This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
There Goes The Neighborhood's Foreclosure Rate: Ohio Attorney General Requests Statewide Review On GMAC Foreclosure Cases
More as we get it. For all those who want to find out what this action will mean very soon, read the following analysis from Bloomberg's Bob Ivry, Prashant Gopal and Jody Shenn: "Foreclosure Flaws May Slow Home Price Fall, Delay Recovery" - it a nutshell: nothing good.
»
- 6310 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
first
Ally Financial Asked to Halt Evictions in Colorado
Aspen Skiing Co. Kleenex boycott intrigues Harvard 6:15am
Aspen couple face FTC charges over Pom juice claims
raising rates 300bps would speed along the process. wretched 18 months followed by real growth. this is the epitome of "extend and pretend" whereby people laugh at the decency of paying their debts over silly technicalities.
this may actually a gimmick by banks to extend and pretend major hits to their balance sheets as foreclosures are no good for them ?
It isn't a big deal to them now that they've found out that Freddie and Fannie actually own the houses that are being foreclosed on. Fucking banks.
forgot to SAVE
Meridith on CNBC says State budgets are the next big crisis.
Expects a second round of Foreclosures.
states control the property on their soil... as state budgets are forced to contract (along with credit), and their principle actors forced to take much needed haircuts (kicking and screaming), they will turn more and more to the one thing that is out in the open and can't move, land, to make up the difference. Budgets WILL contract, but land will also be used as a stopgap. This will have profound effects on the mortgage market as these properties get sold at tax sale by the state land commissioners because no one wants to pay the tax man to maintain them. Further, states will have no problem indirectly sticking it to the federal government who has let j6p sit in the house scott free because no one wants to pay the tax. Technically it's a debt by the homeowner, not lienholder (even though no one owns anything until it's paid off, ability of the government to sell your property aside).
The fight between the states as taxing authority and the federal government as the real owner of RRE is going to be a doozy.
Meredith's paper on the "Tragedy of the Commons" was focused on how over leveraged the states have become in their pursuit of the next big election.
When states take bailout money from DC, they will have to collect property taxes weekly from squatters/deadbeats/foreclosed, probably by squeezing municipalities.
A new use for police and firemen.
My wife and I are looking for rental property on the Baltic\Mediterranean side of the board in a depressed county in Northern CA. I'm starting to get the impression that banks are offloading quicker than they were a year ago. Just an impression based on scanning a lot of REO / foreclosure offers in the past few months.
No one wants to be the last one standing with the inventory when it becomes "obvious" that we have not bottomed. They've been holding out, trying not gag on all that shadow inventory but it's about to be projectile vommited across the nation as they race to not be the last one to sell the assets. Those that sell first will get the best price.
A family plot - 110 acres SE of Jackson Hole, taxes DOUBLED (101%) last year.
Additionally, because there is a public road through the property there is a landgrab occurring there too (friction with road maintenance, widening, etc).
Lastly, those with land bordering US Federal better dig up and research old easment information. I've been recently made aware of an increasing push of "wayward-wardens" engaged in such efforts like making folks "move" their 3-story houses based on obscure claims from the 1920's. Tie the family up in court, drain their finances, ditch their property. Rinse - repeat, same as it was in the Bush years.
These are examples of outright government assault on those with land in just one "neck of the woods."
Siskiyou National Monument expansion in Northern California, practically the entire Northern California area to be seized, and entire towns, cities and communities to be removed.
- see commentary starting at about 3:20
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrByW1PIqYE
-
This is contradicted by Reggie Middleton's analysis that banks have no incentive to foreclose. They will hold title AND take no loss. The point is that the economics has gone out of housing. There is no economics in housing anymore. It is all social policy. So-called "economic" factors are now simply labels for political--not economic--ideas.
I think it curious that people feel the United States is bankrupt and yet something "economic" still resides in American housing.
What this development tells you is that there is no value left in the United States, in any aspect of the United States. The American economy has flatlined to 0. The mortgage thang is the result, not the cause, of this.
I agree they have no incentive when they can offload the shitass properties to a GSE at 100 cents on the dollar or, if they are monumentally stupid/not connected, at least they're given a green light by regulators/accounting gimmickry to not have to recognize the loss.
The issue is that their disincentive is running headstrong into the taxing authority's need to play hungry hippos. It doesn't make a shit who owns the property, it will get the hell taxed out of it. The state does not have an interest in owning the property... and it will absolutely foreclose on a multimillion dollar home for a couple hundred dollars in taxes... its principle actors do not care... they are not designed nor rewarded for efficiency.
