threat to orderly operation of the mortgage market.”   FHFA also said “Retroactive application of a decision requiring unity of the note and the mortgage for a valid foreclosure would impose costs on U.S. Taxpayers and would frustrate the statutory objectives of Conservatorship.”

    “There presently is no mechanism or requirement under Massachusetts law to record the identity of the person entitled to enforce the note at the time of foreclosure,” FHFA said.  “Therefore, a retroactive rule requiring unity of the note and mortgage for a valid foreclosure would potentially call into question the title of any property with a foreclosure in its chain of title within at least the last twenty years.”

    A contrary opinion was advanced in a brief filed by Georgetown University Law School Professor Adam Levitin who called the ruling that a party cannot foreclose on a “naked mortgage” (one separated from the note) merely a restatement of commercial law and “to the extent that the mortgage industry has disregarded a legal principle so commonsensical and uncontroversial that it has been encapsulated in a Restatement, it does so at its peril.”

    Levitin argues that it is impossible to know how widespread the problem of naked mortgages may be either in Massachusetts or nationwide so this should temper any evaluation of the impact of retroactivity.  He also states that there are several factors “that should assuage concerns about clouded title resulting from a retroactively applicable ruling requiring a unity of the note and mortgage.”  He points out that adverse possession, pleading standards, burdens of proof and equitable defenses such as laches all combine to make the likelihood of challenging past foreclosure unlikely and sharply limiting the retroactive effect of a ruling.

    Kathleen M. Howley and Thom Weidlich, writing for Bloomberg noted that a decision to uphold the lower court “could lead to a surge in claims from home owners seeking to overturn seizures.”

    According to Howley and Weidlich, the SJC ruled last year on two foreclosure cases that handed properties back to owners on naked mortgage grounds.  The Ibanez case, referenced above dealt with two single family houses, but in Bevilacqua v. Rodriguez the court handed an apartment building back to the previous owner five years after the foreclosure.  In the interim a developer had purchased the building and turned it into condos.  The condo owners lost their units without compensation and the building now stands vacant.

    The decision may be available before month’s end and as Massrealestateblog.com said, “For interested legal observers of the foreclosure crisis, it really doesn’t get any better than this”.

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  • Successful Short Sales: It All Starts with the Seller, by Gee Dunsten, Rismedia.com


    RISMEDIA, Monday, February 13, 2012— Last month, I outlined the reasons why you should get back on the short sales bandwagon if you’ve fallen off. In the current market, more and more lenders are coming around to the realization that short sales are a favorable option after all and, therefore, are processing and closing short sales at a much faster pace.

    That said, there are critical steps that must be taken throughout the short sale process.

    First and foremost, make sure the home seller is truly eligible for a short sale. A credible, documented financial hardship resulting from a loss of employment, divorce, major medical crisis, death, etc., must exist. This financial hardship needs to be proven with proper documentation as well as detailed financial statements, paystubs, bank statements and tax returns.

    To properly identify and qualify a potential short sale client, conduct a thorough interview right up front—and be sure to leave no stone unturned. This will prevent you from futilely pursuing a short sale with the lender. I use the following Short Sale Seller Questionnaire with my clients:

    1. Is your property currently on the market? Is it listed with an agent?
    2. Is this your primary residence?
    3. When was the property purchased?
    4. What was the original purchase price?
    5. Who holds the mortgage?
    6. What kind of loan do you have?
    7. Do you have any other liens against your property?
    8. Who is on the title (or deed) for the property?
    9. Who is on the mortgage?
    10. Do you have mortgage insurance?
    11. Are you current with your payments? If not, how far in arrears are you?
    12. How much do you owe?
    13. Why do you need/want to sell?
    14. What caused you or will be causing you to miss your mortgage payment obligation?
    15. Do you have funds in accounts that could be used to satisfy the deficiency?
    16. Are you currently living in the property? If not, is the property being maintained?
    17. How soon do you need to move?
    18. Are you up to date on your condo or HOA payments (where applicable)?
    19. Do you owe any back taxes?
    20. Are you considering filing for bankruptcy protection?
    21. Are you currently pursuing a loan modification with your lender?
    22. Who is occupying the property?
    23. Do you hold or are you subject to any type of security clearance related to your job?
    24. What are your plans after you sell?
    25. Are you looking to receive any money from the sale of your home?
    26. How much income are you currently making from all sources?
    27. Do you anticipate any income change in the not-too-distant future?
    28. Do you have a pen and a piece of paper to make a couple of notes?

    Emphasize that inaccurate or missing information will potentially delay or completely thwart the short sale process. Next month, we’ll take a close look at working with lenders to secure a short sale.

    George “Gee” Dunsten, president of Gee Dunsten Seminars, Inc., has been a real estate agent and broker/owner for almost 40 years. Dunsten has been a senior instructor with the Council of Residential Specialists for more than 20 years. To reach Gee, please email, gee@gee-dunsten.com. For an extended version of this article, please visit www.rismedia.com.

     

     

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  • Short Sale Listing: 1212 NE 157TH AVE Portland, Or. $219,900


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    via Short Sale Listing: 1212 NE 157TH AVE Portland, Or. $219,900.

  • Fannie, Freddie overhaul unlikely, by Vicki Needham, Thehill.com


    An overhaul of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is unlikely again this year despite recent Republican efforts to move the issue up the agenda.

    Congressional Republicans, along with some Democrats — and even GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich — are renewing calls to craft an agreement to reduce the involvement of Fannie and Freddie in the nation’s mortgage market.

    But without a broader accord, passage of any legislation this year is slim, housing experts say.

     

    Jim Tobin, senior vice president of government affairs for the National Association of Home Builders, concedes that despite a mix of Democratic and Republican proposals, including a push by the Obama administration last year, congressional leaders probably won’t get far this year on a plan for Fannie and Freddie, the government-controlled mortgage giants.

     

    Tobin said there are “good ideas out there” and while he expects the House to put some bills on the floor and possibly pass legislation, the Senate is likely to remain in oversight mode without any “broad-based legislation on housing finance.”

    “We’re bracing for a year where it’s difficult to break through on important policy issues,” he said this week.

