Home Prices Decline in Nearly Half of Metropolitan Areas

Home prices fell in nearly half of U.S. metropolitan areas in the third quarter, indicating that the market is losing steam without government tax credits, according to an industry report.

The median price for home resales fell compared with last year in 76 out of 155 areas tracked by the National Association of Realtors, the trade group said Thursday. Prices rose in 77 areas and were unchanged in two.

In the second quarter of the year, prices rose in nearly two-thirds of U.S. cities.

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Homeowner, Facing Foreclosure, Goes On Hunger Strike

A Baltimore homeowner who fell behind on her mortgage payments after her property taxes unexpectedly spiked protested in an attention-grabbing way this week: She went on a hunger strike.
Lauren Rymer started just after 7 a.m. Monday and spent an empty-stomach day camped out in Annapolis, trying to get an audience with Gov. Martin O'Malley and talking to passersby who wanted to share their stories of economic woe.

By the time she ate something at 5 p.m. Tuesday, she'd had a foreclosure alternative offered to her by the state housing department, talked to someone from O'Malley's office about the tax problem and given interviews to a bevvy of media from WBAL to the Huffington Post to MSNBC about her hope that elected officials will do more to help Americans avoid foreclosure.

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Bank REO’s Can Be A Risky But Great Investment

After a repossession from which the property becomes classified as REO, the bank will go through the process of trying to sell the property on its own or obtain the service of an REO Asset Manager. The bank will remove some of the liens and other expenses on the home and try to resell it to the public, either through future auctions or direct marketing through a real estate broker. The asset Manager will also try to contact REO realtors that specialize in certain zip codes to help sell this bank owned property. Bank REO properties are generally in poor repair and maintenance.

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Request For Foreclosure Probe 3 Years Ago Thwarted

As foreclosures began to mount across the country three years ago, a group of state bank regulators suspected that some borrowers might be losing their homes unnecessarily. So the state officials asked the biggest national banks for details about their foreclosure operations.
When two banks -- J.P. Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo -- declined to cooperate, the state officials asked the banks' federal regulator for help, according to a letter they sent. But the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which oversees national banks, denied the states' request, saying the firms should answer only to inquiries from federal officials.

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Nicolas Cage's Bel-Air Home Goes To New Owner For Just $10.5 Million

 
The sale of Nicolas Cage's onetime Bel-Air estate, which the actor lost to foreclosure this year, has all the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster. There was hubris, bad taste and a dizzying fall from financial grace.

The closing scene played out this week when a new owner picked up the sprawling mansion for $10.5 million, a relative bargain for a trophy home that had been listed several years ago at more than three times that amount. The buyer was identified only as a limited liability company, a common cloaking device in high-profile real estate transactions.

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Factoring Repairs Into REO Purchase

Q: I recently put in an offer of $125,000 on a foreclosed property that was listed for $140,000. My offer was countered at 140,000; I went back at $130,000 and asked for 6 percent toward closing. My agent stated that the bank's final offer was $135,000 and 3 percent toward closing costs.

I declined the offer because, although the property was livable, it needed repairs. The master bath only had a commode -- no sink or tub was installed. Two bedrooms needed ceilings put in, one other bath needed repairs and the basement had been framed, but no drywall.

There was no refrigerator and the other appliances are questionable. Although I submitted an as-is offer on this property, my loan officer said that I would be eligible for a 203(k) loan. My preapproval letter did not state a price because he said it would depend on the repairs that had to be made. My loan officer said that the property had to be inspected to determine what repairs had to be made.

I also got preapproved by the bank that owned the property. When I went to my agent's office to collect my earnest deposit check, he informed me that the property had been reduced from $140,000 to $134,900. There were no other offers on the table. I did not offer another bid.

Can help me understand this reasoning? Can I trust that my Realtor informed the agent representing the bank of the repairs that had to be done to this property, and possible hidden repairs? Would you advise me to reissue my bid of $120,000 with 3 percent in closing costs?

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Shattered Dreams: Foreclosure Squatters

When Chris and Thelma DiMattio bought their new house in swanky Wilton, Connecticut a few months ago, they were thrilled. The longtime Wilton residents didn't have to uproot their family, and they got a really great deal on the home at a foreclosure auction.

They picked up their last house at a similar auction, and were excited to move into their new place. That is, until they actually got there- and realized the previous tenants were still living inside.

