Non-Distressed Property Prices 30 Pct Less than Distressed Since Market Peak

An interesting repost from LoanRateUpdate

January 13, 2012 (Chris Moore)

Home prices continued to follow normal seasonal trends in November, falling another 1.4 percent from the previous month according to CoreLogic’s November Home Price Index (HPI). November’s price decline follows a 1.3 percent decline in October and is the fourth consecutive month that home prices have fallen.

Including distressed property sales, home prices in November were 4.3 percent lower than in November of last year. It was the first monthly increase in year-over-year prices since April. This follows a revised decline in annual home prices of 3.7 percent in October which had been part of a seven month streak in which year-over-year home prices declined in each successive month.

In September, the year-over-year price difference, including distressed properties, was -3.8 percent, in August it was -4.4 percent, in July it was -4.8 percent, in June it was -6.0 percent, in May it was -7.4 percent and in April the annual price difference was -7.5 percent.

The impact that distressed property sales have had on housing prices since the beginning of the housing crisis has been significant. In November, the difference in year-over-year prices would have only been 0.6 percent lower if distressed property sales were excluded.

Since the market peak in April 2006, home prices have declined 32.8 percent when including distressed property sales and when excluding distressed property sales, home prices have dropped 23.1 percent since the market peak, a difference of 29.5 percent.

CoreLogic defines distressed property sales as short sales and real estate owned (REO) transactions.

Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic, stated, “With one month of data left to report, it appears that the healthy, non-distressed market will be very modestly down in 2011. Distressed sales continue to put downward pressure on prices, and is a factor that must be addressed in 2012 for a housing recovery to become a reality.”

Seventy-seven out of the top 100 Core Based Statistical Areas (CBSAs) experienced year-over-year price declines in November, which was three less than the revised amount reported in October.

The five states with the highest year-over-year (YOY) appreciation including distressed sales were: Vermont (+4.3 percent), South Carolina (+2.8 percent), District of Columbia (+2.1 percent), Nebraska (+1.9 percent) and New York (+1.7 percent). In October, those states were: West Virginia (+4.8 percent), South Dakota (+3.1 percent), New York (+3.0 percent), District of Columbia (+2.4 percent) and Alaska (+2.1 percent).

The five states with the greatest YOY depreciation including distressed sales were: Nevada (-11.2 percent), Illinois (-9.7 percent), Minnesota (-7.8 percent), Georgia (-7.7 percent) and Ohio (-7.2 percent). In October, those states were Nevada (-12.1 percent), Illinois (-9.4 percent), Arizona (-8.1 percent), Minnesota (-7.9 percent) and Georgia (-7.3 percent).

The five states with the highest YOY appreciation excluding distressed sales were: Maine (+4.9 percent), South Carolina (+4.9 percent), Montana (+3.8 percent), Indiana (+3.3 percent) and Louisiana (+2.4 percent). In October, those states were: South Carolina (+4.6 percent), Maine (+3.1 percent), New York (+3.1 percent), Alaska (+2.9 percent) and Kansas (+2.8 percent).

The five states with the greatest YOY depreciation excluding distressed sales were: Nevada (-8.8 percent), Arizona (-4.9 percent), Minnesota (-4.7 percent), Idaho (-4.1 percent) and Georgia (-3.6 percent). In October, those states were: Nevada (-8.8 percent), Arizona (-7.0 percent), Minnesota (-5.7 percent), Delaware (-3.9 percent) and Georgia (-3.6 percent).

The Iron Eagle Realty Team's mission is to assist you, our client, in the sale and acquisition of real estate properties in the state of Idaho, specifically the Boise Idaho Real Estate Market. Whether you are buying or selling a home, whether it is a foreclosure, short sale or equity property, we handle our customers and clients with empathy and honest truths so they can make informed decisions as they advance in the process of buying and selling real estate that meet specific needs.

PS: We've Helped More Buyers and Sellers than 99.8% of any Local Realtor

Click Here to Search 24/7 for The Best Real Estate Deals in Boise!
Click Here to Download Our Free "Selling Your Home" Pre-Listing Plan!
Click Here to Pre-Qualify for a Loan Online!

Regards, Michael Hon, REALTOR®
CEO, The Iron Eagle Realty Team
Associate Broker, Silvercreek Realty Group
Certified Short Sale Specialist®
Investment Property Consultant
Direct: 208.919.0458 Office: 208.939.9033 Fax: 208.514.1422
www.IronEagleRE.com Michael.Hon@IronEagleRE.com

The Iron Eagle Realty Team and Guild Mortgage, Boise Idaho Short Sale Rescue

Dennise Sandquist from Guild Mortgage rescues ANOTHER Short Sale Deal for The Iron Eagle Realty Team at the last minute.

The Iron Eagle Realty Team's mission is to assist you, our client, in the sale and acquisition of real estate properties in the state of Idaho, specifically the Boise Idaho Real Estate Market. Whether you are buying or selling a home, whether it is a foreclosure, short sale or equity property, we handle our customers and clients with empathy and honest truths so they can make informed decisions as they advance in the process of buying and selling real estate that meet specific needs.

PS: We've Helped More Buyers and Sellers than 99.8% of any Local Realtor

Click Here to Search 24/7 for The Best Real Estate Deals in Boise!
Click Here to Download Our Free "Selling Your Home" Pre-Listing Plan!
Click Here to Pre-Qualify for a Loan Online!

