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When the people fear the government, there is tyranny; When the government fears the people, there is liberty.  ~ Thomas Jefferson

 

Entries Tagged as 'Housing Industry'

Most Americans worry about ability to pay mortgage or rent, poll finds

October 29th, 2010 · Deception, Democrats, Economy, Federal Spending, Housing Industry, Reform, Selling Out the US, Tax Dollars, Unemployment

By Ariana Eunjung Cha and Jon Cohen Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 28, 2010; 12:52 AM

A majority of Americans now say they are worried about making their mortgage or rent payments, underscoring the extent of economic anxiety in the country heading into midterm elections.

A new Washington Post poll shows that concerns about housing payments have spiked since 2008 despite some improvements in the overall economy. In all, 53 percent said they are “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned” about having the money to make their monthly payment. Worries are the most intense among those with lower incomes and among African Americans.

The poll results highlight the political challenge facing the Obama administration: Despite committing hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out troubled financial firms, create jobs and keep distressed borrowers in their homes, it has not been able to make many people feel better about their personal situations or even relieve fears about the cost of a need as basic as shelter.

The recent foreclosure mess provides another example of this gap between the policy decisions in Washington and the sentiment of ordinary Americans. The poll reveals that just over half of the country thinks the administration should impose a national moratorium on foreclosures to sort out whether banks are improperly seizing the homes of struggling borrowers. But the White House rejected that idea, saying it would gravely wound the fragile housing market.

White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage said the administration has deployed every possible resource at its disposal to “pull our economy back from the brink.”

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Foreclosure freeze leads to uneasy politics for Democrats

October 19th, 2010 · Accountability, Banking Industry, Corruption, Deception, Democrats, Ethics, Federal Spending, Fraud Alert, Government Control, Greed, Housing Industry, Money Lost, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Treasury

Another political factor: people struggling to keep paying their mortgages who are upset that deadbeat borrowers may get a break.

“I pay my mortgage every month; that was the deal I made,” Kevin McGrath, a Virginia realtor, wrote in an e-mail. “I know I am currently throwing money into a depreciating asset that every day feels more and more like the Black Hole of Calcutta, but that’s ok; I placed my bet, and I am willing to ride this pony until she breaks.

“But wait a minute; now I look over at my neighbor and I see he is in the same situation, upside down on his mortgage, except he has not made a payment in a year or so. He has multiple cars in his driveway, some of them newer than mine, he just got back from a trip to Best Buy, and he is still living in his house. There are all kinds of neat things to do with your money when your housing costs are zero. Where is my free rent?

By Steven Mufson Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 19, 2010; 7:26 AM

The details of the foreclosure mess are ugly and complicated. The politics of it are even worse.

The calculus is clear for most Democratic incumbents, especially those in tight races like Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid: Nothing could be worse on the eve of elections than images of people being booted out of their homes by big banks that have relied on sloppy, if not fraudulent, paperwork.

But reviving the economy requires repairing the housing market, which won’t happen until foreclosed properties and delinquent mortgages are dealt with. So the White House, which is looking past the midterm elections, has been restrained. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan wrote over the weekend that “a national, blanket moratorium on all foreclosure sales would do far more harm than good, hurting homeowners and home buyers alike.”

It’s a recipe for legislative inaction, especially with lawmakers busy campaigning. For a White House seen by Wall Street as too populist, and by many liberals as too close to Wall Street, that might not be a bad outcome. Democratic candidates can strike a populist note, letting the Obama administration take the economic high road while pressing banks to define the scope of the latest financial mess.

“There’s a problem here,” said one veteran Democratic political consultant, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity. “The politics are very attractive to say, ‘Let’s have a moratorium.’ But shutting down foreclosures has the potential of shutting down the whole housing market, which isn’t helpful to anybody.”

For now, most of the biggest banks, sensitive to political winds, have voluntarily frozen foreclosure sales. Some analysts believe the freeze could last until January. That gives banks until the end of the quarter to figure out the extent of their problems, and it delays foreclosures until after the election as well as the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.

“I think that they’re trying to see how this is playing,” said one political consultant working for the financial services industry. “They’re trying to gauge the political intensity around the issue.”

Democratic pollster Peter Hart says intensity runs high. “There are two things of critical importance to American households,” he said. “One is their job and two is their house.”

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U.S. presses mortgage lenders to fix documents, but foreclosures can continue

October 14th, 2010 · Accountability, Ethics, Housing Industry

By Zachary A. Goldfarb,Dina ElBoghdady and Ariana Eunjung Cha Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 14, 2010; 12:31 AM

Federal regulators sought Wednesday to prevent the growing furor over improper foreclosures from escalating, pressing mortgage lenders to replace flawed and fraudulent court documents while insisting that foreclosures continue apace.

The approach adopted by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) is Washington’s clearest response so far to a crisis that threatens to roil the national real estate market and overwhelm courts around the country.

Some consumer advocates and lawmakers said the policy wassoft on banks, and industry insiders said the approach may have little effect, because many lenders are already taking such steps. In addition, the handling of individual court cases is the province not of federal officials but of judges at the state level.