    While the issue makes for a good talking point, especially in an presidential election year, congressional efforts are largely being stymied by the housing market’s sluggish recovery, prohibiting the hand off between the government and private sector in mortgage financing, housing experts say.

    David Crowe, chief economist with NAHB, said that the market has hit rock bottom and is now undergoing a “slow climb out of the hole.”

    The House has taken the biggest steps so far — by mid-July the Financial Services Committee had approved 14 bills intended to jump-start reform of the government-sponsored enterprises.

    “As we continue to move immediate reforms, our ultimate goal remains, to end the bailout of Fannie, Freddie and build a stronger housing finance system that no longer relies on government guarantees,” panel Chairman Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) said last summer.

    Meanwhile, a number of GOP and bipartisan measures have emerged — Democrats and Republicans generally agree Fannie and Freddie are in need of a fix but their ideas still widely vary.

    There are a handful of bills floating around Congress, including one by Reps. John Campbell (R-Calif.) and Gary Peters (D-Mich.), and another by Reps. Gary Miller (R-Calif.) and Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y), which would wind down Fannie and Freddie and create a new system of privately financed organizations to support the mortgage market.

    “Every one of those approaches replaces them [Fannie and Freddie] with what they think is the best alternative to having a new system going forward that would really fix the problem and would really give certainty to the marketplace and allow housing finance to come back, and therefore housing to come back, as well,” Campbell said at a markup last month.

    There’s another bill by Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) and bills in the Senate being pushed by Sens. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.).

    Corker, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, made the case earlier this week for unwinding government support for the GSEs while promoting his 10-year plan that would put in place the “infrastructure for the private sector to step in behind it.”

    “A big part of the problem right now is the private sector is on strike,” Corker said.

    He has argued that his bill isn’t a silver bullet, rather a conversation starter to accelerate talks.

    “So what we need to do is figure out an orderly wind-down,” Corker said in November. “And so we’ve been working on this for some time. We know that Fannie and Freddie cannot exist in the future.”

    He suggested getting the federal government this year to gradually wind down the amount of the loans it guarantees from 90 percent to 80 percent and then to 70 percent.

    “And as that drops down, we think the market will send signals as to what the difference in price is between what the government is actually guaranteeing and what they’re not,” he said.

    Even Gingrich, who has taken heat for his involvement with taking money while doing consulting work for the GSEs, called for an unwinding during a December interview.

    “I do, in fact, favor breaking both of them up,” he said on CBS’ Face the Nation. “I’ve said each of them should devolve into probably four or five companies. And they should be weaned off of the government endorsements, because it has given them both inappropriate advantages and because we now know from the history of how they evolved, that they abused that kind of responsibility.”

    In a white paper on housing last week, the Federal Reserve argued that the mortgage giants should take a more active role in boosting the housing market, although they didn’t outline suggestions for how to fix the agencies.

    The central bank did argue that “some actions that cause greater losses to be sustained by the GSEs in the near term might be in the interest of taxpayers to pursue if those actions result in a quicker and more vigorous economic recovery.”

    Nearly a year ago, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner asked Congress to approve legislation overhauling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac within two years — that deadline appears to be in jeopardy.

    The Obama administration’s initial recommendations called for inviting private dollars to crowd out government support for home loans. The white paper released in February proposed three options for the nation’s housing market after Fannie and Freddie are wound down, with varying roles for the government to play.

    About the same time last year, Bachus made ending the “taxpayer-funded bailout of Fannie and Freddie” the panel’s first priority.

    While an overhaul remains stalled for now there is plenty of other activity on several fronts.

    In November, the Financial Services panel overwhelmingly approved a measure to stop future bonuses and suspend the current multi-million dollar compensation packages for the top executives at the agencies.

    The top executives came under fire for providing the bonuses but argued they need to do something to attract the talent necessary to oversee  $5 trillion in mortgage assets.

    Earlier this month, the Federal Housing Finance Agency announced that the head of Fannie received $5.6 million in compensation and the chief executive of Freddie received $5.4 million.

    Under the bill, the top executives of Fannie and Freddie could only have earned $218,978 this year.

    Last week, Fannie’s chief executive Michael Williams announced he would step down from his position once a successor is found. That comes only three months after Freddie’s CEO Charles Haldeman Jr. announced that he will leave his post this year.

    The government is being tasked to find replacements, not only for the two mortgage giants which have cost taxpayers more than $150 billion since their government takeover in 2008, but there is talk that the Obama administration is looking to replace FHFA acting director Edward DeMarco, the overseer of the GSEs.

    In a letter to President Obama earlier this week, more than two dozen House members said DeMarco simply hasn’t done enough to help struggling homeowners avoid foreclosure.

    The lawmakers are pushing the president to name a permanent director “immediately.”

    Also, in December, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued six former executives at Fannie and Freddie, alleging they misled the public and investors about the amount of risky mortgages in their portfolio.

    In the claims, the SEC contends that as the housing bubble began to burst, the executives suggested to investors that the GSEs were not substantially exposed to sub-prime mortgages that were defaulting across the country.

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  • There Is No Bubble and Even if There Is It’s Not a Problem, by Economist’s View Blog


    The big story today seems to be the Fed’s comments about the housing bubble in transcripts from their meetings in 2006. The transcripts show what we already knew, that the Fed was never fully convinced there was a housing bubble, and asserted that even if there was the dmage could be contained — they could easily clean up after it pops without the economy suffering too much damage:

    Greenspan image tarnished by newly released documents, by Zachary A. Goldfarb, Washington Post: The leaders of the Federal Reserve went around the room saluting Alan Greenspan during his last major meeting as chairman of the central bank Jan. 31, 2006. …

    Some six years later, Greenspan’s record — sterling when he left the central bank after 18 years — looks much more mixed. Many economists and analysts say a range of Fed policies contributed to the financial crisis and resulting recession. These included keeping interest rates low for an extended period, failing to take action to stem the bubble in housing prices and inadequate oversight of financial firms.

