housing

BoA to CNBC: 2/3rds ready to lose mortgage mods!

 Hey gang, came across this on CNBC's site just now. Basically, Bank of America's 'credit loss mitigation strategy' guy says that about 60%+ of all those mortgage modifications are going to bupkis. Why? 


Mr. Schakett told me that of the 65 thousand trial modifications set to expire Dec. 31st with B of A, a full two thirds of the borrowers, while current on their payments, have not submitted the full documentation required to turn a trial mod permanent under the HAMP guidelines.

More Welfare for the Housing Sector

It wasn't enough to bailout the financial conglomerates with $12 trillion and then provide a first-time homebuyer tax credit that helps them and homebuilders. No, that wasn't enough. Homebuilders needed something more direct and definite. How about huge corporate tax refunds? That's the ticket.

That's right - huge tax refunds to another industry that benefited tremendously from the cheap money that was flowing like water. Now they are helped on the down side And what about us - fu*k the little guy - foreclosures and unemployment keep increasing.

NYT has the story.

ON Nov. 6, President Obama signed the Worker, Homeownership and Business Assistance Act of 2009 into law, extending unemployment benefits by 20 weeks and renewing the first-time homebuyer tax credit until next April.

Housing starts resume march to 0 (v.2.0)

My pal Bonddad is going to have to stop writing posts entitled, "Housing is Nowhere Near a Bottom", because at the rate we are going, housing will be at ZERO starts and permits within a year!

We just got 10% of the way closer, because permits fell from 511k to 494k. and starts fell from a revised 510k to 458k!

Calculated Risk and I agree that the bottom in housing starts almost has to happen this year, because we're running out of positive integers....

March existing home sales generally stable

The NAR reported that

Existing-home sales – including single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops – declined 3.0 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate1 of 4.57 million units in March from a downwardly revised level of 4.71 million in February, and were 7.1 percent lower than the 4.92 million-unit pace in March 2008.

You'll probably read in most places how existing home sales were "down" again. True, but there is a big "BUT..."

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