Regards, Michael Hon, REALTOR®
CEO, The Iron Eagle Realty Team
Associate Broker, Silvercreek Realty Group
Certified Short Sale Specialist®
Investment Property Consultant
Direct: 208.919.0458 Office: 208.939.9033 Fax: 208.514.1422
www.IronEagleRE.com Michael.Hon@IronEagleRE.com

Boise Idaho Real Estate - Mid Year Market Statistics July 1, 2011

The Iron Eagle Realty Team's mission is to assist you, our client, in the sale and acquisition of real estate properties in the state of Idaho, specifically the Boise Idaho Real Estate Market. Whether you are buying or selling a home, whether it is a foreclosure, short sale or equity property, we handle our customers and clients with empathy and honest truths so they can make informed decisions as they advance in the process of buying and selling real estate that meet specific needs.

PS: We've Helped More Buyers and Sellers than 99.8% of any Local Realtor

Click Here to Search 24/7 for The Best Real Estate Deals in Boise!
Click Here to Download Our Free "Selling Your Home" Pre-Listing Plan!
Click Here to Pre-Qualify for a Loan Online!

Regards, Michael Hon, REALTOR®
CEO, The Iron Eagle Realty Team
Associate Broker, Silvercreek Realty Group
Certified Short Sale Specialist®
Investment Property Consultant
Direct: 208.919.0458 Office: 208.939.9033 Fax: 208.514.1422
www.IronEagleRE.com Michael.Hon@IronEagleRE.com

Merscorp Lacks Right to Transfer Mortgages, Judge Says - Bloomberg

Thought you might find this repost from Bloomberg interesting. Throws another wrench in the foreclosure process.

Merscorp Inc., operator of the electronic-registration system that contains about half of all U.S. home mortgages, has no right to transfer the mortgages under its membership rules, a judge said.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert E. Grossman in Central Islip, New York, in a decision he said he knew would have a “significant impact,” wrote that the membership rules of the company’s Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, or MERS, don’t make it an agent of the banks that own the mortgages.

“MERS’s theory that it can act as a ‘common agent’ for undisclosed principals is not supported by the law,” Grossman wrote in a Feb. 10 opinion. “MERS did not have authority, as ‘nominee’ or agent, to assign the mortgage absent a showing that it was given specific written directions by its principal.”

Merscorp was created in 1995 to improve servicing after county offices couldn’t deal with the flood of mortgage transfers, Karmela Lejarde, a spokeswoman for MERS, said in an interview last year. The company tracks servicing rights and ownership interests in mortgage loans on its electronic registry, allowing banks to buy and sell the loans without having to record the transfer with the county. It played a major role in Wall Street’s ability to quickly bundle mortgages together in securitized trusts.

MERS was still reviewing Grossman’s decision and didn’t have an immediate comment, Lejarde said in an e-mail Feb. 11. Lejarde didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment today.

Proper Status

“‘Don’t come around here no more,’ is basically the message to MERS,” said April Charney, a senior attorney with Jacksonville Area Legal Aid in Jacksonville, Florida. “The judge basically deconstructed MERS and said there’s no possible way in any case you can come in and show you have this appropriate proper status to transfer the note.”

“MERS and its partners made the decision to create and operate under a business model that was designed in large part to avoid the requirements of the traditional mortgage-recording process,” Grossman wrote. “The court does not accept the argument that because MERS may be involved with 50 percent of all residential mortgages in the country, that is reason enough for this court to turn a blind eye to the fact that this process does not comply with the law.”

Automatic Shield

In the case Grossman ruled on, Credit Suisse Group AG’s Select Portfolio Servicing, a mortgage servicer, sought to bypass the automatic shield against legal claims triggered by Ferrel L. Agard’s filing for personal bankruptcy in September.

Select Portfolio wanted permission to foreclose on Agard’s home in Westbury, New York, on behalf of U.S. Bancorp’s U.S. Bank unit, the trustee for the mortgage-backed trust the home loan was in. The house is worth about $350,000 and the mortgage amount was $536,921, according to the decision.

Grossman ruled in favor of Select Portfolio because he couldn’t overrule a November 2008 foreclosure judgment the servicer won in state court, he said. Without that state-court ruling, Select Portfolio wouldn’t have had the right to bring its motion, Grossman said.

He then addressed whether a mortgage transfer by MERS is valid, because “MERS’s role in the ownership and transfer of real-property notes and mortgages is at issue in dozens of cases before this court,” including those where “there have been no prior dispositive state-court decisions,” he wrote.

Original Lender

Select Portfolio argued in part that MERS’s February 2008 assignment of the mortgage to U.S. Bank was valid because Agard agreed that MERS would hold title to it for the original lender,Bank of America Corp.’s First Franklin, and for whichever banks it was further assigned to. First Franklin transferred the promissory note the mortgage secured to Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s Aurora Bank and Aurora to U.S. Bank, according to the decision.

“An adverse ruling regarding MERS’s authority to assign mortgages or act on behalf of its member/lenders could have a significant impact on MERS and upon the lenders which do business with MERS throughout the United States,” Grossman wrote. “It is up to the legislative branch, if it chooses, to amend the current statutes to confer upon MERS the requisite authority to assign mortgages under its current business practices.”

