January Existing Home Sales Fall by 5.3 Percent

Octavion — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 19:19:00 GMT

Lawyer Outwits Banks in Foreclosure Battle
New York Post

While the Obama administration battles to keep people from losing their homes, one Florida lawyer said she has a better answer to the toxic mortgage epidemic sweeping the country — fight back against the loan servicers and banks that are improperly pressing the foreclosure actions.

In essence, Charney has forced scores of plaintiffs in foreclosure actions in Jacksonville to admit they don't have legal ownership of the securitized mortgage they are trying to foreclose upon - stopping the home takeover battle in its tracks.

January Existing Home Sales Fall by 5.3 Percent
The Associated Press

A real estate group says sales of existing homes took an unexpected plunge from December to January, falling to the lowest level in nearly 12 years as buyers waited for the government to boost the U.S housing market.

The National Association of Realtors said Wednesday that sales of existing homes fell 5.3 percent to an annual rate of 4.49 million last month, from 4.74 million units in December. It was the weakest showing since July 1997.

Recession Could End This Year, Fed Chief Says
Washington Post

The nation's top economic policymaker yesterday offered a sliver of optimism in a time of gloom, saying in carefully hedged comments that growth could return next year if the financial system is put in order.

In congressional testimony, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke depicted an economy undergoing a "severe contraction." But Bernanke said the recession could end in 2009, paving the way for a "year of recovery" in 2010.

Links, Lawsuits and Privacy in the Age of Real Estate 2.0
Inman News

In an important case for bloggers and real estate sites in general, real estate aggregator BlockShopper got its hand slapped heavily this month for doing what many of us do ... that is, publishing and linking to publicly available sources on the Internet. (Read related article: BlockShopper Settles Suit With Law Firm).

BlockShopper, a site that was launched in 2006, was built to aggregate real estate data in a number of metro areas around the country. One of the main features on the site is a daily news summary of real estate transactions in each city. ("Italian anesthesiologist drops $1.3M in Riverdale" serves as an example.)

Renters Lose Edge on Homeowners
Wall Street Journal

The relative cost of owning versus renting is swinging back in favor of homeownership in some U.S. markets, buoyed by several quarters of sharp declines in home prices.

At the height of the housing boom, as home prices surged, demand for rentals started to rise as the gap between owning and renting widened significantly. Even after the housing market soured, apartment demand grew as former homeowners became renters, allowing landlords to push healthy rent increases.

Now, after two years of rapid home-price depreciation, the relationship between the cost of rental payments versus after-tax mortgage payments is tilting toward ownership in a number of metropolitan areas.

U.S. Home Prices Fall at Highest Annual Rate Last Quarter

Octavion — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:34:00 GMT

U.S. Home Prices Fall at Highest Annual Rate Last Quarter
International herald Tribune

A widely watched index showed Tuesday that U.S. home prices tumbled by the sharpest annual rate on record in the fourth quarter and in December.

The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price index for 20 cities plunged 18.2 percent during the quarter from a year earlier, the largest drop since the data began to be compiled 21 years ago. Prices have fallen to levels not seen since the third quarter of 2003.

U.S. Clears Path to Bank Takeovers
Washington Post

The Obama administration yesterday revamped the terms of its emergency aid to troubled financial firms, setting a course that could culminate with the government nationalizing some of the country's largest banks by taking a controlling ownership stake.

Administration officials said the change, which allows banks to repay the government with common stock rather than cash, is intended to give banks more capital to withstand a continued deterioration of the economy, and not to nationalize the banking system.

Mortgage Bailout Declared Futile
Orange County Register

Bob Simpson, president of Imarc Investors Mortgage Asset Recovery Co., an Irvine firm that investigates why home loans go bad, says no federal mortgage rescue plan can save people from having gotten in too deep. Simpson says he’s seen thousands of people fail to pay mortgages for which they were not qualified. He anticipates seeing tens of thousands more this year, no matter what the government does.

In Maricopa, Ariz., a Paradise Found and Lost
Wall Street Journal

Builders rushed into this one-time agricultural crossroads during the housing boom. They put up beige stucco houses on winding streets, with names like Heavenly Place and Good Vibrations Lane. They lured young people who couldn't afford homes in nearby Phoenix or its costly suburbs. The population soared to 37,000 last year from 1,400 a decade ago, making Maricopa one of the nation's fastest-growing towns.

Now, it's become a dead end for some of those people.

"We're trapped," says Tracy Campbell, as she watches her 2-year-old daughter romp on a playground. Along a nearby highway, young men hired by a local real estate brokerage wave red signs touting "Homes From $69 K."

Can't Pay or Won't Pay?
The Economist

No part of the financial crisis has received so much attention, with so little to show for it, as the tidal wave of home foreclosures sweeping over America. Government programs have been ineffectual and private efforts not much better.

Now it is Barack Obama’s turn. On February 18th he pledged $75 billion to reduce the mortgage payments of homeowners at risk of default. Lenders who help people to refinance their mortgages will receive matching subsidies from the government. These could reduce a borrower’s monthly payments to as little as 31% of their income, and last for up to five years.

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January Existing Home Sales Fall by 5.3 Percent

U.S. Home Prices Fall at Highest Annual Rate Last Quarter