    The Thursday release of transcripts of Fed meetings in 2006 shows that top leaders of the Fed — several of whom continue to hold key positions today — had a limited awareness of the gravity of the threat that the weakness in the housing market posed to the rest of the economy. And they had what turned out to be an excessive optimism about how well things would turn out. …

    A Fed economist reported in a 2006 meeting that “we have not seen — and don’t expect — a broad deterioration in mortgage credit quality.” That turned out to be incorrect.

     

    http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/

     

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  • Mortgage Slang 101 – Mortgage Insurance, Brett Reichel, Brettreichel.com


    Mortgage insurance is viewed nearly universally as a bad thing, but in reality, it’s a tool to be used that is very good for home buyers, the housing market and the economy in general.

    Why do many complain about mortgage insurance?  Because it’s expensive, and sometimes difficult to get rid of when it’s no longer necassary.  If that’s the case, why do I say it’s good for buyers and the economy?  Because it’s a tool that allows people to buy a home with less than twenty percent down.

    Mortgage insurance insures the lender against the risk of the buyers default on the loan.  It does NOT insure the buyers life, like many people think.

    The single biggest hurdle for home buyers is accumulating an adequate down payment.  Lenders want buyers to put twenty percent down for two reasons.  First, a buyer with a large down payment is less likely to quit making their payments.  Second, if a buyer does default, the more the buyer put down usually means more equity in the house when the lender forecloses, which means the lender loses less money.

    But, if a buyer wants to buy a $200,000 and has to put up a twenty percent down, that will equal a $40,000 down payment!  Hard to save up, for most buyers.  BUT, with the use of mortgage insurance, that buyer might be able to put as little as $6,000 down!  A lot easier to save.

    So, mortgage insurance can be a very benficial tool.

    With that being said, don’t let your lender shoehorn you into only considering monthly mortgage insurance.  There are other options such as single premium mortgage insurance, or “split” mortgage insurance.  These programs can be more expensive up front, but sometimes much less expensive over time.  They don’t work for everyone, but they certainly should be looked into.

     

    Brett Reichel
    Brettreichel.com

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  • Piedmont Victorian – 5775 NE Garfield Portland, OR 97211


    I recently toured a beautifully remodeled Victorian home in the Piedmont neighborhood in Portland, OR. Here’s a short video about the home, which is listed at $399,000:

    This house really caught my eye from the moment I stepped on the front porch. Here is a photo gallery of pics I snapped with my phone while I toured the house with Joe:

    This slideshow requires JavaScript.

    The owners have taken great care in restoring and remodeling this house, with a great mix of classic and modern elements. Joe even told me how much time he spent filling the original posts on the porch, and it is a lot!

    Financing for 5775 Ne Garfield

    There are a range of home loan options available for this property. As I said in the video, it does qualify for FHA financing, which has flexible credit guidelines and financing for up to 96.5% of the home’s value. To learn more about financing this property, or any other in Oregon and Washington, feel free to contact me at 503.799.4112 or email jason@mypmb.us

    You can learn more about this great home at the following website:

    http://www.5775negarfield.com

    Contact the listing broker,

    Michael Rysavy
    Oregon Realty
    503.860.4705

    Thanks for taking a minute to check out this property!

    Jason Hillard

    Mortgage Advisor MLO #119032

    Pinnacle Mortgage Bankers

    a div of Pinnacle Capital Mortgage Corp

    1706 D St Suite A Vancouver, WA 98663

    http://www.homeloanninjas.com/

    NMLS 81395 WA CL-81395

    Equal Housing Lender

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  • What the heck does “loan-to-value” mean?


    There are lots of terms we use in the mortgage industry that aren’t part of everyday parlance. Today, I’ll talk a little bit about “loan-to-value”, or LTV for short.

    In fact, I have a video that’s less than 90 seconds long if you’re in a hurry:

    Loan-to-value

    So, just to recap what I said in the video, your loan-to-value is the percentage of your home’s value that you finance with your home loan.

    Whether you a purchasing a home, or refinancing your existing mortgage, LTV is an extremely important factor in making an educated decision about your home loan.

    I’ll give you an example:

    FHA – When purchasing a home using an FHA home loan, you can finance up to 96.5% of the appraised value of the property. If you are refinancing, you have two options: “rate & term” or “cash-out”. Rate & term means you are refinancing to lower your rate or change the length of your loan. A rate & term refinance is capped at a 97.75% LTV for FHA. Cash-out FHA refinances are limited to 85 per cent of the value of your home. If your current mortgage is an FHA loan, you can refinance with an FHA streamline, which does not have an LTV limitation.

    So your needs define your loan-to-value, which helps define what home loan program you are going to apply for.

    If you would like to learn more about loan-to-value, other mortgage terminology, or home loans in Oregon and Washington, I invite you to visit my site or contact me. I am long on answers and short on sales pitches 🙂

    Thanks for taking a minute to read this post!

    Picture: Jason HillardJason Hillard – homeloanninjas.com

    Mortgage Advisor in Oregon and Washington MLO#119032

    Pinnacle Mortgage Bankers

    a div of Pinnacle Capital Mortgage Corp

    503.799.4112

    jason@mypmb.us

    1706 D St Vancouver, WA 98663

    NMLS 81395 WA CL-81395

    Equal Housing Lender

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  • Portland Real Estate Developer Betting With the House as He Develops Family-Owned Treasure, by (EON: Enhanced Online News


    No one would call Reed Dow, of Reed Dow & Associates, a gambler- but he is betting nearly $1 million that the renaissance of Division Street that has been moving along for the last several years will help breathe new life into a 10,000 square foot former commercial warehouse that his family has owned since 1965.

    The building located at 3525 Southeast Division Street is getting more than just a facelift. While the original character of the Art Deco façade will be preserved to blend seamlessly into the urban Division-Clinton neighborhood, the interior of the building was gutted down to the poured-in-place concrete walls and wood frame roof. Now that permitting is complete, plans call for a new roof with exterior insulation, rooftop HVAC units, electrical system, storefront glass and common area restrooms.

    The newly branded ‘Dow Building’ is hoping to attract a restaurant or café for the prime corner space on SE Division and 35th Place and several other boutique retailers for the remaining store front spaces along Division.

