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Mortgage Application Pipeline At America's Largest Mortgage Lender Drops To Lowest Since Lehman
So much for the much hyped, if quite negligible, second quarter rebound in mortgage activity. After rates tumbled, and continued to tumble, there was some hope that at least the offset to the bond market screaming contraction and deflation (something even stocks have realized in recent days), would be more American's buying homes, which naturally means applying for mortgages. Well, that dead cat bounce has come and gone. As America's biggest mortgage lender, Wells Fargo, reported moments ago when it once again magically managed to report EPS and revenues which came right in line with expectations (of $2.11 and $21.2 billion), the US housing picture is once again the worst it has ever been (excluding those days around the Lehman bankruptcy when all of finance died for a few weeks).
Case in point: according to Wells Q3 Earnings Supplement, while Mortgage Applications declined from a transitory one year high of $72 billion in Q2 to $64 billion, this number is going far lower. The reason: Wells' Morgage Application Pipeline just tumbled back to $25 billion, matching the lowest number since Lehman, and putting an end to any debate about the state of the US housing market.
In short: the only people buying houses in the US now are foreigners laundering their illegal, tax-exempt profits (ever fewer) and those as close to the Fed's ZIRP as possible, and, of course, paying all cash. Everyone else: not so much.
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Great time to buy a house?
Always!
I'm buying a foreclosure now, aka correctly priced home.
nice
The consequences of hyperinflation.
Time to draft Dick Fuld....now that he has a little experience under his belt.
You sure about that ???? And I know those property taxes are not correctly priced, since they are above ZERO.
Upstate NY has the highest property tax in the nation. My property tax will be higher than my mortgage. At least I'm educating the local kids, you know, that way they don't rob the place.
That was my fault. Got the hell outta there when we could. Friends still up there talk about taxes. They were ecstatic to have their bill lowered from like $9k to $5k a year. New construction is dead. Nobody can afford the taxes on a new place.
Every time we go back things are just a bit older than the last time we were there.
pods
Yeah, it's basically feudalism. And all those little towns are for sale by the acre now.
At this stage, the only parties worth buying from up there are the banks... that is if you have the patience to wait for months and deal with brokers, inspectors, contractors, insurance agents, lawyers, appraisers, and the town idiots at the hall. Also, the pace of business up there, as I've discovered, is excrutiatingly slow from somoene who is used to the NYC neuroticism.
pods: "Every time we go back things are just a bit older than the last time we were there."
Ah dude, that, alas, includes you.
http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/m/mary_hopkin/those_were_the_days.html
Song runs through my head these days - lost my wife of 44 years in February.
Nobody,
At least you have now SOMEBODY, to greet you and take you home to rest when your time here is done. Not mansion as the west tends to think from John 14, 1-2; but complete, and eternal rest from pain, worry, and tears. May God bless and keep you.
BK, you got that right. I'm hoping to hear from the bank on a settlement today, a cash for keys deal on an inherited foreclosure (my childhood home, alas) that's been a tax-free, mortgage-free cash cow for over five years.
The bank, who shall remain nameless (coincidentally, also an "inheritor" of a failed lender) apparently will go to the ends of the earth to acquire uncontested title to a home appraised at $81,500 in 2009 and is likely worth less than $70K now with roughly $35-60K worth of repairs, upgrades and improvements needed.
Hey, it's only money, right? Taxes, even at the ungodly assessment of $81,500, are still upwards of $3000 per year.
It's time for this shitshow to begin unwinding. I'll be moving to farm country, with my own few acres, peace, quiet, couple of dogs, shotgun, silver, and my own food and water supply.
Next step is learning how to homebrew, then maybe build a still. Golly, I love nature and abhor what our bankster masters have imposed upon a once-free people.
Guillotines are too good for the scum of the earth, but, if need be, will suffice.
Markets appear to have already completed their dead cat bounce for the day. The Dow, as of yesterday, was off over 1000 points in three weeks. The CNBS crew is still cheerleading and will continue to do so until there's nothing left but a couple of bots trading the shells of former companies. It's a good start.
