The Boring Plateau

Posted on February 26, 2015 by grim

From HousingWire:

Latest data shows housing economy sluggish

Sales of new single-family houses in January 2015 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 481,000, down 0.2% from December’s big gains.

This is 0.2% below the revised December rate of 482,000, but is 5.3% above the January 2014 estimate of 457,000, considered a weak level.

Lindsey Piegza, chief economist at Sterne Agee, says she thinks this shows a housing market that’s flat.

“Coupled with a near 5% decline in existing sales, this morning’s decline in new sales suggests the housing recovery remains muted. Yesterday’s monetary policy testimony revealed a dovish Federal Reserve Chairman,” Piegza said. “Of course, given the slew of disappointing economic news including back-to-back months of negative retail sales, a one-year low on the ISM, and four months of negative durable orders in the last five, not to mention increasing concerns regarding a further decline in inflation and a still-sluggish housing market, and it’s hard to imagine why the Fed wouldn’t sound dovish in their assessment of the economy, as well as hesitant in their ability and willingness to initiate liftoff.

“This morning’s home sales report further confirms the Fed’s assessment of a ‘slow’ recovery in the US housing market and offers yet another reason for an extended timeline for liftoff,” she said.

Rick Sharga, executive vice president at Auction.com, told HousingWire he sees housing entering a “boring plateau.”

“That’s not a bad thing considering how bad the recession was — there’s a reason it was called the Great Recession,” Sharga said. “We’re entering a period of boring but slow, steady growth.”

Posted in Housing Recovery, National Real Estate | 167 Comments

December Case Shiller

Posted on February 25, 2015 by grim

From the WSJ:

Growth in U.S. Home Prices Slowed in 2014

Home prices in 2014 saw yearly growth slow to the weakest pace in three years, according to a home price report released Tuesday.

The home price index covering the entire nation rose 4.6% in the 12 months ended in December, said the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index report. That is down slightly from 4.7% in November and is the weakest full-year gain since home prices were falling in 2011.

Narrower measures of home prices also showed a small acceleration in December but full-year growth still was the lowest since 2011.

The home price index covering 10 major U.S. cities increased 4.3% in the year ended in December from a 4.2% rise in November. The 20-city price index was up 4.5%. That is above the 4.3% advance posted in November and equal to the 4.5% expected by economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal.

The report said average home prices in the 10 and 20 cities covered are back to levels last seen in autumn 2004, but are still down between 16% and 17% from their peaks set in mid-2006.
…
“The housing recovery is faltering. While prices and sales of existing homes are close to normal, construction and new home sales remain weak,” said David M. Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices. “The softness in housing is despite favorable conditions elsewhere in the economy: strong job growth, a declining unemployment rate, continued low interest rates and positive consumer confidence.”

Regionally, San Francisco and Miami saw the strongest 12-month increases while Chicago saw an average home price increase of just 1.3%.

Posted in Demographics, Employment, Housing Recovery, National Real Estate | 105 Comments

Not the way to start the year

Posted on February 24, 2015 by grim

From the WSJ:

U.S. Home Sales Falter to Start Year

Sales of previously owned homes slowed in January, a reflection of the rising prices and tight supplies that could constrain the housing market this year.

Existing-home sales fell 4.9% last month from December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.82 million, the National Association of Realtors said on Monday, the slowest pace in nine months.

Weather didn’t appear to be a big factor in the report, which showed sales falling across all regions of the country. While New England was buffeted by blizzard conditions, January overall was warm and dry in the contiguous U.S., according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The median sale price for a previously owned home, meanwhile, rose 6.2% from a year earlier to $199,600. Year over year, prices have climbed for 35 straight months.

“One of the big problems is the supply of homes,” Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors, said in a note to clients. “Basically, buyers have limited options as the inventory is hovering near some of the lowest levels we have seen in the last fifteen years.”