We can dispute the "value" of housing til we're blue in the face... but the floor of the market is, in the lion's share of instances, vastly greater than the taxes owed... there simply has not been enough time to accumulate a substantial amount of RE that is underwater for taxes, regardless of underlying credit obligations.
Check out Meredith Whitney on CNBC... "States will cause next financial crisis...."
Check it out....
Econolicious
This throws a wrench in the wheels of the system, now all bets are off, we might have an end to this sooner than we thought, we might be months from an end game
Time to go full long on XLF.
Every single bear has been trotted out the last few days.
Fade all of them.
Meridith is on cnb now. Fight the power.
Post an IDB 100 chart that's a financial
No Christmas bonuses for bankers facing 80,000 layoffs next year... How bout VISA instead.
We're too busy long aapl. Financials are so last year.
Good idea, as market hits highs w/ everybody bullish and lowest % of cash in mutuals...yeah, that's the time to go bullish. Don't know if you've noticed the last 4 - 5 days every time we get near 1150 the market is repelled. 1150.45 is the peak of the left shoulder of the present H&S pattern. Market gets over that 1151...then I'll agree, it's invalidated the H&S and for whatever reason (nefarious or not), by all means we all go long. But not one moment before.
Finally, Ohio doing something right. With Sen. Brown and Voinovich voted for the bankers time and time again, I would have never guessed Ohio would be on the front lines in the banker war.
it's just a press release at this point. meaningless. where are the criminal indictments for perjury, grand larceny, mail fraud, and so on?
duplicato
Meredith Whitney on CNBS RIGHT NOW!
TD, link later?
Dr. Richard Head: New in the network?
Meredith Whitney: Yes. I just moved in Monday.
Dr. Richard Head: Oh. Do you like it so far?
Meredith Whitney: Oh yes. Everyone's been real nice to me.
Dr. Richard Head: Well, that's because you have perky jugs. I mean your boobs are perky. I mean I want to squeeze them. Mama.
Tit's all she's good for.
The top is in
Who's top is that?
This community has called the end to this market for as long as I can recall.
I look at the board and see green, green.
Would someone with some actual information tell us when this market is to fall?
So far, CNBC has been more accurate a predictor than the sages on this board, sorry to say.
I listen to her. Usually right, but not perfect riming.
NewsFlash: Industries smartest discover America may have mortgage problem!
Kinda like "O.J.'s having 'marital difficulties'" :>D
Without financials the market is limited.
Forgotten little secret is that the Finnys carried the 90s.
Whitney: Financials will "suffer" beginning in Q4. Sell all regional banks.
If financials make up 20% of the S&P 500, what percentage decline in the S&P could you expect in the absence of POMO?
Another 20% os the S&P is Apple, so we have 40% of the index poised to shit the bed? Nice...where do I sign up to buy some S&P?
You can eat Apples you know, right?
Absence of POMO? What's that?
Naturally it's Ohio
Devo would pronouce that O_HI_O
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj2TPNjNTzk&feature=related
skippy...duty to the future or toil is stupid...lmao
The Pretenders - My City Was Gone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qymWykEhwow
sexy sexy chrissy
Wow, Look at the market. Its green . The feds work is done. Has anyone seen this market? Lucky i held my Apple shares. The Fed will make sure it goes past $500/ Share. I dont know if i should hate the Fed . Im confused
I just want to point out that the guy who now runs GMAC is Michael Carpenter, who previously ran investment banking at CITI and before that ran Kidder. Hmmmm. There is a definite pattern of screw up your company and go rebuild your resume by helping screw up another company screwed up my someone else.
HOPE
http://williambanzai7.blogspot.com/2010/09/hope.html
STINKIN NOTARIES
http://williambanzai7.blogspot.com/2010/09/stinkin-notaries.html
"Madmen and idiots are the lifeblood of corporate imperialism. They give life its color and pizzazz with their belief in infinite growth in a finite world, a doctrine they share with a cancer cell.
...Let’s talk about the mainstay of American ascendancy, Feral Corporatism. ... Corporatism stomped capitalism into the ground decades ago. Though the public tends to conflate the two, there is a crucial difference between them: In capitalism, the owners/founders call the shots; in Corporatism, overpaid employees [hired managers/CEOs/hired guns] call the shots. [The latter's aim is to hollow-out the host corporation and fill his pockets].
Hat-tip to Belaqua Jones/Case Wagonvoord for paraphrased quotes
Accounting can lie for a while. Eventually cash flow (the truth) comes out. Banks have to have enough money coming in from their loan books in order to continue operating. Fabricated accounting cannot cover poor cash flow.
Poor cash flow???
Do you think Ben will not backstop every entity??