Let's get the party started.
Wow, what a rip-off on that tax bill. $70K with a $3K tax bill? A property in need of repairs, which you're willing to do, hell, they should cancel your taxes just for doing that. Parasites.
Just pick the right place, 'cause you have the right idea.
I moved onto my 43 acres 40 years ago, built up the place pretty good over time, never went into debt to do it.
Taxes now $1700 a year on an off-the-grid (27 solar panels), reasonably middle class home I built myself (with a little help from my friends and neighbors), two-car garage with electric, remote control doors (wow - uptown), wood and metal shop, flush toilet (wow again), studio for wife (now being turned into apart,ment by my daughter), fenced (electrified) 2 acres around house to keep deer out (but alas, not bear), gravity water, southern exposure; all the comforts of home - and 43 acres of mixed hardwood/softwood forest wrapped over a ridge in northern CA. Paid $12,500 for the land in 1971, now appraised at ~$215,000. assessed at $22,915. (Dope country - but I don't grow.)
Buy and hold can still work in more or less 'real' markets.
The trick, of course, is to not consider a house/structure, or land you buy to live on, as an 'investment'. Suckers game.
Buy it with the idea, belief, long-run gut-level knowing that it is your home. Different mindset altogether.
"...43 acres of mixed hardwood/softwood forest wrapped over a ridge in northern CA."
Californians pay the second-highest taxes in the nation, beat out only by New Yorkers.
http://articles.latimes.com/2014/mar/20/business/la-fi-mo-taxes-states-2...
Risk of fire in forested areas of Northern California: HIGH
http://psgeodata.fs.fed.us/7day/action/forecast/10
http://www.predictiveservices.nifc.gov/outlooks/monthly_seasonal_outlook...
Move. Communist states gonna communist.
I just offloaded my house, and I am renting. I bought it two years ago, and I am walking away with 82 pounds of silver, despite a declining market. I couldn't feel more free.
landlord may be happy to take rent in the form of silver(soon). nice play, hmmm. so i can convert my equity to gold or silver too?
Lead & copper work great too.
With lead , you can farm silver and gold whenever you need
PHs - only up 1000% this last 40 days... leverage 'bitches http://phstones.com/mobile.php
Avoirdupois or troy?
Seeing how your a Goonerment employee, I will do the math for you: 82 lbs. Troy would equate to 89.9655 Avoirdupois.
Yes, I know that. I was just inquiring how HE was measuring his pounds.
opps, duplicate.
Except that rents are so high since many want out of owning. Maybe you found a good deal, but they are harder to find than last year (I've been vaguely looking).
82 pounds, eh? Sounds like you need to rent a boat for a day on the lake.
Go America! As others would say, land of opportunities.
They forgot to tell you, opportunities for whom exactly.
Someone just bought two adjoining apartments at 15 Central Park West in Manhattan for $25 million. Things aren't so bad if you are rich.
At least they'll have to pay taxes on that purchase.
How can that be when unemployment is 5.9%?
That's just the numbers they put out for the Dancing with the Stars crowd.
Boy, that was a good one last night!
Today's unemployment rate is based on a much smaller denominator than in the past as the Obama Admin continues to remove "long term unemployed" from the overall labor force (still unemployed, but no longer counted for some reason). Additionally, many of the jobs that are added are low quality, low paying jobs vs the jobs that were lost in the past recession.
So as you can see, the numbers don't tell the whole story.
Everybody must be hoarding their massive cash holdings.
Besides that article being nonesense, your fixation on anything bad happens to Russia makes you look foolish, especially when you take this drivel to comment section of an article that has nothing to do with Russia.
Your credibility then stops here.
But Kunt Yellen says mortgage credit is "restrictive" ! Translation: " Got subprime auto bubble but need subprime housing boom again"
Correction: "...that Cunt Yellen..."