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Homeowners Say Loan Mods Led Them To Foreclosure

Grocery store owners William and Esperanza Casco were making enough money to stay current on their mortgage, but when JPMorgan Chase & Co. offered a plan that reduced their payments, they figured they could use the extra cash and signed up.
The Cascos say they never missed a subsequent payment, so they were horrified when the bank decided the smaller payments weren't enough and foreclosed on their modest Long Beach home.
Their story is echoed across the country by people who claim — some in lawsuits — that banks didn't live up to their end of the deal when they agreed to trial mortgage modifications.

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Short Sale Of Home Similar To Foreclosure In Its Effect On FICO Score

Dear Liz: In 2005, I purchased a town home for my children, and they have since vacated the property. The town house is now worth 60% of what I owe, and I am considering a short sale. All my other obligations are current with no late payments in years. My credit scores are over 800 and my only other debt is a car payment. After a short sale, what kind of hit can I expect on my credit score, and about what would be the recovery time for my credit score?

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84% of Consumers Favor Another Tax Credit for Home Buyers

Another tax credit for home buyers in 2011 seems unlikely at this point. But despite this, most consumers feel another tax credit would help to stabilize the housing market. Here are the results of a survey we concluded last week:

Chart: Many consumers feel another home-buyer tax credit would help. Image permission
Survey details: This survey was presented to more than 5,500 readers. We ran this survey on the Home Buying Institute website, and several other sites within our financial network. The audience was mixed — some were home buyers and homeowners, while others were researching personal finance and investment topics.

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Most Americans Believe Owning A Home Is A Good Investment

Despite economic uncertainty and recent challenges in the real estate market, nearly eight out of 10 Americans believe buying a home makes good financial sense. This is according to a recent survey, the 2010 National Housing Pulse, released by the National Association of Realtors to measure how affordable housing issues affect consumers.

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Buying A Home As A Tax Shelter Is Risky Now

Q: I sold my home this past May as a short sale and even though it sold for the amount I purchased it for in 2003, I still came away with a $50,000 promissory note to the lender that I'm paying off (without interest) for the next 15 years.
Somebody said I would have needed to rent the house to get the loss; how would that make any difference? When I do my 2010 taxes, is there a way that I can show the loss?
Also, I'm turning 60 years old in April and wondered if it makes sense to use my Roth IRA ($30,000) as a down payment on another small home since I'm renting and have at least seven years before I'd retire from federal service. I'm concerned that I don't have a tax shelter anymore other than my pre-tax retirement contributions each pay period.


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5 Ways to Take Advantage of Low Interest Rates

Interest rates have never been lower. It seems that just about every week mortgage rates set a new low. And this week the Fed is expected to undertake a second round of quantitative easing, QE2 for short, by buying up more government debt. As a result, incredibly low interest rates may go even lower.

But low rates don’t do us any good if we fail to take advantage of them. So we’ve put together a list of five ways that you may be able to enjoy the benefits of low interest rates.

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Home Sales Up, Remodeling Flat

Recent data shows new-home sales actually increased in the month of September while remodeling remained relatively unchanged in the third quarter. These statistics show a different view of the homebuilding marketplace than in months past—one that might offer a good sign for homebuilders.

Last week, the U.S. Census Bureau, www.census.gov, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development, www.hud.gov, Washington, D.C., announced the latest numbers for new single-family home sales in the month of September.

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The New Rules Of Pricing Your House For Sale

When the housing figures are released each month, many consumers are faced with a profusion of confusion. Existing home sales are up slightly - no, they're down again. Median prices improved slightly over a year ago - wait, that was last month. New home sales dropped sharply after the federal tax credit expired, but they're up again - for now.

Well, one thing's for sure: It's a whole new game of "The Price is Right." Long gone are the halcyon days of setting your asking price by looking at comparable home sales over the last year - and adding 10 to 20 percent to those prices.

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Buying a Foreclosed Home: 3 Stages and Their Effects on You, the Buyer

If you have ever thought about buying a foreclosed home, you, no doubt, were charmed by the super low prices at which foreclosed homes tend to be available, but buyer beware; low prices come with a catch.

Most importantly, keep in mind that not all foreclosures are the same. There are three phases a foreclosed home passes through as regards a new buyer, each with its own series of benefits and drawbacks.  First, the house is listed as a short sale property. A short sale means that the lender has agreed to accept an amount less than the total mortgage due on the property. This usually occurs during the first 90 days a property is in default. In this phase, you are actually negotiating the sale directly with the owner, albeit with the approval of the owner’s lender. On the plus side, the costs associated with purchasing a home in this phase are much lower than subsequent phases. However, there are downsides. There is a high degree of uncertainty as short sales can fall through if the owner comes up with the money. In addition, the process to purchase a short sale takes much longer than a regular home purchase.