    “The building was constructed in 1925 at the peak of the Deco period, and over the years it has been home to a drug store, my family’s disaster recovery business, a tavern and many other establishments,” said Dow. “With the city targeting low impact, high density living for this area, we’re hoping that the restored charm of our building will attract a handful of new, locally-owned business that will complement the neighborhood.”

    Josh Bean of Doug Bean & Associates, Inc. is the building’s leasing agent. According to Bean, the project may have up to six different tenants.

    “We can accommodate five different retail tenants along Division Street and one creative/production tenant in the remaining space facing SE 35th Place. Over the past few years, even during the peak of the recession, Division Street has enjoyed a steady revitalization. Several developers have built new mixed-use projects or converted tired old buildings into vibrant new properties,” said Bean. “Division Street has become home to some of the city’s top chefs and restaurants including Andy Ricker of Pok Pok and David Machado of Lauro Mediterranean Kitchen. By the time our renovation and restoration are complete in November, we fully expect that we’ll be adding new interest to the block.”

    “It brings me special pleasure to be a part of the restoration of a building that has been in my family for generations,” Dow added. “My family has a life-long commitment to the success of this friendly neighborhood that few in the area can equal. Our roots are in this neighborhood and with this project we’ll be sinking them just a little deeper.”

    For leasing information please visit the website of Doug Bean & Associates, Inc., http://www.dougbean.com

    Contacts

    Reed Dow & Associates

    Chris Daly, media

    703-435-6293

    chris@dalygray.com

  • Oregon’s Shadow Inventory – The “New Normal”?, by Phil Querin, Q-Law.com


    The sad reality is that negative equity, short sales, and foreclosures, will likely be around for quite a while.  “Negative equity”, which is the excess by which total debt encumbering the home exceeds its present fair market value, is almost becoming a fact of life. We know from theRMLS™ Market Action report that average and median prices this summer have continued to fall over the same time last year.  The main reason is due to the volume of  “shadow inventory”. This term refers to the amorphous number of homes – some of which we can count, such as listings and pendings–and much of which we can only estimate, such as families on the cusp of default, but current for the moment.  Add to this “shadow” number, homes already 60 – 90 days delinquent, those already in some stage of foreclosure, and those post-foreclosure properties held as bank REOs, but not yet on the market, and it starts to look like a pretty big number.  By some estimates, it may take nearly four years to burn through all of the shadow inventory. Digging deeper into the unknowable, we cannot forget the mobility factor, i.e. people needing or wanting to sell due to potential job relocation, changes in lifestyle, family size or retirement – many of these people, with and without equity, are still on the sidelines and difficult to estimate.

    As long as we have shadow inventory, prices will remain depressed.[1] Why? Because many of the homes coming onto the market will be ones that have either been short sold due to negative equity, or those that have been recently foreclosed.  In both cases, when these homes close they become a new “comp”, i.e. the reference point for pricing the next home that goes up for sale.  [A good example of this was the first batch of South Waterfront condos that went to auction in 2009.  The day after the auction, those sale prices became the new comps, not only for the unsold units in the building holding the auction, but also for many of the neighboring buildings. – PCQ]

    All of these factors combine to destroy market equilibrium.  That is, short sellers’ motivation is distorted.  Homeowners with negative equity have little or no bargaining power.  Pricing is driven by the “need” to sell, coupled with the lender’s decision to “bite the bullet” and let it sell.  Similarly, for REO property, pricing is motivated by the banks’ need to deplete inventory to make room for more foreclosures.  A primary factor limiting sales of bank REO property is the desire not to flood the market and further depress pricing. Only when market equilibrium is restored, i.e. a balance is achieved where both sellers and buyers have roughly comparable bargaining power, will we see prices start to rise. Today, that is not the case – even for sellers with equity in their homes.  While equity sales are faster than short sales, pricing is dictated by buyers’ perception of value, and value is based upon the most recent short sale or REO sale.

    So, the vicious circle persists.  In today’s world of residential real estate, it is a fact of life.  The silver lining, however, is that most Realtors® are becoming much more adept – and less intimidated – by the process.  They understand these new market dynamics and are learning to deal with the nuances of short sales and REOs.  This is a very good thing, since it does, indeed, appear as if this will be the “new normal” for quite a while.

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  • House is Gone but Debt Lives On; Expect Huge Surge in Deficiency Lawsuits, by Mike “Mish” Shedlock


    Forty-one states allow lenders to sue for mortgage debt if a home fetches less than the mortgage in a foreclosure sale. It always will. Such lawsuits are one of the reasons I have consistently advised people to consult an attorney before walking away.

    For a nice write-up on deficiency judgments please consider the Wall Street Journal article House Is Gone but Debt Lives On.

    Joseph Reilly lost his vacation home here last year when he was out of work and stopped paying his mortgage. The bank took the house and sold it. Mr. Reilly thought that was the end of it.

    In June, he learned otherwise. A phone call informed him of a court judgment against him for $192,576.71. It turned out that at a foreclosure sale, his former house fetched less than a quarter of what Mr. Reilly owed on it. His bank sued him for the rest.

    The result was a foreclosure hangover that homeowners rarely anticipate but increasingly face: a “deficiency judgment.”

    Until recently, “there was a false sense of calm” among borrowers who went through foreclosure, Mr. Englett says. “That’s changing,” he adds, as borrowers learn they may be financially on the hook even after the house is gone.

    Some close observers of the housing scene are convinced this is just the beginning of a surge in deficiency judgments. Sharon Bock, clerk and comptroller of Palm Beach County, Fla., expects “a massive wave of these cases as banks start selling the judgments to debt collectors.”

    Because most targets have scant savings, the judgments sell for only about two cents on the dollar, versus seven cents for credit-card debt, according to debt-industry brokers.

    Silverleaf Advisors LLC, a Miami private-equity firm, is one investor in battered mortgage debt. Instead of buying ready-made deficiency judgments, it buys banks’ soured mortgages and goes to court itself to get judgments for debt that remains after foreclosure sales.