MERS intervened in the case and argued that Agard’s mortgage, the terms of its membership agreement and New York state law gave it the authority to assign the mortgage. MERS says it holds title to mortgages for its members as both “nominee” and “mortgagee of record.”

Select Portfolio

Grossman said Select Portfolio had to show that U.S. Bank owned both the note and the mortgage, and there was no evidence that it held the note. The judge disagreed with Select Portfolio’s argument that U.S. Bank held the note because the note “follows” the mortgage, which it said U.S. Bank owned.

“By MERS’s own account, the note in this case was transferred among its members, while the mortgage remained in MERS’s name,” Grossman wrote. “MERS admits that the very foundation of its business model as described herein requires that the note and mortgage travel on divergent paths.”

The judge said that the membership agreement wasn’t enough to assign the mortgage and that to do so the lender would have to give power of attorney or similar authority to MERS.

MERS’s membership rules don’t create “an agency or nominee relationship” and don’t clearly grant MERS authority to take any action with respect to mortgages, including transferring them, Grossman wrote. Because the interests at issue concern “real property” -- land and buildings -- under state law, any transfer has to be in writing, which isn’t done under the MERS system, he said.

‘Nominee’ Status

“Without more, this court finds that MERS’s ‘nominee’ status and the rights bestowed upon MERS within the mortgage itself, are insufficient to empower MERS to effectuate a valid assignment of mortgage,” the judge wrote. “MERS’s position that it can be both the mortgagee and an agent of the mortgagee is absurd, at best.”

Grossman said parties coming to him to seek to lift the automatic ban on legal claims in cases involving MERS will have to show they own both the mortgage and the note.

The case is In re Agard, 10-77338, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Eastern District of New YorkCentral Islip).

To contact the reporter on this story: Thom Weidlich in Brooklyn, New York, federal court attweidlich@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Pickering at jpickering@bloomberg.net.

The Iron Eagle Realty Team's mission is to assist you, our client, in the sale and acquisition of real estate properties in the state of Idaho, specifically the Boise Idaho Real Estate Market. Whether you are buying or selling a home, whether it is a foreclosure, short sale or equity property, we handle our customers and clients with empathy and honest truths so they can make informed decisions as they advance in the process of buying and selling real estate that meet specific needs.
Regards,
Michael Hon
CEO, The Iron Eagle Realty Team
Associate Broker, Market Pro
Certified Short Sale Specialist®
Investment Property Consultant
Direct: 208.919.0458 Office: 208.939.9033 Fax 208.514.1422
www.IronEagleRE.com Michael.Hon@IronEagleRE.com

My Profiles:     
 

Is This Going To Be A Scary Ride?

This is a repost from Feb. 11th on the ACAR Watercooler Blog. 

January sales were 339 in Ada County, an increase of 21% over January 2010. This level of sales is what we were experiencing in 2008.

Historically, January sales are the lowest of the year. In January 2010 we started with 279 sales and marched strongly upward through the end of April. We experienced a slowing after the tax credit expired, but rallied in the fall to finish the year strongly.

Of our total sales in January…slightly less than 59% were distressed….down 2% from December 201. (Short sales 20% and REO’s 38%). Distressed sales continue to dominate the market as Boise was recently recognized again in the national press for our large number of foreclosures.

A bright spot is our pending sales – they jumped 25% from 575 in December to 720 in January. The percentage of pending sales in distress rose 2% from December totaling 56% overall.

The number of houses available at the end of January showed its first mild increase since a blip at the beginning of the peak selling season. We have the same number of homes for sale as we did in April 2006…2,711. We are beginning the year with 843 fewer homes for sale than in January 2010.

At the same time, the percentage of active inventory that is distressed remained essentially unchanged from December’s at 44%. In Ada County we have 6.4 months of inventory on hand. The price categories in shortest supply are equally distributed between $100K-$250, with the fewest in the $100,000 to $119,000 range.

Separating New Construction from Existing Homes and the numbers are more interesting. Existing Homes inventory is below 5 months in several price categories.

The January median home price dropped $9,500 from December, an 18% decrease from January 2010. This supports the lack of inventory in the $100-119k range, as those are the homes that were mostly sold.

New Homes median price for January 2011 was $211,000, an increase of almost 10% from January 2010. Remember you read it here first…2011 will be a good year to be selling new homes.

So where do we start this second year of recovery… We continue to “benefit” from inventory lower than national average. The bad news is a high percentage continues to be distressed property. With inventory this low, and not likely to increase quickly, prices should stabilize, but not if the number of distressed properties continue to grow.

Median home price for existing homes continues to bounce along the bottom and shows no real sign of improvement, a victim of the unusually high levels of distressed properties.

This is a repost from Feb. 11th, 2001 from the ACAR Watercooler Blog.

We seem to be at the beginning of a transition in consumer expectations in home purchase.

New Federal policies on the role of the GSE’s in the mortgage market will have a long term, and perhaps, immediate effect, likely to benefit lenders over consumers.

Banks are lobbying for higher down payments – as much as 30% – which cannot have anything but a negative impact on home buyers.

The desirability and availability of new homes that don’t carry the baggage of short sales and REOs may eclipse the historical consumer preference for existing (used) homes.

This shift in preference could also provide a secondary benefit…more jobs.

Unemployment numbers improved in the last couple of weeks. We’ve known all along that jobs will drive home sales more than any other single variable.