Judges handling foreclosure cases in the Maryland suburbs said Wednesday that they have begun to take concrete steps to cope with alarming problems now apparent in legal documents.

In Prince George’s County, which has the Washington area’s highest foreclosure rate, the circuit court has ordered a special review of cases in which lawyers have acknowledged they did not sign the documents as they had earlier claimed. The circuit court is scheduled later this fall to slowly begin reviewing some of the 14,500 foreclosure cases pending in the county. A judge in Montgomery County said the court is putting about 400 foreclosure sales on hold while waiting for lawyers to explain why they had not actually signed the legal paperwork in those cases as they had initially said.

As a result, some foreclosures in these counties may be dismissed and home buyers who are poised to purchase these properties may lose the chance.

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Government had been warned for months about troubles in mortgage servicer industry

October 11th, 2010 · Banking Industry, Deception, Democrats, Economy, Ethics, Federal Spending, Government, Government Control, Housing Industry, Obama's Scheme, Real Estate, Selling Out the US, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Unemployment

By Zachary A. Goldfarb Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 10, 2010; 12:45 AM

Consumer advocates and lawyers warned federal officials in recent years that the U.S. foreclosure system was designed to seize people’s homes as fast as possible, often without regard to the rights of homeowners.

In recent days, amid reports that major lenders have used improper procedures and fraudulent paperwork to seize properties, some Obama administration officials have acknowledged they had been aware of flaws in how the mortgage industry pursues foreclosures.

But the officials said they could take only limited action to address the danger. In part, this was because they wanted lenders’ help carrying out federal programs to modify mortgages that had fallen into default or were poised to do so.

New concerns about improper practices – such as those involving faked documents or “robo-signers” who signed tens of thousands of documents without reviewing them – have prompted the mortgage servicing arms of the country’s largest banks to freeze millions of foreclosures. As momentum builds for a national moratorium, the administration has begun assessing the potential impact, examining the threat it could pose for the ailing housing market and the wider financial system.

There is no evidence so far that the specific abuses made public in the past few weeks were known to government officials. Nor is it clear whether they were aware that the process of the selling and reselling of mortgages among financial firms – which became extremely common and highly profitable during the housing boom – was raising legal questions about who actually owned the loans and had the right to foreclose if they went bad.

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Momentum builds for nationwide freeze on foreclosures despite the grave impact on the nation’s housing market and economic recovery.

October 11th, 2010 · Banking Industry, Corruption, Deception, Democrats, Economy, Federal Spending, Government Control, Greed, Housing Industry, Obama's Scheme, Real Estate, Selling Out the US, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Terrorism from Within, Treason, Treasury, Unemployment

By Ariana Eunjung Cha, Steven Mufson and Jia Lynn Yang Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, October 9, 2010; 10:23 AM

Senior Obama administration officials said Friday that a nationwide moratorium on foreclosure sales may be inevitable, despite their grave reservations about the impact a broad freeze would have on the nation’s housing market and economic recovery.

Their remarks were made as pressure for a nationwide moratorium mounted Friday when Bank of America, the nation’s largest bank, halted foreclosure sales in all 50 states. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), who is locked in a tight reelection campaign, called on other major lenders to follow suit.

The White House has so far resisted joining the election-season calls for action but convened two interagency meetings this week to discuss reports that banks filed fraudulent documents to evict delinquent borrowers and to deal with questions about whether banks are seizing properties without having clear ownership of the mortgages.

One meeting was made up mostly of groups that regulate the housing industry, including the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Treasury Department and the White House. The other, which involved the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Internal Revenue Service and U.S. attorneys from across the country, was focused on the question of whether financial fraud was committed.

With foreclosed properties comprising one in every four homes sold in the United States, the spreading moratorium could disrupt real estate deals in progress, slow down the process of clearing the backlog of troubled home loans and prolong the economic recovery, analysts said.

A freeze would also strike at the financial sector, just two years after it suffered one of the worst crises in its history. One government official who has been in discussions with several big financial firms said the banks are bracing themselves for a wave of lawsuits from homeowners who are fighting to keep their homes and from investors who had bought mortgage loans on Wall Street. On Friday, while the Dow Jones industrial average crossed 11,000, most major bank stocks fell.

Bank of America is the first bank to put a moratorium on foreclosures in all states, extending its suspension to states such as California and Nevada, which have been hit hardest by the housing bust. Previously, Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase and others had announced that they were stopping foreclosures only in the 23 states where a court order is needed for an eviction.

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Obama won’t sign bill that would affect foreclosure proceedings

October 7th, 2010 · Banking Industry, Democrats, Economy, Housing Industry, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US

By Jia Lynn Yang Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 7, 2010; 2:34 PM

Amid growing furor over the legitimacy of foreclosure proceedings, White House officials said Thursday that President Obama will not sign a two-page bill passed by lawmakers without public debate after critics said the legislation could loosen standards for foreclosure documents.