There is no end to cash flow when it can be created from thin air.
Ending quote from the article:
Cohen, the homeowner who is 12 months behind on his mortgage payments, said he’s been trying to negotiate a loan modification. He anticipates difficulties down the road.
“Nobody can tell me who owns my mortgage,” he said.
Is it possible that some of these mortgages have been sliced & diced to the point that they became so liquid they can't be reconstructed? Kind of like making fish stew by turning up the heat in an aquarium....then trying to re-make the aquarium.
Yep, this is the 800 lb gorilla in the FCL courtroom. The big banks have title issues up the wazoo, and no one wants to confront this, because it'd be curtains for the banks. Of course, the banks are also trying to FCL on some stuff that belongs to Fannie/Freddie. Geez, where are the fraud charges? Any regular Joe tried that, he'd be getting the Gitmo treatment.
Reminds me of the "Bass-o-matic" :>D
Also, I'd rather have the 'owner' squatting than have the house vacant.
As long as they vacuum, paint, mow the lawn, fix the plumbing etc...right? ;-)
Or turn it into a meth lab :)
We may be hearing this more often:
Blast it all -- double posts.
During the Great Depression, people in Iowa and a few other states forcibly broke up farm auctions.
Penny Auctons. Neighbors waited with pitchforks for the bankers to show up on the courthouse steps.
No no no! As I said before, your sources are completely wrong--or rather, completely behind the curve--on what this means. Here is what is really going on:
Shhhh! don't tell anyone, but
THE UNITED STATES HAS FORGIVEN HOME MORTGAGE INDEBTEDNESS.
Now, don't let them fool you. Don't let them tell you their policy is something else. The FACTS show what is the policy of the United States. Here they are chapter and verse. You tell me when they mean:
The factors showing U.S. debt forgiveness are both legal and factual: Through its1. ownership stake in banks (creating Fifth Amendment Due Process rights to what is in FACT--not the arbitrary 31%--minimization of the risk of housing loss (on this prong, please see online the Huxtable v. Geithner Order (not the Order to Dismiss--sounds like a settlement was reached since Huxtable filed no opposition). The reasoning of Huxtable is sound and is pretty generally accepted now. There IS a Fifth Amendment Due Process right based on U.S. ownership of banks, and this Due Process right is a right to a modification based on what is in FACT the minimization of risk of default--this means that the 31% is simply the Government's assertion on this point--it is LITIGABLE;
2. contracts with servicers (creating the same rights as above, but on a third party beneficiary theory--see Marques v. Wells Fargo--online). The reasoning of Judge Lorenz is also sound and is simply another basis for claiming a factual minimization of the risk of default, rather than simply accepting the Government's 31%. Again, the 31% is going to be litigated. People have to get used to that--it's not off limits anymore;
3. mortgage principal reduction through HAMP; 4. adjustments to gross income for principal reduction through HAMP; and 5. loss of economic incentive to foreclose (this is Reggie Middleton's analysis on his blog). The Middleton analysis is new (it's at www.boombustblog.com, the September 23 story on housing prices) and your economists might want to take a look at it. It seems sound; if it is, it is game over for American housing. Litigants in HAMP will certainly have the right to civil discovery as to what the United States has concluded with respect to the economics of foreclosure. It will probably turn out to be just what the facts show: that the policy is in FACT to minimize the risk of default because there is no economic incentive to foreclose. Of course this seems impossible, unacceptable, blah blah blah. But if the economic facts bear it out, then the economic facts bear it out and you just have to wrap your head around it. What will happen next/is happening now: 1. litigants will sue to quiet title (among other causes of action such as fraud, conspiracy, Civil Rights violations, etc., naming Tiny Tim, the IRS commissioner and the United States, among others); and 2. the U.S. is scrambling right now to decide what to do if people who have a gazillion dollars and are sitting in a house which is soaring in value, nevertheless decide to simply stop paying on their mortgages. I have no idea how they will do this. Of course, the first instinct of Uncle Sam will be some sort of coercion. When that fails in court, the next gambit will be to try to provide some incentive to people to keep paying those damned mortgages. Who knows how this will end? In any event, it's Reggie Middleton's analysis which broke the back of this. Indeed, I'm sure his analysis was already made in the dark of night at the Treasury Department. That's been the entire tendency of this mortgage mess: to separate out what is in FACT the policy of the U.S., as opposed to what the U.S. SAYS its policy is. If you believe the latter, you don't get your day in court. But if you assert the facts in court, then your house is free. Nice, eh? Moral hazard, of course. But whose? In any event, game over for American housing. As this unrolls, it will sink the dollar. This will entirely change rights in housing in the United States. Among other things, it means that Lindsey v. Normet minimum scrutiny for housing is out the window, because the United States' policy is a higher level of scrutiny for housing. It don't know how the U.S. will spin it, or how they will try to keep homeowners paying their mortgages, but the facts don't lie, and if in fact the U.S. has forgiven home mortgage debt, people will insist on having that recognized in litigation. Cheers, John Ryskamp
the United States has in fact forgiven home mortgage indebtedness.
