Unemployment Spike Compounds Foreclosure Crisis

Unemployment Spike Compounds Foreclosure Crisis
The Washington Post

The country's growing unemployment is overtaking subprime mortgages as the main driver of foreclosures, according to bankers and economists, threatening to send even higher the number of borrowers who will lose their homes and making the foreclosure crisis far more complicated to unwind.

Economists estimate that 1.8 million borrowers will lose their homes this year, up from 1.4 million last year, according to Moody's Economy.com. And the government, which has already committed billions of dollars to foreclosure-prevention efforts, has found it far more difficult to help people who have lost their paychecks than those whose mortgage payments became unaffordable because of an interest-rate increase.

My Bad! Woman's House Mistakenly Auctioned by Bank
NBC Miami

You know times are tough when people are getting kicked out of their house when it’s not even for sale.

That’s what happened to Anna Ramirez after she found all of her stuff out on the front lawn of her Homestead home last week and a strange man demanding she get out of his newly purchased house.

Housing Data Show Slowly Firming Market
The Wall Street Journal

New-home construction and permits fell last month, but single-family-home starts remained strong, another sign of stabilization in the housing market.

Multifamily housing starts, a more volatile measure that includes properties such as condominiums and small apartment buildings, pulled overall housing starts down 1% in July from a month earlier to a seasonally adjusted 581,000 annual rate, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. That compares with a 6.5% increase in June.

In Appraisal Shift, Lenders Gain Power and Critics
The New York Times

Mike Kennedy, a real estate appraiser in Monroe, N.Y., was examining a suburban house a few years ago when he discovered five feet of water in the basement. The mortgage broker arranging the owner’s refinancing asked him to pretend it was not there.

Brokers, real estate agents and banks asked appraisers to do a lot of pretending during the housing boom, pumping up values while ignoring defects. While Mr. Kennedy says he never complied, many appraisers did, some of them thinking they had no choice if they wanted work. A profession that should have been a brake on the spiral in home prices instead became a big contributor.

Southern California home sales and prices rise in July
The Los Angeles Times

Southern Californians are shopping for homes again, optimistic that values have been beaten down about as low as they will go and triggering the highest sales levels in more than two years.

A report released Tuesday shows a sharp rise in home purchases and an increase in median prices for a third straight month -- suggesting that the two-year decline in home values may finally be over.