    Silverleaf says its collection efforts are limited. “We are waiting for the economy to somewhat heal so that it’s a better time to go after people,” says Douglas Hannah, managing director of Silverleaf.

    Investors know that most states allow up to 20 years to try to collect the debts, ample time for the borrowers to get back on their feet. Meanwhile, the debts grow at about an 8% interest rate, depending on the state.

    Laws vary from state to state and things may depend on whether or not the loan is a recourse loan or not. Once again, before walking away, and before considering a short-sale or bankruptcy, please consult an attorney who knows real estate laws for your state.

    Mike “Mish” Shedlock
    http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

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  • Why Isn’t The Unemployment Crisis a National Emergency?, Economist’s View Blog


    Even though the president has pivoted “from deficit reduction to job creation,” and even though job creation was the theme of the weekly address Obama gave today, I can’t say I’m any more encouraged about the prospects for a significant job creation package than I was when I wrote this.]

    Labor markets are in terrible shape. Fourteen million people are unemployed, long-term unemployment remains near record highs, the ratio of job seekers to job openings is 4.3 to 1, and the employment to population ratio has dropped precipitously. Even if the economy grows at a robust average of 3.5% beginning in 2013, labor markets won’t fully recover until 2017. And if average growth is only 3.0% – well within the range of possibility – it will take until 2020. In short, labor markets are in crisis and the longer the crisis persists, the more permanent and growth-inhibiting the damage becomes.

    So it was welcome news to see President Obama pivot from deficit reduction to job creation in his widely anticipated speech last week. The president proposed a combination of spending and tax reduction policies, and he surprised many people with the boldness of his proposals and his passion and commitment to the issue. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely to do much to help with the unemployment problem.

    There plenty of time to provide help, the dismal prospects for recovery detailed above make that clear. So the time it takes to implement job creation policies – the objection that there are not enough shovel ready projects – is not the issue. And while concerns over the deficit are valid for the long-run, they shouldn’t prevent us from doing more to help the jobless. The long-run debt problem is predominantly a health care cost problem, and whether or not we help the jobless doesn’t much change the magnitude of the long-run problem we face.

    The problem is the political atmosphere. Republicans may go along with doing just enough to look cooperative rather than obstructionist, but no more than that and the policies that emerge are unlikely to be enough to make a substantial difference in the unemployment problem. It won’t be anywhere near the $445 billion program the president has called for, which itself is short of what is needed to really make a difference.

    I don’t expect we’ll get much more help from the Fed either. There is quite a bit of disagreement among monetary policymakers over whether further easing would do more harm than good, and inflation hawks are standing in the way of those who want to aggressively attack the unemployment problem. As with Congress, the Fed is likely to adopt a compromise position and do the minimum it can while still looking as though it is trying to meet its obligation to promote full employment.

    Thus, despite the President’s newfound interest in job creation, and the call from some at the Fed to treat the unemployment problem the same way they would treat elevated inflation – as though “their hair was on fire” – the actual policies that come out of Congress and the Fed are unlikely to be sufficient to make much of a dent in the problem.

    It’s time for this to change. The loss of 8.75 million payroll jobs since the recession began should be a national emergency. But it’s not, and the question is why. Why has deficit reduction taken precedence over job creation? Why is our political system broken to the extent that a whole segment of the population is not being adequately represented in Congress?

    That brings me to an important difference between the response to this recession and the policies that followed the Great Depression. Many of the policies that were enacted during and after the Great Depression not only addressed economic problems, they also directly or indirectly reduced the ability of special interests to capture the political process. Polices that imposed regulations on the financial sector, broke up monopolies, reduced inequality through highly progressive taxes, accorded new powers to unions, and so on shifted the balance of power toward the typical household.

    But since the 1970s many of these changes have been reversed. Inequality has reverted to levels unseen since the Gilded Age, monopoly power has increased, financial regulation has waned, union power has been lost, and much of the disgust with the political process revolves around the feeling that politicians have lost touch with the interests of the working class. And it would be hard to disagree with that sentiment.

    We need a serious discussion of this issue, followed by changes that shift political power toward the working class, but who will start the conversation? Congress has no interest in doing so, things are quite lucrative as they are. Unions used to have a voice, but they have been all but eliminated as a political force. The press could serve as the gatekeeper, but too many outlets are controlled by the very interests that the press needs to take on and this gives them the ability to cloud most any issue. Presidential leadership could make a difference, and Obama’s election brought hope for change, but this president does not seem inclined to take a strong stand on behalf of the working class despite the surprising boldness of his job creation speech.

    Another option is that the working class itself will say enough is enough and demand change. There was a time when I would have scoffed at the idea of a mass revolt against entrenched political interests and the incivility that comes with it. We aren’t there yet – there’s still time for change – but the signs of unrest are growing and if we continue along a two-tiered path that ignores the needs of such a large proportion of society, it can no longer be ruled out.

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  • Battle Brews Over Responsibility For Defaulted West Coast Bank Home Loans in Oregon, By Jeff Manning, The Oregonian The Oregonian


    Did former Bend banker Jeff Sprague go rogue during the housing boom and make a series of dishonest loans egregious enough to get him charged with bank fraud?

     
    Or was he a low-level flunky just following orders from his bank-executive bosses who knew and approved of what he was doing?
     
    Those are the questions at the heart of a legal battle between Sprague and his former employer, West Coast Bank. Sprague, facing criminal fraud charges stemming from a series of 2007 loans he handled to employees of Desert Sun Development, has subpoenaed the Lake Oswego bank attempting to force it to hand over internal documents, including the findings of its own investigation into loans that Sprague handled.
     
    Federal prosecutors have asked for many of the same documents.
     
    The bank has handed over some of the requested material. But it has refused to give up about 100 documents claiming they are protected by attorney-client privilege.
     
    The material could shine a new light on the behavior and lending standards of the Lake Oswego bank during the crazy days of the real estate boom. Banks all over the country dispensed with their characteristic caution during much of the last decade and made billions of dollars worth of residential loans with little if any due diligence.
     
    The industry came to regret its recklessness after borrowers defaulted in enormous number. The industry’s slipshod lending helped send the American economy into a tailspin from which it has yet to recover.
     