At the current sales pace, it would take around 4.7 months to exhaust the supply of homes on the market, the NAR said.

Construction of more homes could help ease the situation, but home building also has remained subdued.
…
Housing has been a missing piece of the recovery, making only a small contribution to overall economic growth last year. Many economists expect sales to accelerate this year amid steady hiring, still-low interest rates and the formation of new households, though the year is off to a bumpy start.

Posted in Economics, Employment, Housing Recovery | 81 Comments

What subprime crisis?

Posted on February 23, 2015 by grim

From the WSJ:

Lenders Step Up Financing to Subprime Borrowers

Loans to consumers with low credit scores have reached the highest level since the start of the financial crisis, driven by a boom in car lending and a new crop of companies extending credit.

Almost four of every 10 loans for autos, credit cards and personal borrowing in the U.S. went to subprime customers during the first 11 months of 2014, according to data compiled for The Wall Street Journal by credit-reporting firm Equifax.

That amounted to more than 50 million consumer loans and cards totaling more than $189 billion, the highest levels since 2007, when subprime loans represented 41% of consumer lending outside of home mortgages. Equifax defines subprime borrowers as those with a credit score below 640 on a scale that tops out at 850.

Lenders’ interest in customers who were the hardest hit by the financial crisis reflects both the relative health of the U.S. economy and firms’ desires to take more risks at a time when ultralow interest rates are depressing profits.

It also shows Americans are willing to take on more debt, which was reinforced by a Federal Reserve Bank of New York report released Tuesday that showed total household debt increased $306 billion, or 2.7%, in the fourth quarter of 2014 from the year-ago period, to the highest level since the third quarter of 2010.
…
The push into subprime loans could have broad implications for the U.S. economy. Easy financing has already helped fuel U.S. auto sales, which totaled 16.5 million cars and trucks last year, an increase of 5.9% from 2013 and up 59% from 2009, according to automotive website Edmunds.com.

Some observers said the availability of subprime credit is a positive for borrowers and the economy. “This is helping people on a real level, helping them move forward,” said Dennis Carlson, deputy chief economist at Equifax.

Others are more concerned. “It’s good while the party lasts, but it’s exposing exactly the kinds of people to a negative economic shock that you don’t want to expose,” said Amir Sufi, a University of Chicago finance professor. Subprime borrowers, who pay much higher interest rates on loans than customers with good credit scores, are more prone to missing payments in periods of economic distress, said Mr. Sufi.

Posted in Mortgages, National Real Estate, Risky Lending | 99 Comments

Fake it until you take it

Posted on February 22, 2015 by grim

From Bloomberg:

How to Hang Out in a House Until It’s Yours

The cult of adverse possession is alive and well in New York City.

Adverse possession is the centuries-old legal principal that says, basically, if a squatter occupies a piece of land long enough, he owns it. This week, a Howard Beach man named Peter Zephyrin has been telling local news outlets that he’s using adverse possession to take ownership of a boarded-up apartment complex in Queens — and that he’s charging tenants $250 a week to take up residence there. Zephyrin says he has been arrested three times for trespassing on the property, according to the local Fox television affiliate.

His tenants appear to enjoy greater rights. Earlier this month, a housing court ordered the property management company responsible for the complex to replace a door it had removed from one of the occupied buildings.

So what we have is a legal tangle wrapped in a fallacy wrapped in a tragedy. The tragic part is that New York’s housing market is so tight residents will pay $250 a week for an apartment without gas, a refrigerator, or a working stove. The tangle is that unlike Zephryin, his tenants appear to be protected from immediate eviction, perhaps by virtue of paying rent.
And now, the fallacy.