The Iron Eagle Realty Team's mission is to assist you, our client, in the sale and acquisition of real estate properties in the state of Idaho, specifically the Boise Idaho Real Estate Market. Whether you are buying or selling a home, whether it is a foreclosure, short sale or equity property, we handle our customers and clients with empathy and honest truths so they can make informed decisions as they advance in the process of buying and selling real estate that meet specific needs.
Regards,
Michael Hon
CEO, The Iron Eagle Realty Team
Associate Broker, Market Pro
Certified Short Sale Specialist®
Investment Property Consultant
Direct: 208.919.0458 Office: 208.939.9033 Fax 208.514.1422
www.IronEagleRE.com Michael.Hon@IronEagleRE.com

My Profiles:     
 

MID Facts: Who's Hurt Most by Curbs?

Here's a link to an interesting video from NAR's website regarding the Mortgage Interest Deduction issue.

President Obama Silent on MID 

President Obama's January 25 State of the Union address made no mention of the mortgage interest deduction (MID). The President did express interest in pursuing reforms that would improve the competitive position of Corporate America. Those reforms would not affect the MID. While the President did reference the Deficit Commission report, he did not specifically embrace any of its recommendations. (That report recommended reducing the $1 million cap to $500,000, eliminating the MID for second homes and converting the deduction to a 12% tax credit.) Moreover, the President did not express an intent to lead a battle for individual tax reform, but rather appeared to leave the details of any individual reforms to Congress. The MID is part of the individual income tax. 

NAR's Homeownership Matters (HOM) campaign is poised to mount a campaign should formal proposals emerge that would reduce the value of the MID. 


Reposted from NAR Website


Regards,
Michael Hon
CEO, The Iron Eagle Realty Team
Associate Broker, Market Pro
Certified Short Sale Specialist®
Investment Property Consultant
Direct: 208.919.0458 Office: 208.939.9033 Fax 208.514.1422
www.IronEagleRE.com Michael.Hon@IronEagleRE.com

My Profiles:     
 

Finding the Magic Number: Pricing strategies can help you market your listings and generate offers that turn into closed deals.

Finding the Magic Number: Pricing strategies can help you market your listings and generate offers that turn into closed deals.

by Katherine Tarbox is a senior editor of REALTOR® Magazine

"Once you get a real estate license, you can start telling consumers what their homes are worth," says Melanie McLane, ABR, CRB, owner of the Melanie Group in Jersey Shore, Pa. She’s a certified appraiser with more than 30 years’ experience in real estate. "But I find many people aren’t prepared or haven’t done their homework to know what the market will support before giving price estimates."
And just doing your homework isn’t the end of setting a price; it’s also important to have a pricing strategy that works for your market and your clients. Here are four techniques:

Employ shock and awe. Remember Economics 101—the simple law of supply and demand? Adam Smith, the grandfather of modern economics, said when an asset is undervalued, the "invisible hand of the market" corrects the pricing to fair market value. It’s a principle that Amanda DiVito Parle, ABR, CRS, broker associate with RE/MAX Alliance of Arvada, Colo., has used to her sellers’ advantage. By drastically lowering the price on some of her luxury listings—a process she calls "shocking and awing the market"—she creates instant demand. "I listed a $1 million–plus property for $599,000, and a sales professional called and asked if it was correct," she says.

Often, properties can end up selling for more what you’d have originally listed them at. "You need to the drop the price so dramatically that buyers think it’s outrageous," she says. "They’ll determine the price. They’ll be eager to see the property and create a competitive bidding war."

Set a market-leading price. "Do your homework on the local market and price the home to lead the market, not chase the market," says Rick Lawrence, e-PRO, SFR, a sales associate with RE/MAX Professionals Select in Naperville, Ill. He recommends showing sellers virtual tours of comparables to get them on the same page about setting a price that will lead the market.

Pick an exact number. Ben Kinney, founder of the Home4Investment real estate team in Bellingham, Wash., assesses a listing’s value, setting a price to the dollar: $137,368 or $213,348, for example. "Consumers assume that even prices aren’t carefully calculated and probably just a home price thrown out for the sake of it." At least with Kinney, that notion is correct. He considers all the features of the home to reach a precise number.

Don’t get counted out. It’s not uncommon to price a house slightly under an even price point, say at $199,000 instead of $200,000, to give the home a competitive edge. The trouble is, buyers who search for homes online (and virtually all do) are typically searching a range of prices, Kinney says. So a buyer looking for a $200,000–$250,000 house wouldn’t even see your $199,000 listing. By knowing the range buyers usually use for a neighborhood, you can price your listing for maximum exposure, Kinney says.

When the offers do start rolling in, take them seriously, McLane says. Sellers sometimes make the mistake of refusing reasonable offers early in the listing period. Help your clients understand that the longer their house sits, the less desirable it may become to active house hunters.

Regards,
Michael Hon
CEO, The Iron Eagle Realty Team
Associate Broker, Market Pro
Certified Short Sale Specialist®
Investment Property Consultant
Direct: 208.919.0458 Office: 208.939.9033 Fax 208.514.1422
www.IronEagleRE.com Michael.Hon@IronEagleRE.com

ACAR's 2010 Review: Yes Virginia...there is a Santa Claus...and other reasons to give thanks.

ACAR's 2010 Review:  Yes Virginia...there is a Santa Claus...and other reasons to give thanks.