David another good post. I responded to you in another thread I have lost track of but what are your thoughts on doing quiet title filings for friends an neighbors anonymously as means of civil disobedience and general mayhem.
Give it a try and let us know how it goes for you. Until then you're blowing smoke.
I'm not a lawyer so explain what flaws you see in what I'm proposing.
I am, so let me provide a little commentary. First, filing is not free... here, we're probably as cheap as it gets, and you're looking at $150+ to file a lawsuit. Second, the whole mortgage/assignment/etc. fiasco will only generally work as a shield, not a sword. (A) you'll need to notify the correct lienholder of the pendency of the lawsuit... goodluck with that (service costs money too); (B) if you do get the right person/entity they will be able to get their shit together to prove their rightful status (this is in contrast to a "routine" foreclosure filing where they drop their pants at their ankles to pee on the side of the road, but are unwittingly in the donkey pen (google it)); (C) you'll need to articulate some pretty specific facts in order to survive motions to dismiss. Third, as a practical matter, you are going to get no sympathy from the trial court for your actions... being a foreclosed homeowner out of a job is one thing... using the confused state of affairs as a sword to remove yourself from a lien is another. And, last, EVEN IF SUCCESSFUL, YOU WILL ONLY REMOVE THE LIEN ON THE LAND, NOT YOUR OBLIGATION ON THE NOTE.
PS, you can view each court like an island unto itself with the judge being the arbiter of everything... if you try and get too cute with your filings, you may find yourself on the wrong end of sanctions/contempt. Tread softly.
Thank you Machoman. Much appreciated.
My thinking was it's such a damn mess it seems there might be some opportunity for a little fun at the bankers expense for a change. Ah well.
There is an imp inside me I keep bottled up but I like to let him out now and then.
As a follow up, a quiet title action is not the proper tool anyway since there is no dispute you own the land... the better cause of action would be slander of title... essentially asserting that they had no right to file the mortgage/lien on your property. Obviously you're going to need to do title work prior to filing suit... go to the county courthouse, ask the clerk where to look up your mortgage (pray to christ they have electronic cataloguing), and just search all records for your name (on a lot of systems, this means placing an asterisk after your name). This probably something everyone should do anyway... I'm nearly certain that no mortgage was ever recorded after my fiance refinanced her house... the note was subsequently purchased by fannie.
If they're stupid enough to file an affidavit that is false (and admit it is false), then you might have a shot... otherwise, you're probably just asking for them to get their shit in order for when you default. I'd suggest letting the sleeping dog lie. It's something you do when they try and come boot you out, not as a pre-emtive measure to temporarily defeat their bounty.
At least with a slander of title action you can get damages... probably punies too... if you can prove to an attorney that you have a shot at proving your case, I'm sure they'll take it on contingency... generally, it's pretty simple to litigate... either they have a right to do it or they don't... simple as that.
....just one more fine example of the value of this site. I found this exchange both informative and entertaining.
Thanks for taking the time to explain some of the finer legal points to us laymen, MachoMan
Much of this GMAC debacle must be looked at in its historical context.
Consider that Ezra Merkin was the chairman of the GMAC Financial Services. GMAC Financial Services provided real estate financing. He served as the Chairman of GMAC until his resignation on January 9, 2009.
Ezra Merkin was a close business associate of Bernard Madoff, and played a significant role in the Madoff fraud. He was the general partner of Gabriel Capital LP, a $5 billion group of hedge funds which was dissolved in 2008 after enormous losses in the Madoff scheme.
Madoff should be given a medal and a release from prison, after all… he showed us how the system really works.
Crisis in the judicial branch. Love it.
I'll link to this post and add that we received yet another package yesterday via USPS.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/gmac-mortgage-now-blames-eviction-halt-...
I can think of no other reason for their determination to enter in to a new contract with us except for these new developments in the courts.
Just a godamn piece of paper.
Again, some finance honcho gets it completely backwards: Buyers will stay away UNTIL prices drop to the absolute bottom!
They're blaming this fiasco on a lack of staffing in the entire foreclosure pipeline -- word up Obamatron, spend some "stimulus" on hiring rubber stampers!
i love zerohedge policy cheap hosting