The apartments are in foreclosure, according to court records, and have been vacant for years, according to Fox. Zephyrin, who has been arrested for squatting before, took up residence and, according to the New York Post, installed electricity and water heaters and started charging rent.
“Imagine you woke up one day and found out the U.S. government gave you license to use your brain and do something unorthodox,” Zephyrin told the Post. “I’m taking what the lazy wealthy person left behind.”
…
In New York State, where it takes 10 years to win adverse possession, the notable cases have involved things like shuffleboard courts and chicken coops. The famous squatters in Manhattan’s East Village won ownership of their building through negotiations with the city, which owned the buildings, not by adverse possession.

Yet interest in adverse possession and squatters’ rights remains strong, in some quarters. It picked up after the foreclosure crisis emptied houses, lending the idea of the little guy claiming a piece of land a kind of frontier romance.

Posted in National Real Estate, NYC, Unrest | 6 Comments

Shocking Housing Data (Who is the new guy?)

Posted on February 20, 2015 by grim

From HousingWire:

Realtor.com: Tightening inventories likely to push home prices up

Housing inventory continues to tighten in markets across the country – a 2015 trend identified by realtor.com Chief Economist Jonathan Smoke in its housing inventory data report for January.

Nationwide total listings declined by 6.7% month over month and about 8.7% year over year.

“January’s inventory data suggest a continuation of the tightening trend we identified last month in the December data, and with a shortage of inventory typically comes increased home prices,” Smoke said. “Half of the 200 markets realtor.com tracks experienced year-over-year price increases of at least 6% in January.”

Despite a shortage of inventory nationally, data on the 200 largest markets found a handful of housing markets categorized as healthy and growing.

These markets include: New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA,;Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Florida; Jacksonville, Florida, and Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.

“These four markets are bucking the trend, showing notable increases year over year in total listing counts and median list prices as well as clear declines in median inventory age,” Smoke said. “We will likely see the most sales growth in these markets in the coming months.”

Posted in Employment, Housing Recovery, National Real Estate | 90 Comments

You can fix this fixer-upper up with a little bit of love!

Posted on February 19, 2015 by grim

From the WSJ (hat tip Chi):

Fixer Uppers: A Pot of Gold or a Money Pit?

Fixer-uppers are an increasingly popular option for home buyers looking to save a little money in exchange for a bit of elbow grease, says Leslie Piper, a real estate agent with San Francisco Bay Area real-estate firm Pacific Union.

But where are the best spots for buying such properties? Based on the percentage, as of December 2014, of home listings that included repair-related terms like “fixer,” “as-is” and “TLC,” the Realtor.com analysis identified both the markets with the most fixer-uppers available and the places where buying one offers the biggest potential price break.

In addition to Clarksville, towns like Omaha, Neb. (53%), Albany, N.Y. (50%) and Greensboro, N.C. (49%), offer significant savings, but, again, supplies are limited—these towns’ stocks of fixer-uppers number 10, 23 and 1, respectively.

On the other hand, buyers will likely find happier hunting, but smaller discounts, in spots like Atlanta (288 listings, 37% discount), Tampa, Fla. (223 listings, 32% discount) and Philadelphia (348 listings, 17% discount).

And then there are locales where buying a house in need of TLC will scarcely score any savings at all. In Portland, Ore. the median fixer-upper runs $354,928, just 6% lower than the $379,000 median price of a home in good condition. In Prescott, Ariz., the discount is a mere 2%. Lorinda Johnson, an associate broker at Prescott Realty, attributes this small spread to what she says is the town’s stable, retiree-heavy homeowner base.
…
Regardless of where they settle, buyers considering a fixer-upper should make sure to get estimates from qualified tradespeople to determine just how much they’ll have to sink into the property to bring it up to snuff, says Ms. Piper.

Some repairs, she notes, might be more trouble than expected. Issues like a bad roof or dry rot, for instance, “can be more costly than a buyer might recognize” she says, while problems like open subfloors and exposed wiring represent safety hazards that could make it difficult to get a mortgage.

