Blowing the Lid Off the Mortgage Industry
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Unemployment rose in nearly every state in the nation in May, with many reaching record unemployment levels not seen since 1976. So much for green shoots. If 70% of our economy is driven by consumer spending, and [...]
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The state of California is imposing a 90-day moratorium on all foreclosures as part of the new California Foreclosure Prevention Act that goes into effect tomorrow. The law requires that lenders prove they tried to modify a borrower’s loan before initiating foreclosure proceedings.
From the San Jose Mercury News:
The law is expected to make lenders try [...]
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The best that can be said about S&P/Case-Schiller numbers out today is maybe home prices can’t fall any faster. Prices for Q1 of this year dropped at 19.1%, .9% more than they dropped in the last quarter of ‘08. The 20-city index dropped 18.7% year-over-year, also a record. It fell 18.5% during the last three [...]
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U.S. home values fell for the ninth consecutive quarter during the first three months of 2009 leaving one in five American homeowners with negative equity in their homes. The first quarter Zillow Home Value Index fell to $182,378, a decline of 14.2 percent over the same period in 2008. The last time the market was [...]
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If you’re an optimist like myself, you’ve probably grown tired of the constant hum of negative or depressing news as it relates to the housing market. More delinquencies here, higher foreclosures there, falling prices over there. After months of terrible news with no end in sight, we’ve seen some hints that things are, at the [...]
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The FraudBlogger Index climbed to 1427 during the first quarter of 2009, double what it was in the first quarter last year. Already in April a federal grand jury has indicted four individuals as part of a massive “Dream Homes†mortgage fraud scheme and 24 individuals in a Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) [...]
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How close are the mortgage and housing industries to bottoming out? Is the worst yet to come or is the economy already on the way up and out of this mess? The answer, it seems, depends on who you ask.
“An unexpected jump in new and existing home sales, a fairly sharp increase in mortgage applications [...]
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Ask the average person what they think of the government intervening in the mortgage market on behalf of consumers (and in many cases lenders, too), and you could receive a wide ranging number of answers. Many people are upset at the seemingly rampant spending of taxpayer dollars, and voice concerns (a valid one) about the [...]
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Ever since Fannie and Freddie were taken over by Uncle Sam, both consumers and politicians alike have been wondering what exactly the future holds for the two firms. Certainly from a pragmatic perspective they’ll be eventually released back into the wild once they’re “stable” enough for the task, but what will their functionality be? Will [...]
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“It’s not all doom and gloom. We found Americans are optimistic about homeownership despite concerns,” said Steve Berkowitz, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Move, Inc. “They’re doing everything they can, from reducing discretionary spending to pay their mortgages, to planning to take advantage of the administration’s new program to stop foreclosures. They’re also working with [...]
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