The Doctors Are In!

Earn a Full Commission without doing any loss mitigation work by:

Helping Over-Leverage Homeowners Sell Their Homes Through Short Sales

NATIONAL FORECLOSURE PROBLEM: We’re in the EYE of the Hurricane!

The graph shows that we are largely through sub prime loan defaults (in purple), only to face a tidal wave of option ARMs recasts and likely defaults (in blue). Bottom-line: Short sales are here to stay!

Existing Home Sales Fall, Putting More Dray on the Economy

Sales of previously occupied homes fell in June and are expected to keep sinking, indicating that the housing market’s troubles are likely to drag on the economic recovery.

AP Existing home sales in June fell and are expected to keep sinking

Sales fell 5.1 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.37 million, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. Economists polled by Thomson Reuters had expected sales of 5.18 million.

The report counts home sales once a deal closes. Last month’s report captured some buyers receiving federal tax credits of up to $8,000 that boosted sales this year. Buyers initially had to close their purchases by June 30, but Congress extended the deadline to the end of September.

Since the tax credits expired, the number of people buying homes has fallen sharply, despite lower prices and the lowest mortgage rates in decades. The situation has been worsened by high unemployment, tight lending standards and rising foreclosures.

A Second Mortgage Meltdown?

Posted by Andrew Syrios in SwiftEconomics.com

As we all know, the recession is over. Joe Biden told us so. Ben Bernanke said the same. Obama’s chief economic officer Lawrence Summers even said “everybody agrees that the recession is over.” (1) Honestly, how could anyone disagree? After all, the Dow Jones is up almost 50% over the last year and we only lost 36,000 jobs last quarter, which is apparently great.

So we’ve had a jobless recovery because our economy grew 2.2% last quarter. Unfortunately, as Anthony Randazzo points out in Reason Magazine, most of that “growth” is based on temporary government programs:

“Consider that 37 percent of the third-quarter GDP growth was due to motor vehicle purchases, which were stimulated almost entirely by the Cash for Clunkers program… Another 20 percent of third-quarter GDP growth came from new residential investments, propped up largely by the First-Time Homebuyer Credit… Overall, government support accounts for roughly 77 percent of economic growth in the third quarter of 2009, according to my analysis of Commerce Department statistics. This means that non-Washington GDP growth was closer to 0.34 percent from July to September 2009, instead of 2.2 percent.” (2)

He concludes, “This is not real growth. It’s the national equivalent of a credit-card buying spree, with the bills—in the form of debt service and unfunded liabilities—to be paid off later. It is a faux recovery.”

Housing Double Dip a Done Deal

Everybody take a nice long look at today’s Pending Home Sales Index from the National Association of Realtors, because it’s just about the last positive picture we’re going to see for a while.

Yes, the index rose even more than expected, as buyers rushed in to take advantage of the home buyer tax credit.

And yes, those numbers will show up in Existing Home Sales in May and June, but then look out.

Mortgage Crisis Creating Drag on Economic Recovery

The mortgage crisis is dragging on the economic recovery as more homeowners fall behind on their payments.

Analysts expect improvement soon, but the number of homeowners in default or at risk of foreclosure will have a lingering effect on the broader economy.

More than 10 percent of homeowners had missed at least one mortgage payment in the January-March period, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Wednesday.

Trend of US Mortgages ‘Underwater’ Grows

A growing percentage of U.S. homeowners were saddled with “underwater mortgages” in the first quarter, accounting for almost one in four homes in a trend that poses a serious threat to the housing market’s recovery, real estate website Zillow.com said on Monday.

U.S. home values also declined again in the first quarter, Zillow reported.

Homeowners with “underwater” mortgages—where the amount owed on the mortgage exceeds the value of the home—are more prone to defaults and foreclosures.

First-Time Homebuyers Account For Record Share Of Home Sales

Late stage foreclosures pushed filing figures higher in the opening quarter, suggesting that banks may be chipping away at distressed properties clogging the system. US housing prices continued their downward trajectory, while the strong presence of first-time buyers in March provided some steam to a mostly tepid recovery. See the following article from Property Wire for more on this.

Recent talk of a recovery in the US real estate market has been dealt a blow by the latest figures that show foreclosures still rising and prices falling.

Foreclosure filings including default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions rose 7% in the first quarter of 2010 compared with the last three months of 2009, the most recent figures from RealtyTrac show.

Some 932,234 properties, or one in every 138 US housing units, received filings. During March alone, 367,056 properties received filings, 19% more than in February and 8% more than the same time last year.

Foreclosures Are Rising

The new foreclosure wave is here.

Yes, banks are ramping up loan modifications and ramping up short sales and ramping up deeds in lieu of foreclosure, but the plain fact is that as the systems are oiled, the loans are moving through faster, and the pig in the python is showing its face.

Housing Crisis Takes Psychological Toll On Americans

February 09, 2010, MikeColpitt

The psychological toll levied by the housing crisis has been nearly as devastating as the jolt to American pocketbooks, with nearly a third of homeowners considering abandoning their mortgages if the market worsens. Culprits in the collapse include house-flipping media hype, an array of financial sector co-conspirators and an administration that has been quick to bail them out. See the following article from Housing Predictor for more on this.