Posted in Housing Recovery, National Real Estate, New Development | 99 Comments

They are zombies because nobody wants them

Posted on February 18, 2015 by grim

From Housingwire:

New York doubling down in fight against zombie foreclosures

The State of New York doubling down in its efforts to fight back against the rising tide of zombie properties, which are homes that are vacant or abandoned during the foreclosure process.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced on Monday that he plans to resubmit an expanded version of a bill he first introduced in 2014 to the state legislature. Schneiderman’s bill, called the Abandoned Property Neighborhood Relief Act, is designed to reduce the number of zombie homes by informing homeowners of their right to stay in their home until a court orders them to leave.

According to Schneiderman’s office, the bill will also require mortgage lenders and servicers to identify, secure and maintain vacant and abandoned properties shortly after they are abandoned. Under current state law, lenders and servicers aren’t required to secure and maintain vacant properties until the end of the foreclosure process.

The bill would also create a statewide registry of zombie properties, designed to help local governments with the enforcement of property maintenance laws.

Additionally, if Schneiderman’s bill becomes law, any fines levied against banks, lenders or servicers for violations of the state’s abandoned property laws would be directed into a fund, which would be used by local governments to hire additional code enforcement officers.

“Leaving zombie properties to rot is unfair to municipalities and unfair to neighbors, who pay their taxes and maintain their homes. In the next two weeks, my office will resubmit to the Legislature our bill that would require banks to take responsibility for maintaining properties much earlier in the foreclosure process, take that burden off of towns and cities, and allow local governments to more easily identify the mortgagees of these properties to make sure they maintain them,” Schneiderman said.

“And as my office enforces the requirement that banks take responsibility for these properties, any fines we levy will go into a fund to help towns and cities hire more code enforcement officers.”

Schneiderman cited the drastic increase of zombie properties in New York in 2014 as one of the main reasons for putting the legislature forward now.

Posted in Foreclosures, Politics, Unrest | 108 Comments

Stop Sandy Foreclosures?

Posted on February 17, 2015 by grim

From the APP:

EDITORIAL: Stop rising tide of foreclosures in N.J.

Superstorm Sandy is still wreaking havoc in New Jersey nearly 21/2years after it moved away from the Jersey Shore. And the bureaucracy in New Jersey has made things worse.

Hundreds of families forced from their homes during Sandy now face a new storm: foreclosure They are finding it increasingly difficult, if not downright impossible, to pay the mortgage on their still unrepaired homes while continuing to pay the rent on their temporary residences. It is time for Trenton to take up this fight on behalf of those who are in danger of losing their homes altogether.

What they don’t need is Gov. Chris Christie’s administration simply saying, ad nauseum, that it is working on the problem. What they do need is to work to overcome the hurdles that have stalled a bill introduced in December by Sen. Jeff Van Drew that would have prevented homes damaged by superstorm Sandy from being foreclosed on for three years.

Objections were raised to some provisions in the bill, including the fact it would apply to first and second homes. But the objections need to be resolved, not ignored.

An Asbury Park Press analysis published Sunday identified 305 Sandy-affected homes in Monmouth and Ocean counties that have been pushed into the property-seizure process during the first 10 months of 2014. Through October of last year, there were 46,000 foreclosure filings in New Jersey and one in seven of those homes in distress was in Monmouth and Ocean counties, according to the state Administrative Office of the Courts.

Foreclosures are up 15 percent compared to the same period in 2013. About one in nine mortgage loans in the state — or nearly 100,000 properties — is distressed, meaning it is either in foreclosure or 90 days in arrears for payments. New Jersey, by percentage, has more distressed properties than any state in the nation.

There are many reasons for that dubious distinction, including the snail’s pace of state and federal aid for Sandy victims, combined with paltry insurance payouts and slow-moving rebuilding programs.

Posted in Foreclosures, Housing Recovery, Politics, Shore Real Estate | 152 Comments

Damn backwards millennials

Posted on February 16, 2015 by grim

From Motley Fool:

Why Millennials Put Mortgage Before Marriage

Millennials continue to confound older generations with an emerging tendency to reverse the traditional order of steps in a committed relationship. Where the norm used to be, “First comes marriage, then comes the mortgage,” a 2013 Coldwell Banker Real Estate survey found that for one in four married couples, joint homeownership came before wedding bells.