December sales in Ada County were 518. That’s an increase from December ’09 of 19%. This is the first year over year increase since June; and is the highest number of unit sales since the same month! Year-To-Date ’10 is now 5,891; an increase of 7.7% over 2009. I told you we could do it!

Just in case you forgot the impact of real estate sales on our economy…through the end of December we are nearly $1.1 billion in total sales. That’s $23 million more than we sold in all of 2009; with a 8% decrease in median sales price.

Historically, sales volume in December is less than November…not this time. December was up compared to November ’10 by almost 20%! (In case you’re counting, that’s three exclamation points in two paragraphs.)

Of our total sales in November…61% were distressed….up 9% from last month. (Short sales 21% and REO’s 39%). This is as high as it was last spring…clearly the highest levels of distress we’ve seen this year.

Pending sales dropped 17% to 575 from the 690 we had at the end of November.

The percentage of pending sales in distress rose 2% from November to 54% overall.

The number of houses available at the end of December fell to its lowest levels since early 2006. As of the end of the year there were 2,641 homes available. At the end of the year we had 25% fewer homes available than in January. At the same time, the percentage of active inventory that is distressed, increased 2% from November to 45%.

In Ada County we have 5.6 months of inventory on hand…down one full month from the end of November. The price categories in shortest supply are equally distributed between $100K-$250.

Median home price ended the year at $155,000. Compared to year-end 2009 we are down 8%. We are essentially back to late spring home values.

New Homes median price ended the year at $177,875. This is an increase from the 2009 year-end median of $169,990. Mark my words…2011 will be a good year to be selling new homes.

So now we enter year two of our “official” recovery. I know that you are ready. I an promise you that ACAR is ready to assist you in every professional way, to make 2011 a year that we look back on fondly. Heck…it beats the stuffing out of the last couple.

Looking back at 2010 here’s what we’ve got…

Home sales volume is picking up – lagging the national average, but still on the rise
Inventory continues to fall
Median prices are trying to stabilize
Distressed properties (sold, pending and percentage of inventory) as as igh as they have ever been

What does this tell us?

Contrary to most of the rest of the country, we’ve already “burned through” the “glut” of inventory. With inventory this low, and not likely to grow that quickly, prices should stabilize.

But, median home price (for existing homes) continues to bounce along the bottom. Its likely the victim of the unusually high levels of distressed properties.

Our state legislature went into session this week. The Governor said in his state of the state address yesterday that we have to look at thing differently (as far as expecting services from government) from here on out.

The same is true for housing. We seem to be at the beginning of a transition in consumer expectations in home purchase. The desirability and availability of new homes (that don’t carry the baggage of short sales and REOs) may eclipse the historical consumer preference for existing (used) homes.

This shift in preference could also provide a secondary benefit…more jobs.

Construction increases. Construction jobs start to come back. And…well you know the story goes after that.


Regards,
Michael Hon
CEO, The Iron Eagle Realty Team
Associate Broker, Market Pro
Certified Short Sale Specialist®
Investment Property Consultant
Direct: 208.919.0458 Office: 208.939.9033 Fax 208.514.1422
www.IronEagleRE.com Michael.Hon@IronEagleRE.com

Count on Deficit Reduction Plan Changing Shape

Count on Deficit Reduction Plan Changing Shape

Source: National Association of Realtors
Nov. 11th, 2010

An initial draft proposal for reducing the federal deficit that suggests cuts to the mortgage interest deduction is thin on details and will likely change many times before it’s released in any final form, according to NAR.

The New York Times Wednesday published part of a leaked draft by the co-chairs of President Obama's Deficit Reduction Commission; the commission’s report won’t be released until Dec. 1 at the earliest and will likely look very different from the leaked draft, NAR analysts say. Therefore, early reactions to the plan are pure conjecture, say NAR analysts. In a statement sent to association leaders late Wednesday, NAR said media reports that the commission has recommended reducing the mortgage interest deduction are false.

The White House itself said in a statement released Wednesday that the draft is "only a step in the process toward coming up with a set of recommendations." The White House quote was included in a Nov. 11 report in the Washington Post.

Obama created the Deficit Reduction Commission earlier this year to recommend how the federal government can balance the budget by 2015, not counting interest on the national debt. The commission consists of 18 members, six members selected by the president and 12 members selected by Congress. The co-chairs, who released their initial thoughts yesterday, are retired Wyoming senator Alan Simpson and former Clinton chief of staff Erskine Bowles.

What the actual report will look like is impossible to know at this point, because 14 of the 18 members at a minimum must agree to the recommendations before the report can be released. Presuming commission members agree or all or parts of a plan, it would still have to work its way through congressional hearings before Congress would take any action. A reform of similar scope, the Tax Reform Act of 1986, was in the works for more than two years before it was signed into law, pointed out Linda Goold, NAR Director of Tax Policy.

One congressional leader who has made clear the initial draft proposal won't fly if left unchanged is Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who remains House Speaker until early 2011, when the new Congress convenes and the Republican members, now the majority party in the House, name their speaker. Among the proposals Pelosi calls "simply unacceptable" are changes to Social Security benefits.

For the real estate industry, any changes in incentives around home ownership, which have been around for generations, would raise considerable concern because of the core role of home ownership in fostering communities and social stability, and in building household wealth.