The bill, named the Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act, would require courts to accept document notarizations made out of state. Its sponsors intended the effort to promote interstate commerce. But homeowner advocates warn the new law could allow lenders to cut even more corners as they seek to evict homeowners.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the president did not believe Congress meant to undermine consumer protections regarding foreclosure challenges. Still, Obama will use a “pocket veto,” which will effectively kill the legislation.

Democratic leaders on the Hill were scrambling to figure out how the bill managed to sail through both chambers of Congress without any objection. The episode may prove embarrassing for Democrats who in recent weeks have been calling for federal investigations into flawed paperwork, forged documents and other kinds of misconduct in foreclosure proceedings initiated by big lenders.

The House passed the bill in April by a voice vote, meaning there’s no record of who voted for or against the legislation. The Senate passed the bill on Sept. 27, just before recess, without any debate.

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In foreclosure controversy, problems run deeper than flawed paperwork

October 7th, 2010 · Banking Industry, Deception, Democrats, Economy, Housing Industry, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Tax Dollars, Unemployment

By Brady Dennis and Ariana Eunjung Cha Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 7, 2010; 12:01 AM

Millions of U.S. mortgages have been shuttled around the global financial system – sold and resold by firms – without the documents that traditionally prove who legally owns the loans.

Now, as many of these loans have fallen into default and banks have sought to seize homes, judges around the country have increasingly ruled that lenders had no right to foreclose, because they lacked clear title.

These fundamental concerns over ownership extend beyond those that surfaced over the past two weeks amid reports of fraudulent loan documents and corporate “robo-signers.”

The court decisions, should they continue to spread, could call into doubt the ownership of mortgages throughout the country, raising urgent challenges for both the real estate market and the wider financial system.

For struggling homeowners trying to avoid foreclosure, it could mean an opportunity to challenge the banks they argue have been unhelpful at best and deceptive at worst. But it also threatens to leave them in prolonged limbo, stuck in homes they still can’t afford and waiting for the foreclosure process to begin anew.

For big banks, “there’s a possible nightmare scenario here that no foreclosure is valid,” said Nancy Bush, a banking analyst from NAB Research. If millions of foreclosures past and present were invalidated because of the way the hurried securitization process muddied the chain of ownership, banks could face lawsuits from homeowners and from investors who bought stakes in the mortgage securities – an expensive and potentially crippling proposition.

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Recovery in danger as firms, homebuyers cut back

August 25th, 2010 · Dissention, Economy, Housing Industry, Money Lost, Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme, Real Estate, Selling Out the US, Unemployment

By DANIEL WAGNER and ALAN ZIBEL – The Associated Press
Wednesday, August 25, 2010; 12:09 PM

WASHINGTON — The economic recovery appears to be stalling as companies cut back last month on their investments in equipment and machines and Americans bought new homes at the weakest pace in decades.

Overall orders for big-ticket manufactured goods increased 0.3 percent in July, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. But that was only because of a 76 percent jump in demand for commercial aircraft.

Taking out the volatile transportation category, orders for durable goods fell at the steepest rate since January. And business orders for capital goods took their sharpest drop since January 2009, when the economy was stuck in the deepest recession in decades.

Separately, Commerce said new home sales fell 12.4 percent in July from a month earlier to a seasonally adjusted annual sales pace of 276,600. That was the slowest pace on records dating back to 1963. Collectively, the past three months have been the worst on record for new home sales.

The weak sales mean fewer jobs in the construction industry, which normally powers economic recoveries. Each new home built creates, on average, the equivalent of three jobs for a year and generates about $90,000 in taxes, according to the National Association of Home Builders.

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Home sales plunge 27 pct. to lowest in 15 years

August 24th, 2010 · Deception, Federal Spending, Housing Industry, Money Lost, Real Estate, Stimulus

By ALAN ZIBEL and J.W. ELPHINSTONE -The Associated Press
Tuesday, August 24, 2010; 12:57 PM

WASHINGTON — Sales of previously occupied homes plunged last month to the lowest level in 15 years, despite the lowest mortgage rates in decades and bargain prices in many areas.

July’s sales fell by more than 27 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.83 million, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday. It was the largest monthly drop on records dating back to 1968, and sharp declines were recorded in all regions of the country.

The plunge in home sales also magnified fears about the broader economy.

“The housing market is undermining the already faltering wider economic recovery,” said Paul Dales, U.S. economist with Capital Economics. “With the increasingly inevitable double-dip in prices yet to come, things could yet get a lot worse.”

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Homeownership Falls to Lowest Level Since 1999

July 29th, 2010 · Housing Industry

The homeownership rate fell to 66.9 percent in the second quarter, down from 67.1 percent in the first quarter, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. This was the lowest level since 1999.

The homeownership rate reached a record high of 69.2 percent in the second and fourth quarters of 2004.

Rising foreclosures are driving the decline. A record 4.6 percent of U.S. mortgages were in foreclosure in the first three months of 2010, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported in May.

Source: Bloomberg, Kathleen M. Howley (07/27/2010)

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