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Jim Palmer's Palm Beach Home Available for $2.9 Million

Retired Major League Baseball pitcher Jim Palmer has listed and cut the price of his Palm Beach, Fla., home. The home quietly came on the market a year ago for $3.4 million; it's now listed for $2.9 million, a 16% discount.


The Hall of Famer who spent 19 years playing for the Baltimore Orioles and his wife, Susan, an interior designer, purchased the 1940-built home in 2001 and renovated it. The 4,100-square-foot, three bedroom, 3½ bath home is about a block from the beach. The home has a gourmet kitchen, bay windows and a family room surrounded by glass walls that overlooks a swimming pool. Public records show Mr. Palmer paid $1.6 million for the home.

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Why Short Sales Take So Long: If Banks Ran Restaurants

This is the second of my two part series on why short sales take so long. That first post was very factual and may have lost the less patient readers as it dragged them through the muck that is a short sale. So here is a rewrite of that post from the perspective of eating at a restaurant - something with which everyone can identify - in a Looking Glass world where the banks run all the restaurants.

Background
In this world (let's set the stage in Chicago for fun) there are only 5 restaurants in the entire city. Consequently the restaurants are huge, sprawling over several city blocks with thousands of people coming in to eat every hour. Consequently, the banks have decided to apply their considerable skills to streamline the dining process. You and your family were driving through Chicago when your car broke down and you have decided to eat dinner here. Where you live you have normal restaurants but you have heard that in Chicago things are different.

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Foreclosure Mess Will Take Years To Clean Up

How long will it take before the American nightmare of home foreclosures is over? Ask Mike Dillon, who’s been fighting to keep his New Hampshire home for most of the past decade. 

Though he missed two payments in 2002, Dillon then caught up and was current on his loan by later that year, he said. That’s when his mortgage problems began.

After the company servicing his mortgage failed to properly credit monthly payments to his account, it placed the loan in default. As he worked to straighten out the bookkeeping, with canceled checks in hand, the servicer began adding additional fees for property inspections, insurance and other charges.

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U.S. Lawyer Forms Foreclosure Resistance Movement

In a stately 19th century mansion in the middle of this former textile mill town, a local political scion has formed a mortgage foreclosure resistance movement.


O. Max Gardner III, 65, pioneered techniques in preventing big banks from foreclosing on loans and has taught his methods to 559 other lawyers in the last four years.

He teaches a sort of legal jiu jitsu: how to exploit opponents' large size and disorganization for the benefit of consumers who do not want to give up their homes.

Once lawyers exit his training program, they stay on his expanding e-mail list, and are allowed access to an online document repository to share information. They work together to come up with new ways to slow down foreclosures and share strategies on other bankruptcy issues, communicating at a rate of 350 messages a day.

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FHA Commissioner: Mortgage Industry Must Regain the Public’s Trust

During the Mortgage Bankers Association conference in Atlanta, GA, Federal Housing Administration Commissioner said the mortgage business should shine a light on bad participants in the industry and regain the public’s trust.

“There’s a reflection in the media that we aren’t holding ourselves accountable enough,” said David H. Stevens, commissioner of the FHA, noting that the recent news of flaws in some banks’ foreclosure processing methods is adding to the problem.

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Lenders Skirt Foreclosure Rules

At least 55 Franklin County homeowners will lose their houses at an auction Friday despite the fact that their foreclosure cases appear to contain mistakes, omissions of critical evidence or questionable affidavits, The Dispatch found in a review of court documents.

The newspaper examined the files of more than 130 homeowners whose houses are slated for auction Friday. Half of the cases had issues that consumer advocates call troubling and should have raised red flags before a judge ordered the homes sold.

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Real Estate: Sellers Attached To Their Homes Often Don't Get Their Asking Price

On top of an overall plunge in prices, homes in Tucson usually sell for less than what their owners are hoping to get for them.

If a family has an emotional attachment to a home, it's even less likely to sell for what the owner thinks it's worth, says Stephanie Friend, a local agent with ZipRealty Inc.