As CNN, ABC, and NPR political commentator Donna Brazille has said, "For generations, the government has provided federal incentives to help families fulfill the dream of home ownership. . . The one thing that Americans aren’t cynical about is the promise of the American Dream and of home ownership’s role in that dream. We should do all we can to preserve and protect home ownership and the American Dream for today’s home owners as well as future generations."



Regards,
Michael Hon
CEO, The Iron Eagle Realty Team
Associate Broker, Market Pro
Certified Short Sale Specialist®
Investment Property Consultant
Direct: 208.919.0458 Office: 208.939.9033 Fax 208.514.1422
www.IronEagleRE.com Michael.Hon@IronEagleRE.com

Mortgages Lost in the Cloud

Commentary: Mortgages Lost in the Cloud
The foreclosure documentation mess isn't just a clerical problem. It erodes certainty about property rights—the key to capitalism

By Peter Coy
COMMENTARY October 14, 2010, 5:00PM EST
BusinessWeek.com

The U.S. and other Western democracies have grown wealthy over the past three centuries for a simple reason: Their citizens have been able to establish clear title to land, buildings, and other property. So argues Hernando de Soto, the Peruvian economist, in his influential 2000 book The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else. While people in developed nations can borrow against their property and use the money to start businesses and accumulate wealth, he wrote, squatters in countries like Peru have no such option. Property rights beget prosperity.

That's why the burgeoning foreclosure mess in the U.S. strikes at the nation's economic heart. Confusion is so rife that Bank of America (BAC), the biggest mortgage lender, suspended foreclosures in all 50 states to determine whether faulty documents were used to confiscate homes. Americans took their title-recording system for granted, abused it during the housing boom, and let it deteriorate. "Somehow in the last 10 or 15 years, everything that was good record-keeping isn't telling the truth anymore," says de Soto, reached by phone while traveling in Copenhagen. "My feeling is this: Your recession is going to last. And it's going to last, and it's going to last, because essentially the trust has broken down."

De Soto may be an alarmist, but he has correctly identified why the foreclosure mess is not a simple clerical problem. It's part of a broader breakdown in the financial world—the one that nearly caused a depression in 2008 when banks and other financial players couldn't tell whose balance sheets were stuffed with toxic subprime mortgage debt and whose weren't. Unable to trust one another, the big institutions pulled back from every asset except Treasury debt. At the height of the crisis, even stalwarts like AT&T couldn't borrow in the commercial paper market for durations of more than a day—meaning they were only 24 hours removed from default.

That crisis is past, but its causes aren't. Uncertainty still reigns. Its current manifestation is faintly ridiculous: Lenders can't say for sure who holds a mortgage—which means that sales can't go through. Buyers won't put down good money for a property if they aren't sure they'll get clear title to it, nor will lenders extend loans. Buyers of hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of mortgage-backed securities may have grounds to sue. That could "rock the market," says Joshua H. Rosner, managing director of Graham Fisher & Co., a research firm.

All this at a time when every imaginable bit of information—from your bank statement to your Facebook photos—seems to be stored in the cloud, ready for instant retrieval. Google "who owns my mortgage?" and you get a quarter of a million results in a quarter of a second. What the cloud can't tell you is what you really want to know, which is who actually does own your mortgage—that is, who has the power to throw you out on the street if you stop paying. The only way to verify that is to leave the cloud and dive into a recording system that predates the founding of the U.S.

Titles and mortgages on real property are officially recorded in county clerks' offices, a slow-moving, old-fashioned, deliberate world of ink, paper, and filing cabinets. The process has been perfected over a millennium, going back to the Domesday Book, the survey of English property completed in 1086 for William the Conqueror. This paper-based system, though admirably accurate and permanent, wasn't equipped for the era of rapid-fire refinancing and securitization. When over 8 million new and used homes are sold per year, as at the height of the boom, and most loans are packaged into securities, you need a lot of clerks.

The mortgage industry responded to the scale and speed of the modern housing market by creating an electronic overlay called Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS) in 1997. MERS, however, lacks the thoroughness and—more important—the legal standing of the old system. Some judges have rejected foreclosures based on MERS when the party claiming to hold the mortgage couldn't produce the note to prove to the court's satisfaction that it was in fact the creditor. The courts want to see paper.

State and local governments could have invested in digital record-keeping systems for real estate to preserve every legally important feature of the paper method, but with the speed and accessibility of a Google or a Facebook. Why didn't they? William Raftery, a communications and research specialist at the National Center for State Courts in Williamsburg, Va., says three things got in the way: state laws, which no one bothered to amend; court precedents dating back hundreds of years that demand paper records; and inertia. Says Raftery: "Things of this nature only happen when circumstances demand it."

The private sector couldn't afford to wait for government to catch up. Hence the MERS database, a unit of MERSCorp in Reston, Va., which was founded by Fannie Mae (FNM), Freddie Mac (FRE), and the mortgage industry. The concept was to avoid the cost and delay of recording the passing of loans from one party to another by naming Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems as the mortgagee for the lifetime of the loan, regardless of how many times it changed hands and to whom.

Some judges accepted MERS' right to foreclose on a delinquent homeowner. Others didn't. Instead of untangling the confusion early on, MERS forged ahead. It's now the mortgagee for more than 60 percent of new mortgage loans.