Those in the housing markets have definitely noticed this trend of buying a house before marriage. “I find a much higher 
percentage of millennials are the product of divorced or second families,” said Bruce Ailion, a real estate professional with RE/MAX Greater Atlanta. “The expectation of marriage as a forever proposition has changed and thus
, they are not holding off on making major life decisions till marriage — whether that is moving in together, having children, starting a business, or
 buying a house.”
…
So what is it that makes getting a mortgage loan together — definitely a big commitment — easier than getting married first?

Rising costs of weddings. One reason could be the rising price of weddings in the U.S. With the average wedding cost ringing in around $28,000, many couples are putting off that expense in favor of other financial goals, such as buying a home.
…
Financial security. “Often in these couples, one or both feel capable of going 
forward alone with the home if something happened to the relationship either 
before or after marriage,” Ailion said.

High cost of housing. “Another factor: in many markets renting an apartment can be nearly twice as costly as 
owning,” Ailion said.” Many unmarried couples living together are doing so to reduce living expenses. One residence costs less than two.”

Confidently cohabitating. Millennials are more likely to postpone marriage, choosing to live together instead. For instance, from 1990 to 2008, while millennials were moving into adulthood, the share of households headed by a cohabiting couple nearly doubled (to 6.2 million), according to the Census Bureau.

Kear notes that fewer young Americans attach the same meaning 
to a wedding and marriage than previous generations”

Posted in Demographics, Economics, National Real Estate | 100 Comments

How I learned to stop worrying and love pink

Posted on February 15, 2015 by grim

From the Record:

Pink baths: time has not been kind to these tiles

When Stacey Lopis’ friends see the bathroom in her 1960-vintage Hawthorne ranch, they all say the same thing: “You have to get rid of the pink tile.”

Pink bathrooms.

They were built by the millions in 1950s and 1960s ranches, Capes and split-levels, but they get no love from today’s home buyers — even the young buyers who are drawn to other midcentury styles in architecture and design.

“As much as the midcentury modern look is back, it’s still something that people are not going to find appealing,” said Gary Silberstein, a real estate agent with Keller Williams in Woodcliff Lake. “Barbie’s not back.”

But one lover of 1950s design says pink bathrooms deserve more respect.

“Pink bathrooms are emblematic of the design of the period,” said Pam Kueber, who started the websites savethepinkbathroom.com and retrorenovation.com after buying a 1950s ranch in Lenox, Mass. “If people could get their heads around pink bathrooms, they’d understand why something that looks so shocking today is actually a very appealing and wonderful thing.”

Kueber said developers of suburban tract homes started installing pink bathrooms after first lady Mamie Eisenhower popularized the color when she wore a rhinestone-studded blush ball gown to her husband’s inauguration in 1953.

Kueber started savethepinkbathrooms.com after watching people rip them out with “sledgehammer glee” on TV home-improvement shows.

“They’d throw the toilets out the window and guffaw. I was appalled. That’s disrespectful,” she said. “That bath was put in by somebody who loved that color.”

Pink wasn’t the only pastel used in postwar home design, as the nation’s mood turned sunnier. Builders also put in bathrooms that were yellow, blue or green, often with black trim.

“They were exuberant years, and people chose these colors,” Kueber said. “Walking into a pink or yellow or robin’s-egg blue or turquoise bathroom is going to be more uplifting than walking into a greige bathroom, don’t you think?”
…
George Rosko, a real estate agent with Coccia Realty in Lyndhurst, recalls how difficult it was to rip out the pink bathroom in his North Arlington Cape Cod two decades ago.