That's often the case for those selling homes in central and northeast Tucson. Homes there tend to sell for about 92 percent of the asking price, data from ZipRealty shows. ZipRealty uses statistics from local Multiple Listing Services to compare the asking price and selling price of homes in certain zip codes.
Homes on Tucson's south side are selling closest to their asking price, ZipRealty says.

In parts of town with higher foreclosure rates, homes are more likely to be owned by the bank and priced to move, Friend says. In older, more established communities in midtown and in the Catalina Foothills, sellers expect to get more cash from their homes.

"The sellers there anticipate a higher return on their home," Friend says. "They're more owner-occupied and they have more of an attachment to the house."

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Utahns Split On Renting vs. Buying In Today's Economy

Do we rent or do we buy? That is the question some Utahns are contemplating in today's shaky economy. Analysts say a growing number of Americans are renting rather than buying a home.

Resident Ron Thorpe and his wife bought their home in Tooele 10 years ago. He's even contemplated buying another house but doesn't want to pay two mortgages. He says now is the time to seize the home buying opportunity because of the state of the economy.

"Interest rates are at their record low," says Thorpe. "Housing prices have come down and you always need a home to live in."
Other Utahns aren't so sure about that. Rose Park resident Klarissa Mesi says she prefers to rent because it saves her money.

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How Long Does Foreclosure Take?

Since the housing market fell apart, the time people spend in foreclosure has gone way up.
As the chart below shows, "judicial foreclosures" — those in states where foreclosures go through the courts — now take an average of 271 days, or about nine months.
Judicial foreclosures are the ones at the center of the "robo-signer" foreclosure mess. So as banks change their practices in response to the scandal, we may see the time to foreclosure rise even more in those states.

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Watchdog Panel to Grill Treasury on Foreclosure Robo-Signings

A Treasury official will be on the hot seat tomorrow as a Congressional watchdog group, known largely for its scathing assessments of the federal bank bailout, will hold the first public hearing to tackle the foreclosure robo-signings scandal.
Tomorrow's hearing, by the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, was originally to focus on the government's foreclosure mitigation programs, including the Home Affordable Modification Program. 

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FHA Loans: Getting an FHA Loan After Foreclosure

With the recent news of the record amount of foreclosures during the month of September, it is obvious to wonder who will be able to purchase a home in the future. Losing a home to foreclosure is stressful and for many it is the end of the emotional road of homeownership. In reality, foreclosures have been happening all along, but not at the high rate as what has happened over the past few years. Many people who went through this process years ago are now ready to purchase a home again due to low home prices. Getting an FHA loan after foreclosure is possible and happens everyday.

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Apartments Are A Good Investment For Some

The property in Fort Lauderdale was originally valued at $285,000. Clint Gordon, a private investor in multifamily properties, offered the bank $50,000, and within 10 days, had closed the deal. A few days later, he began renting it for $15,000 a year.

"Anybody who's getting into this business now, you get a whole lot of return if you're paying cash for properties," he says. "You're just buying them so cheap."

Prices for apartment buildings are "incredible" in Indianapolis, as well, says Barb Getty, who owns 27 apartment properties in the downtown area. "You can start small like I did; 20% of 40 thousand bucks isn't a lot of money."

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Long Road To A Short Sale: Struggling Homeowners Turn To Lenders For Last-Chance Option

The house that Anna Bogaard-Hazen and her husband, Barry Hazen, bought on a cul-de-sac in Eldorado in 2005 had everything on their list of amenities — views, privacy, a pretty front porch.

In fact, when they first saw it, "Our jaws just dropped," she recalled.

Because others were bidding on the property, the couple paid the owners their asking price of $389,000 for the 1,800-square-foot house.

When they refinanced in 2007, the appraised value of the property had jumped to $460,000 and they thought, "Oh boy, we made a great investment. We were thrilled," Bogaard-Hazen said.

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Buying Bank Owned REO Properties

Buying bank owned homes or condominiums is a great way to make a make deal of money in today’s real estate market conditions IF you have cash. Cash, Proof of funds letter, Education and Training are the key elements new investors are lacking. These three factors are important before any inexperienced real estate investor or buyer plunge into the real estate world.

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Is There a New 3.8% Tax on House Sales?

We have received many questions about a possible 3.8% tax which will be put on home sales beginning in 2013. We want to do our best to clarify this situation for everyone. We are not accountants and give you this information just as a simple answer to the misconception. Understand that, when it comes to IRS regulations, you should check with your accountant for the most accurate and up-to-date information. 