A promissory note—i.e., a paper I.O.U.—is the only legal proof of creditorship that courts ordinarily accept. Incredibly, though, the Florida Bankers Assn. told the state Supreme Court that when its members converted to electronic records, "the physical document was deliberately eliminated to avoid confusion." Further angering judges, MERS deputized bank executives to handle foreclosures, making it unclear who the people appearing in court really worked for. In Brooklyn, state Supreme Court Justice Arthur Schack in 2009 rejected a foreclosure in which a Bank of New York executive identified herself as a MERS vice-president. He called her "a milliner's delight, by virtue of the number of hats she wears." Ally Financial said in September that it found a "technical" deficiency at its GMAC Mortgage unit that let employees sign foreclosure documents without a notary present or with information they didn't know was true.

If the transition from paper to terabytes were unprecedented, it would be easier to give lenders a pass. But the banks behaved more straightforwardly in 2003 when they sought permission to digitize paper checks—a similar legal leap, since electronic copies had long been considered unacceptable in court. The banks lobbied Congress, which in 2003 passed the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act. Now your monthly bank statement contains images of your checks instead of the paper, saving time and money. Because the reform was done with the blessing of Congress, there have been few problems.

MERS executives say their system will overcome legal challenges. "We find it very ironic that we're being accused of all these different wrongdoings when in fact we brought a lot of clarity to not just the industry but homeowners," says Karmela Lejarde, a MERS spokeswoman. There's some truth in what Lejarde says. This year, MERS opened its system so homeowners can find out for free online who their loan's servicer is and (usually, but not always) who owns the loan.

The problem is that the data in the MERS system isn't verifiable or legally binding. That recalls de Soto's insight into what made the U.S. work so well in the first place. "What characterized the rise of capitalism was that you actually created facts—statements that can be tested for truth. Now you've got plenty of information, but you don't have facts that can be tested for truth. Can you have a prosperous market economy without knowledge of who owns what and how they're related?" We know the answer to that one.


Regards,
Michael Hon
CEO, The Iron Eagle Realty Team
Associate Broker, Market Pro
Certified Short Sale Specialist®
Investment Property Consultant
Direct: 208.919.0458 Office: 208.939.9033 Fax 208.514.1422
www.IronEagleRE.com Michael.Hon@IronEagleRE.com

BofA CEO: Foreclosure Review Will Take A 'Few Weeks'

BofA CEO: Foreclosure Review Will Take A 'Few Weeks'
By Jon Kamp and Aparajita Saha-Bubna
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

BOSTON (Dow Jones)--Bank of America Corp.'s (BAC) chief executive said Thursday that it will take a "few weeks" to finish reviewing documentation problems related to home foreclosures, but said there is no timeline yet for lifting the bank's moratorium on foreclosures and sales of foreclosed homes.

The review is "a lot of work, [and] it will take a few weeks to get through it," said Brian Moynihan, the bank's chief executive. "We're going back to recheck that we did things fairly."

Once the review is completed, Bank of America will evaluate when to lift that moratorium, he said, speaking at the Chief Executives' Club of Boston luncheon held by Boston College.

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, who attended Thursday's event, gave Bank of America credit for stepping forward and holding off on foreclosures. "The actions that they've taken are encouraging," Coakley told reporters, though she added "I think there's more to be done."

Earlier this month, the Charlotte, N.C., bank imposed the nationwide halt on foreclosures and the sale of foreclosed homes after it came under intense pressure from a government-run housing-finance organization worried about documentation problems. State attorneys general across the U.S. are probing allegations that thousands of home foreclosures were improperly handled, and other banks are also holding back on foreclosures or reviewing their processes.

Moynihan said he is "not concerned" that these moves will destabilize the housing market. Bank stocks slipped on Thursday, however, due to mounting concerns that foreclosure moratoriums could hurt the industry. Bank of America declined 5.2% to close at $12.60.

During prepared remarks, Moynihan focused on Bank of America's new plan to hire more than 1,000 small-business bankers by early 2012, focusing on an area of the economy seen as important to help prop up a sluggish recovery following the recession. During a later question-and-answer session and meeting with reporters, the executive also talked about the importance of a "solid" mortgage and home-finance market.

He also stressed that the focus on reviewing foreclosure methods is aimed at reassuring home owners that the process works correctly.

-By Jon Kamp and Aparajita Saha-Bubna, Dow Jones Newswires; 617-654-6728; jon.kamp@dowjones.com


Regards,
Michael Hon
CEO, The Iron Eagle Realty Team
Associate Broker, Market Pro
Certified Short Sale Specialist®
Investment Property Consultant
Direct: 208.919.0458 Office: 208.939.9033 Fax 208.514.1422
www.IronEagleRE.com Michael.Hon@IronEagleRE.com

One Million Homeowners Win Foreclosure Breather as 3 Big Banks Goof on Alleged Fraudulent Actions

From The Real Estate Channel
Posted by Alex Finkelstein 10/04/10 8:02 AM EST

• Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and GMAC Mortgage Halt Foreclosure Actions in 23 States.
• At Least One Bank of America Official Signed Off on 8,000 Foreclosure Applications Without Reading Them.
• Other Lenders Acknowledge Automatically Signing Off on "Tens of Thousands) of Foreclosure Actions.
• Office of the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency Tells 7 Big Banks to Immediately Check Their Foreclosure Procedures.
• The Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) followed Up by Directing 1,400 Loan Services to Check all Their Foreclosure-Filing Paper Work.
• Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal Freezes all Foreclosure Actions for 60 Days.
• California Attorney General Jerry Brown Demands JP Morgan Chase to Show the Bank Fully Complied With State Foreclosure Law.
• Temporary Foreclosure Halt Means Market Won't Be Flooded With More Houses for Sale, Giving Prices a Chance to Stabilize.
• Thousands of Lawsuits by Homeowners Against Lenders Involved Expected to be Filed Shortly.