“What a job,” he said. “The tiles were on concrete embedded in a heavy steel mesh. I was bleeding trying to remove them.”
…
“I hear stories from people who start out hating pink bathrooms and go on our site and come out loving them,” Kueber said. “Here someone gave them permission to love something that’s not necessarily popular. Once you understand why the color was popular, I think it’s really easy to love a pink bathroom.

“I have readers looking for houses with pink bathrooms,” she continued, “so get with the program, people.”

Posted in Demographics, New Development, New Jersey Real Estate | 60 Comments

Housing is expensive, rent or buy

Posted on February 14, 2015 by grim

From HousingWire:

Experts: Unaffordable rents here to stay

Unaffordable rents are making it hard for people to save for down payments, and they aren’t likely to ease up for at least two years, according to the latest Zillow Home Price Expectations Survey sponsored by Zillow and conducted quarterly by Pulsenomics.

More than half (52%) of the respondents with an opinion on this issue said the market will correct the nation’s soaring rents over time, and no government intervention is required. About one-third (35%) of respondents said rising rents are not a problem.

“Solving the rental affordability crisis in this country will require a lot of innovative thinking and hard work, and that has to start at the local level, not the federal level,” said Zillow Chief Economist Dr. Stan Humphries. “Housing markets in general and rental dynamics in particular are uniquely local and demand local, market-driven policies. Uncle Sam can certainly do a lot, but I worry we’ve become too accustomed to automatically seeking federal assistance for housing issues big and small, instead of trusting markets to correct themselves and without waiting to see the impact of decisions made at a local level. Broader federal efforts aimed at increasing real wages and job opportunities will go a long way toward helping renters, but real, lasting solutions to rising rents need to be found locally.”

Posted in Demographics, Economics, Housing Recovery | 57 Comments

The light at the end of the tunnel is a train…

Posted on February 13, 2015 by grim

From the Star Ledger:

N.J. foreclosure rate among highest in nation, but dip may signal ‘light at end of tunnel’

Foreclosures activity in New Jersey fell last month, according to a new report, but the state’s foreclosure rate still remains near the highest in the country.

New Jersey had more than 4,600 foreclosure filings in January, a decrease of 63 percent from the previous month, the RealtyTrac report shows, and a dip of 20 percent from the same time last year. The decline in filings came as the state experienced a sharp dropoff in the number of homes beginning the foreclosure process. New Jersey had roughly 2,100 foreclosure starts in January, an 80 percent drop from the previous month and a 54 percent decline from January 2014.

Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac, an Irvine, Calif.-based firm that tracks housing data, said that big drop may be a “light at the end of the tunnel” for a state working through a “massive backlog” of distressed properties.

“We’re getting closer to the beginning of the end of this working through the backlog,” he said.

The number of filings dropped off significantly in New Jersey in 2011 as the courts and lenders responded to reports of irregular foreclosure practices, creating a logjam that has been slow to clear. The foreclosure process in New Jersey is also time-consuming.

Peter Reinhart, director of the Kislak Real Estate Institute at Monmouth University, said “one month does not a trend make” but he said the state should be nearing an end on this issue.

Reinhart noted that the backlogs lenders had in foreclosures have been working their way through the judicial process. Also, he said, “the market has improved a lot” and “job growth, while still behind a lot of states, is definitely better.”
…
The foreclosure rate in Atlantic City ranked the highest nationwide among metropolitan areas with a population of at least 200,000. One in every 338 housing units had a foreclosure filing in January in that area, which has been dealing with the fallout from shuttering casinos and disappearing jobs.
…
Within New Jersey, four of the five counties with the highest foreclosure rates sit in the southern half of the state. Atlantic County tops the list followed by Burlington, Sussex, Camden and Gloucester counties. Hudson County posted the lowest foreclosure rate in the state in January, according to data from RealyTrac.

Posted in Foreclosures, New Jersey Real Estate, Politics, Risky Lending | 74 Comments

Mistakes? So what! Fuggedaboudit!