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Top Five Reasons To Purchase A Home Now

Buyers still waiting for home prices to scrape rock bottom (hint: they will never return to1953 levels) or interest rates to hit zero (I know, it feels like they're headed there) might want to consider that conditions for buying a home are better today than at any time in recent memory.

The following are five reasons to consider a home purchase now:

1. Bargains are abundant, and buyers hold the cards. Home prices have dropped 30% since the peak, and in some states, such as Arizona and Florida, we're looking at the steepest price drops in recent history. The median price nationally for an existing home was $178,600 in August, according to the National Association of Realtors. With the expiration of the federal tax credits for home purchases, competition for low-cost homes has eased considerably.

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3 Signs the Mortgage Market Has Hit Bottom

After more than two years of misery in the housing market, the worst may finally be over.

A handful of recent developments in the mortgage market all point to an easing of lending standards, which have been onerously high since 2008. Private lenders and the federal government have reinvigorated the jumbo mortgage market, making bigger loans more available to more borrowers. And in general, would-be homeowners can now qualify for a loan with a lower credit score and make a smaller down payment – in some cases, as low as 5%. Those moves, taken together, mean that more borrowers have access to mortgages, a necessary precondition for housing to rebound.

“When you see those moves on the upswing, it gives you a hint of what’s coming later on,” says Chip Cummings, president of Northwind Financial, a consulting company for mortgage and realtor firms.

Read Here: 3 Signs the Mortgage Market Has Hit Bottom...

How to Negotiate When Buying a Home

The dream of home ownership is one that plagues many adults. Paying into a rental, month after month, may be cheaper in the short term, but over the long haul you can begin to feel like you’re simply flushing money down the toilet that could be going towards an investment in your future. But buying a home is no easy feat. Somewhere between the home you want and the loan you can get is a house that is right for you (or at least for right now), and it can be very tricky to navigate the shark-infested waters of the housing market. First, there are the previous owners, who no doubt want to get as much value from their home as possible. Then there are real estate agents, who may tell you just about anything in order to get a commission (except for Martin Vaughn). And of course, you will have to deal with loan agents, who must look out for the best interest of their lending institution (not to mention whatever kind of bonus they’ll be getting). In short, it pays to know what you’re up against and actively pursue finding out everything you can before you enter negotiations.

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How NOT To Negotiate an REO Property

This week, I’m going to depart from my usual attempt to be informative and insightful, and instead use this space to share an interesting email exchange I had with a particular non-professional REO listing agent (and yes, I ended up taking a very non-professional tact as well). Actually, I think this post will be informative and insightful, but only as an example of what you probably shouldn’t do as a listing agent or an investor/buyer.

To set the stage, we made an offer on an REO last week. Before submitting the offer, my wife (my agent) called the listing agent to verify that the property was still available. He told us that the property had received multiple offers and that we should submit our “highest and best” offer to the seller.

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Is Vanilla Ice The Next Donald Trump?

Why Government Shouldn't Block Home Foreclosures

If one word best summarizes the current housing market, "foreclosure" would be it. Despite record-low interest rates, American homeowners are losing their properties with greater frequency than at any time since the Great Depression. Yet banks and other financial institutions, until very recently on track to seize 1.2 million homes by the end of this year, are facing growing pressure to impose "voluntary" nationwide moratorium on foreclosure repossessions and sales. If they don't do the job themselves, say critics, government should do it. Several major lenders in fact have ceased property seizures in the wake of widespread revelations of foreclosures lacking proper documentation. The calls for action are understandable. Yet a moratorium, rather than restore integrity to our financial system, would further imperil it.

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Why Your First Home Shouldn't Be Your Dream Home

Since 2000 homeownership rates in the U.S. have hovered around 66% to 67% of the population. In 1900 less than half of Americans owned their own homes. The biggest surge in home buying came after World War II, when many young families were encouraged to buy "starter homes."

Attitudes about how to buy a home have fluctuated as much as interest rates during the decades since World War II, and eventually many first-time home buyers were encouraged to "buy big" in order to stretch their budgets as much as possible, and to buy the homes they wanted to live in forever. Given the high level of foreclosures and the loss of value in many homes, today's buyers are more wary of taking on homes they cannot afford, but many are still tempted to make their first home purchases their dream homes rather than their starter homes.

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NY Fed, 8 Firms Threaten BofA Over Mortgage Securities

The New York Federal Reserve Bank is part of a consortium of eight large institutional investment firms that is demanding that Bank of America repurchase loans included in mortgage securities.