An estimated one million U.S. homeowners, behind in their mortgage payments, are breathing easier today after three of the country's largest banks agreed to immediately stop new foreclosure actions until they could review sloppily-read foreclosure filing by their own staffs.

The lenders are Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and GMAC Mortgage Co. owned by Ally Financial Inc. They are temporarily halting foreclosure actions in 23 states.

They are Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont and Wisconsin.

Several states are stepping up pressure to halt foreclosures.


Richard Blumenthal

- On Friday, Oct. 1, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal asked a state court to freeze all home foreclosures for 60 days.

Doing so "should stop a foreclosure steamroller based on defective documents," he said, the Associated Press reported.

- California Attorney General Jerry Brown called on JPMorgan to suspend foreclosures unless it could show it complied with a state consumer protection law.

The law requires lenders to contact borrowers at risk of foreclosure to determine whether they qualify for mortgage assistance.

- In Florida, one of the country's largest residential real estate markets, the state attorney general is investigating four law firms, two with ties to GMAC, for allegedly providing fraudulent documents in foreclosure cases.

In Ohio, the attorney general this week asked judges to review all GMAC foreclosure cases for their legality.


Jerry Brown

The banks so far have not disclosed the total number of foreclosure actions they are reviewing, but banking industry insiders have told the electronic and print media about one million applications are being checked.

A source at JP Morgan Chase told the media about 50,000 foreclosure applications are being reviewed at his bank.

The announcement by the three banks late Friday, Oct. 1, marked the newest scandal emanating from Washington, but this time not directly affecting President Barack Obama's revolving-door stable of Administration executives.

Still, the government quickly became involved by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency ordering seven of the largest lenders in the U.S. to immediately review their procedures in handling foreclosure applications.

Those lenders are JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, HSBC, PNC, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and U.S. Bank, which is not affiliated with the federal government.

The Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), owned by the government, followed up by ordering 1,400 loan servicers nationwide to re-check their foreclosure-filing paper work.

Bank of America officials acknowledged one of their staffers had regularly signed off on about 10,000 foreclosure actions without actually reading the application.

Unidentified officials at other banks acknowledged to online and print media that their staffs regularly sign off on "tens of thousands" of foreclosure actions without actually reading them at all.

Real estate executives, lawyers and lenders are involved in this latest Washington scandal. Thousands of lawsuits are expected to be filed by homeowners against the lenders involved, alleging fraud in filing the foreclosure applications.

A lawyer for a homeowner in one case already, James O'Connor of Fitchburg, MA, told The Wall Street Journal alleged illegal foreclosure actions by lenders are rampant throughout the industry.

"We have had thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of foreclosures around the country by entities that did not have the right to foreclose," O'Connor said.

"The general level of sloppiness is pervasive around the industry," Diane Thompson, counsel at the National Consumer Law Center, told the WSJ.

For the homeowners, the action by the banks gives them a little more time to catch up on their delinquent mortgage payments.

For the residential real estate market, the action means fewer houses will be dumped in the for-sale arena, giving falling prices a chance to stabilize.

For the real estate market as a whole, the banks' actions give the industry another black eye at a time when it is struggling to regain the public's confidence.


Rick Sharga

For commercial statistical houses, such as RealtyTrac of Irvine, CA which RealEstateChannel regularly publishes, the temporary halt in foreclosure filings means the numbers for the next several months will be skewed, says Rick Sharga, a RealtyTrac senior vice president.

That means October and November's reports will likely show an artificially low number of foreclosure starts. Some might interpret the falling numbers as improvement.

But "don't get too excited about the market getting better," Sharga warns.

Provided the paperwork is in order, which Sharga thinks will be the case in many of the stalled foreclosures, REO (real-estate-owned by the bank) actions, or actual foreclosures, will likely spike early next year.

"Don't panic and think everything is sinking," he tells The Wall Street Journal.

Earlier this month, RealtyTrac reported that lenders foreclosed on more than 95,000 properties in August, shattering the report's previous record dating back to mid-1995.

The good news? Delinquencies appear to be slowing down, meaning fewer foreclosures are headed for the pipeline.

Fannie Mae last week said serious delinquencies on single-family mortgages slid in July from June, the fifth-straight month of declines, the WSJ reports.

Barring further economic upheaval, Sharga speculates foreclosure filings should peak next year, followed by a gradual reduction in 2012. This "significant overhang of distressed properties" will spend 2013 being sold off, he tells the WSJ.

He predicts the residential market will be normal again in 2014.



Regards,
Michael Hon
CEO, The Iron Eagle Realty Team
Associate Broker, Market Pro
Certified Short Sale Specialist®
Investment Property Consultant
Direct: 208.919.0458 Office: 208.939.9033 Fax 208.514.1422
www.IronEagleRE.com Michael.Hon@IronEagleRE.com