    Robert Sznewajs, West Coast Bank CEO, declined comment, as did the bank’s Portland attorney David Angeli.
     
    Sprague’s fight over the documents may be a long-shot. Attorney-client privilege is a well-accepted legal doctrine that ensures the confidentiality of communications between a client and attorney.
     
    But the bank’s refusal also begs the question: What is it hiding?
     
    CRIMES AND INVESTIGATIONS

    The stakes are high for Sprague. He and his former assistant, Barbara Hotchkiss, were among 13 indicted on fraud or related charges in November 2009 in the Desert Sun case. Prosecutors allege that the Central Oregon real estate developer convinced West Coast and several other banks to loan the company or its employees $41 million through falsified and forged loan applications.
     
     
    The West Coast loans handled by Sprague went to Desert Sun employees, who were participating in the company’s home ownership program. Designed to capitalize on Central Oregon’s red-hot housing market, the company offered to build homes for employees and associates and then split the sales proceeds. But Desert Sun allegedly pocketed the loan proceeds, sometimes completing little if any work on the home for which the employee now owed hundreds of thousands of dollars.
     
     
    Several of the defendants have agreed to plead guilty, including Shannon Egeland and Jeremy Kendall, two former senior executives of the company. Desert Sun CEO Tyler Fitzsimons maintains his innocence.
     
     
    Scott Bradford, the Eugene-based prosecutor leading the case for the government, declined to comment.
     
     
    Desert Sun remains the biggest criminal case in Oregon to emerge from the housing boom and bust. It is also one of the few cases nationally in which bankers were charged with crimes. Senior executives from the financial industry have gone virtually untouched in the subsequent wave of investigations and prosecutions.
     
     
    No West Coast executives have been accused of wrongdoing, either in criminal or civil jurisdictions.
     
     
    Federal prosecutors allege that Sprague and Hotchkiss knowingly helped originate and process phony loans. The loan applications contained forged signatures and inflated claims of the borrowers’ financial wherewithal.
     
     
    Attorneys for Sprague and Hotchkiss say their clients were simply following the West Coast Bank playbook.
     
     
    Sprague helped originate so-called stated-income loans, a widely use during the boom in which the lender made no effort to verify an applicant’s earnings. Sprague routinely offered general guidelines to loan applicants as to the income or assets they would have to list in order to qualify.
     
     
    “I think the bank is hiding that they knew that this loan process was in place and that they approved of it,” said Marc Friedman, a Eugene attorney representing Sprague.
     
     
    John Kolego, attorney for Hotchkiss, agreed. “I think these lending practices originated pretty high up in the organization,” he said. “There’s a pretty good chance there’s a smoking gun here, if we could just get the documents.”
     
     
    Hotchkiss was Sprague’s assistant who did the routine work of processing loans. “She worked for the bank for less than two years,” Kolego said. “She was making $28,000 a year.”
     
     
    Sprague did decidedly better, earning both a salary and commissions on loans he originated. Reports that Sprague was bringing home a six-figure salary during the boom is an exaggeration, Friedman said, adding that he didn’t know exactly how much his client made.
     
     
    In any case, the material withheld by the bank is necessary to support Sprague’s defense and “may, in fact, show that he initiated the investigation after discovering hints of fraudulent activity,” according to his court filings.
     
     
    Court filings make clear the bank did hand over to the government material it did not feel was privileged. Following the typical rules of discovery, the U.S. attorney’s office then shared those documents with Friedman and other attorneys for the defendants.
     
     
    Court filings also include a list of about 100 other documents the bank refused to hand over. It filed a motion to quash Sprague’s subpoena arguing that the materials are shielded from discovery under attorney-client privilege.
     
     
    Federal Magistrate Thomas Coffin is expected to rule shortly on the bank’s motion.
     
     

    FAILURE DOESN’T EQUAL FRAUD

     
     
    The scrap over the documents is another reminder of West Coast Bank’s ill-fated “two-step” loan program.
     
     
    Though not historically a big home mortgage lender, the bank pushed aggressively into some of the hotter housing markets around the Northwest with its “two-step” program, a short-term construction loan. By most accounts, the program was the brainchild of David Simons, a bank senior vice president and manager of residential lending.
     
     
    West Coast linked up with U.S. Funding, a Vancouver mortgage brokerage, for more client referrals. Two-step was geared for flippers, investors who had every intention of immediately selling the new home rather than living in it. Bank officials agreed to 100 percent financing even for borrowers they never met.
     
     
    By the end of 2007, West Coast had grown its two-step portfolio from next to nothing to $341 million, more than 16 percent of its total loans.
     
     
    Then, the boom ended.
     
     
    The bank’s loan portfolio suffered on all fronts, but its two-step loans went bad in enormous numbers. In Lebanon, where West Coast loaned home flippers nearly $16 million for about 45 homes in a new, relatively high-end subdivision, it eventually repossessed more than 40 of them. In all, the bank repossessed 422 properties from failed two-step loans, according to SEC filings.
     
     
    West Coast reported in its 2009 10-k annual report that its non-performing two-step loans peaked at $127.7 million in the third quarter of 2008, nearly a third of the total.
     
     
    Sprague and Simons left the bank after its Desert Sun investigation.
     
     
    Criminal investigators from the FBI and other federal agencies continue to probe West Coast’s two-step lending in Lebanon, Happy Valley and elsewhere.
     
     
    Ken Roberts, a Portland attorney noted for his work with local banks, said its unfair to equate the failure of West Coast’s two-step program with fraud or other wrongdoing. Thousands of banks jumped on the housing bandwagon last decade and few of them anticipated the boom ending, let alone a painful crash leading, millions of foreclosures and 30 percent declines in home values, Roberts said.
     
     
    Federal and state bank regulators did single out West Coast in October 2009, issuing a cease and desist order requiring the bank to raise new capital and clean up its act. The FDIC and the Oregon Department of Finance and Corporate Securities did so after they had determined the bank “had engaged in unsafe and unsound practices.” The agencies ordered the bank to, among other things, cut all ties with employees, borrowers or anyone else suspected of fraudulent activity.
     