Posted on February 12, 2015 by grim

From the WSJ:

FHA Looks to Ease Banks’ Worry on Mortgage Mistakes

A U.S. housing regulator is considering limiting one of the most powerful tools federal attorneys have to punish banks for making mistakes in mortgage lending, a move the Federal Housing Administration hopes will encourage banks to give more home loans to worthy but weaker borrowers, according to people familiar with the matter.

Since the mortgage crisis, the government has extracted billions of dollars in penalties from lenders that made mistakes on loans to borrowers who later defaulted. The errors ranged from small mistakes to ones that affected the riskiness of the mortgages.

Because banks must certify that FHA-backed mortgages they originate have no errors, when mistakes are found, the Justice Department has sometimes pursued damages under a Civil War-era law known as the False Claims Act that lets the government recover triple damages. In one high-profile application of the act, the Justice Department a year ago reached a $614 million settlement with J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.

Some banks, believing the penalties are too harsh relative to the errors made, have pulled back from originating mortgages backed by the FHA and argued that the broad “certification” they must make when originating a mortgage should be limited to significant errors. The agency, which doesn’t make loans but sells insurance to make investors whole if mortgages default, guarantees loans for a wide swath of middle-class and lower-income Americans, including those who can only make down payments of as little as 3.5%.

The FHA’s attempt to change the provision shows the tightrope policy makers and regulators are trying to walk. While they want to hold lenders accountable for crisis-era mistakes and retain recourse should the loans go bad, they also want the banks to extend loans to some consumers who have been largely shut out of the mortgage market since the crisis.
…
Lenders typically have pulled back on FHA lending by having more stringent requirements than what the FHA would allow. For example, even though the FHA will guarantee loans to borrowers with credit scores of as little as 580, on a scale of 300 to 850, a bank might not give loans to borrowers with a score below 640.

“The real question to me is, should we be in the FHA business at all?” said J.P. Morgan CEO James Dimon on an earnings call with analysts last July, as the bank still smarted from the $614 million penalty.

The bank seemingly followed through with its threat, reducing its FHA business by 74% last year, while the rest of the FHA market shrank by about 37%, according to trade publication Inside Mortgage Finance. Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf also has made public statements critical of the government’s enforcement mechanisms and that bank’s FHA business has seen similar cuts.

Posted in Mortgages, Politics, Risky Lending | 100 Comments

Foreclosures drop – But not so much in Jersey

Posted on February 11, 2015 by grim

From HousingWire:

CoreLogic: Foreclosures down 13.7% year-over-year

There were 39,000 completed foreclosures nationwide in December 2014, a drop from 46,000 last year, marking a year-over-year decline of 13.7% and a fall of 66% from the pear of completed foreclosures in September 2010, Corelogic’s (CLGX) national foreclosure report said.

The 12-month sum of completed foreclosures for 2014, at 563,294, is at its lowest point since November 2007 when it was 589,570 and has declined every month for the past 34 consecutive months.

On a monthly basis, completed foreclosures were down 4.9% from the 41,000 reported in November 2014.

To put it in perspective, before the decline in the housing market in 2007, completed foreclosures averaged 21,000 per month nationwide between 2000 and 2006.

Since the financial crisis began in September 2008, there have been approximately 5.5 million completed foreclosures across the country, and since homeownership rates peaked in the second quarter of 2004, there have been approximately 7 million homes lost to foreclosure.

“In 2014, the annual sum of completed foreclosures declined 15% from the 662,000 reported in 2013,” said Sam Khater, deputy chief economist at CoreLogic. “Completed foreclosures last year were less than half the 1.2 million peak in 2010, but remain twice the level of normal activity over 10 years ago.”
…
The foreclosure inventory as of December 2014 made up 1.4% of all homes with a mortgage, compared to 2.1% in December 2013.

Posted in Foreclosures, New Jersey Real Estate, Risky Lending | 115 Comments