HELOC bubble being inflated alongside the auto and student loan bubbles.
Wall Street has "diversified" since 2007, with the FED at their back.
Apparently, interest rates are just too high. Or everyone has become independently wealthy from the stock market. Or both.
Or MEDIAN wages haven't risen in decades.
Quiet. You're ruining the fantasy.
My Depression-era Grandfather used to tell me stories about how cheap things were in the Great Depression. Loaf of bread for a penny. Houses going for a few hundred dollars, etc.
I asked him why he didn't buy any of that stuff. He said "Son, you don't understand. No matter how good the deal is, if you don't have the scratch, you ain't buying it."
I'm really glad I got those kinds of stories first-hand or I might be a little confused about what's happening in the economy these days.
The only substitute for experience is someone else's.
We now return you to the housing dead cat bounce which is already in progress
This is supposed to be a happy occasion. Let’s not bicker and argue about who killed who.
Obama-mortgage?
Use your Obama-phone to get one.
Buy foreclosed houses right next to the FEMA camps for Ebola patients....
Tent cities provide individual isolation units...
Fun times in the big city...
In a few weeks Dallas property should be pretty affordable--for the homeless and illegals.
you mean just because incomes are going down and homes prices are being driven higher by the .00001% with free FED money...that people would stop buying homes?
No, because if Ebola spreads down there, prepare for a "Night Of The Living Dead" scenario.
how is the cardboard market doing? any upswing in materials, signaling an increase in shacks?
Las Vegas Has plenty of over priced new homes....ask the builders....there is a huge amount of model homes for sale...I WONDER WHY??? <end of sarcasm font>
the prices should start to rise and lower with Lake Mead. but you aren't supposed to live in Vegas in the first place...
I have a cousin who is bound and determined to purchase lots in and around Las Vegas for up to 30K per lot (no home, just the land) as he thinks that the housing market is coming back.
It will fly in 6 months as people rush to refi with 2 percent 30 year mortgages....
Following your Ebola diagnosis, meet with your local realtor, give him/her juicy kiss.
Sold my house too and effectively converted it to silver. My rent sucks but I'm waiting patiently for the big reset where I can buy my wife a big farm with a white picket fence. That's if we outlast the zombies and plagues.
"Sold my house too and effectively converted it to silver."
Bold move. All your eggs in one basket huh? We just paid off (early) the 15 yr mortgage on our home. Have a home in NC for sale, slow sell. May trade up and farther out of civilization in a year or three. I am here to tell you it feels good to own my home. Taxes, insurance, zombies, ebola plague, etc notwithstanding.
A house is not a suitable investment in one's future. Who wants to get wrapped up with a costly home mortgage when we should be looking for a suitable cave, and spending on armaments, ammo and long shelf life canned goods? This world is going to hell in a handbasket. Property can be easily confiscated, along with its dubious owner if need be.
Decent plan with one fatal flaw. Hot chicks don't generally dig caves.
Foreclosure and a lifetime of debt ?
Many thousands of Americans who lost their homes in the housing bust, but have since begun to rebuild their finances, are suddenly facing a new foreclosure nightmare: debt collectors are chasing them down for the money they still owe by freezing their bank accounts, garnishing their wages and seizing their assets.
By now, banks have usually sold the houses. But the proceeds of those sales were often not enough to cover the amount of the loan, plus penalties, legal bills and fees. The two big government-controlled housing finance companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as other mortgage players, are increasingly pressing borrowers to pay whatever they still owe on mortgages they defaulted on years ago.
http://news.yahoo.com/americans-face-post-foreclosure-hell-wages-garnish...
I'm looking to buy.
Been wathcing Zillow intensely for the last several months.
Prices have moved in the area that I am interested in.
DOWN.
Pretty much every single month.
And the good news is that we are entering the slow RE reason.
Wish me luck.
America's illegal aliens thank you for America's ghost cities, which they helped build, wiith taxpayer money and subsidies. Under the table, of course.