     
    That same month, West Coast raised $155 million by essentially selling an 80 percent equity stake in the bank to outside investors. The transaction and the new capital probably saved the bank. It also vastly diluted the value of the stock held by existing investors.
     
     
    The West Coast board of directors in 2010 awarded CEO Sznewajs $870,89, a hefty raise from the $407,545 he got paid the year before.
     
     
    Sprague, meanwhile has left banking and is working as a carpenter. His marriage ended. “He’s taken some really big hits,” Friedman said.
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  • No End in Sight: Mortgage Loans Harder in High-Foreclosure Areas by Brian O’Connell, Mainstreet.com


    NEW YORK (MainStreet) — Here’s another bitter pill for homeowners to swallow: If you live in an area with a high foreclosure rate, the chances of someone getting a loan to buy your house significantly decreases.

    The news comes from the Federal Reserve’s latestreport, in which it concluded that mortgage lending was dramatically lower in communities and neighborhoods where foreclosures were surging, using data from the Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) and from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA).

    “Home-purchase lending in highly distressed census tracts identified by the Neighborhood Stabilization Program was 75% lower in 2010 than it had been in these same tracts in 2005,” the report said. “This decline was notably larger than that experienced in other tracts, and appears to primarily reflect a much sharper decrease in lending to higher-income borrowers in the highly distressed neighborhoods.”

    The Fed uses the term “highly distressed” in place of the word “foreclosure”, but the message is clear: Banks and mortgage lenders are taking a big step back from lending to buyers who want a home in a high-foreclosure neighborhood.

    It’s the same deal for borrowers who want to actually live in a home and buyers who want to purchase the property as aninvestment, as neither party seems to be having much luck in getting a home loan in a highly distressed neighborhood, according to the Fed. The lack of credit extended to investors could really hurt neighborhoods crippled by foreclosures.

    “In the current period of high foreclosures and elevated levels of short sales, investor activity helps reduce the overhang of unsold and foreclosed properties,” the Federal Reserve says.

    Overall, the Fed reports that 76% fewer mortgage loans were granted to “non-owner occupant” buyers in 2010, compared to 2005.

    The Fed’s report reveals some other trends in the mortgage market:

    • Mortgage originations declined from just under 9 million loans to fewer than 8 million loans between 2009 and 2010. Most significant was the decline in the number of refinance loans despite historically low baseline mortgage interest rates throughout the year.  Home-purchase loans also declined, but less so than the decline in refinance lending.
    • While loans originated under the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgage insurance program and the Department of Veterans Affairs‘ (VA) loan guarantee program continue to account for a historically large proportion of loans, such lending fell more than did other types of lending.
    • In the absence of home equity problems and underwriting changes, roughly 2.3 million first-lien owner-occupant refinance loans would have been made during 2010 on top of the 4.5 million such loans that were actually originated.
    • A sharp drop in home-purchase lending activity occurred in the middle of 2010, right alongside the June closing deadline (although the deadline was retroactively extended to September). The ending of this program during 2010 may help explain the decline in the incidence of home-purchase lending to lower-income borrowers between the first and second halves of the year.

    All in all, the report offers a pretty bleak – but even-handed and thorough – review of today’s home-purchase market.

    Read more about the continuing effects of the housing crisis at MainStreet’s Foreclosure topic page.

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  • U.S. Housing Market Shows Economic Divide, by Michelle Conlin , The Associated Press


    In the United States, it’s starting to feel as if there are two housing markets: one for the rich and one for everyone else.

    Consider foreclosure-ravaged Detroit. In the historic Green Acres district, a haven for hipsters, a pristine, three-bedroom brick Tudor recently sold for $6,000 — about what a buyer would have paid during the Great Depression.

    Yet just 24 kilometres away, in the posh suburban enclave of Birmingham, bidding wars are back. Multimillion-dollar mansions are selling quickly. Sales this August were up 21 per cent from the previous year. The country club has ended its stealth discounts on new memberships. And Main Street’s retail storefronts are full.

    “We’re getting more showings, more offers and more sales,” says Ronni Keating, a real estate agent with Sotheby’s International.

    Think of this housing market as bipolar. In the luxury sector, the recession is a memory and sales and prices are rising. But everywhere else, the market is moving sideways or getting worse.

    In the housing market inhabited by most Americans, prices have fallen 30 per cent or more since the peak in 2007. That’s a steeper decline than during the Depression. Some people have had their homes on the market for a year without a single offer.

    Almost a quarter of American homeowners owe more on their houses than they’re worth. Another quarter have less than 20 per cent equity. About half of homeowners couldn’t get a mortgage if they applied today, says Paul Dales, senior U.S. economist for Capital Economics.

    Then there is the other housing market, occupied by 1.5 per cent of the U.S. population, according to Zillow.com. The one with outdoor kitchens and in-home spas; with his-and-her boudoirs and closets the size of starter houses. The one that is not local but global, with international buyers bidding in all cash. And where the gyrations of the stock market are cause for conversation, not cutting expenses.

    In this land of luxury properties, the Great Recession seems over. Prices of $1-million-plus properties have risen 0.7 per cent since February, according to Zillow. Prices of houses under $1 million have fallen more than 1.5 per cent.

    Normally, these two segments of the housing market rise and fall together.

    “Luxury is the best-performing segment of the housing market right now,” says Zillow.com chief economist Stan Humphries.

    After every recession since Second World War, housing has led the economic recovery, until now. The renewed vitality in the comparatively small market for luxury homes is not enough to power a full-blown recovery. This bifurcation in the market is yet another reason Michelle Meyer, the chief economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, says her housing outlook is “increasingly downbeat.”

    The phenomenon is not limited to real estate. You can see the same split in other gauges of the economy. Sales at Saks versus Walmart. Pay on Wall Street versus Main Street. Corporate profits versus family balance sheets.

    The divide is also making credit a perk of the rich. Mortgage rates are the lowest in decades, but what good are cheap rates if you can’t get a mortgage? The banks aren’t granting credit to anyone “who even has a smudge on their application,” says Jonathan Miller, founder of real estate consulting firm Miller Samuel. Applications for new mortgages are at 10-year lows.

    Across the country, prices on high-end homes fell after the subprime crash in the fall of 2008. The price on the $25 million mansion became $20 million, then $15 million. Such “bargains” are pushing more luxury buyers to commit to more deals.

    There are other factors, too. In Detroit, a recovering auto industry is helping propel high-end sales. All those car executives who have helped turn around the American auto industry used to rent. Now they are using their performance bonuses to buy homes.

    Wall Street’s recovery has brought back the market for mansions in the Hamptons, on Long Island, where the number of closings has returned to the 2007 level, and for luxury co-ops in New York City. Because of social-network riches in Silicon Valley, twice as many homes have sold for $5 million or more this year as last.

    But in the other housing market, an apartment tower built in 2007 in San Jose, Calif., recently converted to all-rental. The building had not sold a single unit. In Miami, a city that exemplifies the foreclosure epidemic, idled cranes dot the skyline. Unemployment shot up again this summer from 12 per cent to 14 per cent, a level not seen since the energy crisis in 1973. There are so many two-bedroom condos in gated communities with golf courses, private pools and rustic jogging paths that you can pick one up for $25,000, 66 per cent off the price five years ago. But luxury condos priced at $1 million or more are selling as rapidly as they did during the boom.

    “In the 20 years that I have been in South Florida real estate, I have never seen a greater divide between those who have and those who have not,” says Peter Zalewski, founder of the real estate firm Condo Vultures.

    One big factor in the divide is foreign cash, at least in the world of property. For international buyers, U.S. real estate is the new undervalued asset, and they are big buyers of luxury properties. International clients bought $82 billion worth of U.S. residential real estate last year, up from $66 billion in 2009. In states like Florida, international buyers account for a third of purchases, up from 10 per cent in 2007.

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  • U.S. may require more mortgage insurance Obama, FHFA outline possible help for underwater borrowers, by Ronald D. Orol, MarketWatch


    WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on Monday said the agency may force more borrowers to obtain private mortgage insurance as he also laid out further details about ideas he is considering to expand an Obama administration mortgage refinance program.

    At issue is the extent to which Freddie and Fannie require private mortgage insurance for loans the firms guarantee. The two companies, which were seized by the government during the height of the financial crisis, typically require borrowers to obtain some form of private mortgage insurance if they make downpayments that are less than 20% of the value of the home they are buying.

    For example, a borrower that makes a $10,000 downpayment — 5% down on a $200,000 home — must currently obtain mortgage insurance, while a borrower who puts $40,000 down on the same house doesn’t.

    Federal Housing Finance Agency acting chief Edward DeMarco said in a speech at the American Mortgage Conference in Raleigh, N.C. that the agency will be considering a number of alternatives, such as hiking private mortgage insurance,to limit costs to taxpayers from Fannie and Freddie. Already the two firms have cost taxpayers some $130 billion.

    DeMarco’s comments come as President Barack Obama discussed limiting costs to taxpayers from Fannie and Freddie as part of a broader deficit reduction plan released Monday. In his plan, Obama reiterated the government’s goal of gradually hiking the fees that Fannie and Freddie charge for guaranteeing home loans sold to investors. Obama said that this fee hike will help reimburse taxpayers for their assistance. The goal is also to drive investors to once again buy private-label residential mortgage-backed securities.

    In his speech, DeMarco said the guarantee fee hike “will not happen immediately but should be expected in 2012, with some prior announcement.”

    In addition, DeMarco discussed ways the agency could expand an expand an existing program that seeks to refinance mortgages. Obama also outlined the White House effort in this area as part of his deficit reduction proposal, following up on comments he made on Sept. 8 as part of a broader speech on the economy and jobs. Read about Obama’s deficit reduction plan

    At issue is the White House’s Home Affordable Refinance Program, or HARP, which seeks to provide refinancing options to millions of underwater borrowers who have no equity in their homes as long as their mortgage is backed by Fannie and Freddie. The program has only helped roughly 838,000 borrowers as of June 30, with millions more underwater.

    DeMarco said the agency is considering a number of options to encourage more borrower and lender participation, including the possibility of limiting or eliminating risk fees that Fannie and Freddie charge on HARP refinancings.

    These fees are also known as “loan level price adjustments” and have been charged to offset losses Fannie and Freddie accumulate in cases when HARP loans go into default. The fees are typically passed on to borrowers in the form of slightly higher interest rates on their loans.

    “Loan level price adjustments, representations and warranties… and portability of mortgage insurance coverage are among the matters being considered,” he said.

    By saying the agency is consider “representation and warranties,” DeMarco indicated that the agency could seek to try and encourage more lender participation in HARP by offering to indemnify or limit banks’ “reps and warranties” risk when it comes to loans refinanced in the program.

    Also known as put-back risk, in this context, is the possibility that the loan originator will have to repurchase the loan from Fannie and Freddie because the underwriting violated the two mortgage giants’ guidelines.

    Observers contend that this kind of “put-back” relief would encourage lenders to invest in more underwater refinancings but critics argue that it also have the potential to pile up losses on Fannie and Freddie and taxpayers.

    DeMarco also said the agency is looking at whether they can allow the borrower refinancing their loan to keep the same private mortgage insurance they had before the re-fi. Currently, the borrower must obtain new private mortgage insurance when they refinance the loan, at an additional cost.

    DeMarco said the agency is also considering allowing for even more heavily underwater borrowers, those not currently eligible for the program, to participate. As it stands now, HARP only allows borrowers to refinance at current low interest rates into a mortgage that is at most 25% more than their home’s current value. The FHFA said Sept. 9 that it was considering such a move. However, DeMarco said there were several challenges with such an expansion and that the outcome of this review is “uncertain.” Read about how a quarter of U.S. mortgages could get help

    A J.P. Morgan report Monday predicted the FHFA’s first focus to expand HARP will be to assist this class of super-underwater borrowers.

    “Given this focus on high [loan-to-value] borrowers, we believe the first wave of changes will include lifting the 125 LTV limit,” the report said.

     

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