Bloomberg reported earlier Tuesday that the New York Fed had joined with the Pacific Investment Management Company, better known as Pimco, and investment management firm BlackRock in an attempt to force BofA to buy back $47 billion in mortgage bonds.

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Michael Jackson’s Kids Want to Buy Neverland Again

Prince Michael and Paris has many wonderful memories with their father at Neverland. They also intend to buy again that super luxury homes.

As reported by the Daily Mail, Monday, Prince and Paris agreed to buy the house when they were grown. Incidentally, they will get all the legacy of Michael when they were aged 21 years.

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Slumping Resort Real Estate Means Bargains For Rich

America’s “Great Recession” has provided a great lesson for resort real estate markets.
Economic slowdowns hit even the wealthy, and this latest one has dealt a serious blow to markets in places such as Aspen, Vail and Telluride, where home prices often are measured in millions of dollars.
Last year was a year to remember, or possibly better off to forget, as transactions and dollar volumes in many resort areas continued a sharp decline also experienced in 2008.

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U.S. Trying To Assess Foreclosure Crisis Scope - FDIC

U.S. financial regulators are trying to gauge the scope of improper processing of foreclosures while banks need to assess their level of risk exposure, banking regulator Sheila Bair said on Sunday.
Federal Deposit Insurance Corp Chairman Sheila Bair said in an interview on C-SPAN's "Newsmakers" that the problems with processing foreclosures appeared to be an industry-wide practice, at least with larger loan servicers.

"I think this is really a symptom of size. It's very unfortunate," she said. "So in our backup supervisory capacity we are working with our regulatory colleagues. I think it is necessary for the regulators to go in and verify."

Last week, attorneys general from all 50 states said they were looking at allegations some banks did not properly review files or submitted false statements to evict delinquent borrowers from their homes. They are investigating accusations that lenders and banks employed "robo-signers" to sign hundreds of affidavits each day without vetting all the information.

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Banks Restart Foreclosures

Two major lenders at the center of the foreclosure crisis took steps Monday to put the mess behind them by restarting home seizures that were frozen by documentation concerns.

Bank of America Corp. reopened more than 100,000 foreclosure actions, declaring that it had found no significant problems in its procedures for seizing homes. GMAC Mortgage, a lender and loan servicer, said that it also is pushing ahead with an unspecified number of foreclosures that came under intense pressure.

Monday's moves are part of a growing counterattack by lenders scrambling to stem a financial and political threat over allegations that certain employees signed hundreds of documents a day without carefully reviewing their contents when foreclosing on homes.

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Rehabbed Home Has Tales To Tell

Mary Jo Willmore admits that at first, she and her husband, Bradford, didn't really know what to expect from the Telegraph Hill home at 31 Alta St. when they first saw a sketch of the probate home in a magazine a decade ago.


"You're always a little scared when you see just a sketch of a home, because that usually means there's something wrong with it," she said.


The home, which is believed to have been built in the mid-19th century and survived the 1906 earthquake, did have a few issues. The bricks on its exterior needed repair, its decks were tattered and the interior was barely livable.


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Mortgage Damage Spreads

The unfolding foreclosure-processing debacle is causing bank stocks to slide and putting millions of delinquent borrowers in limbo.

But how disruptive the crisis ultimately becomes—for homeowners, the housing market and the broader economy—depends on how quickly a number of technical problems and legal challenges are resolved in the months ahead.

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Four Ways The Foreclosure Mess Could Be Used To Help Homeowners

If you didn't think the gods of financial crises had a sense of humor, consider that the latest economic threat is that foreclosures have largely stopped. What's next? Our (401)ks are looking too full?
Although the potential for chaos in the housing market and on bank balance sheets is rightly feared, there's an opportunity here, too. Foreclosures have paused. There's renewed recognition that the business practices behind the housing bubble were a mixture of insane and fraudulent. The banks will probably need some government help again, even if it's just regulatory forbearance. The market is preparing for the possibility of new policies - and we should have some, but not just for the banks. For the homeowners, too.

Our response to the financial crisis had three parts: The bank and auto bailouts, the stimulus, and the efforts to help homeowners facing foreclosure. The bailouts worked pretty well. The stimulus was much too small, but at least did what it said it was going to do. The help for homeowners, however, has been a disaster.

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Foreclosure Anger Is Now Hitting Election Campaign

Three weeks before the election, anger over tainted home foreclosure documents is bursting into the battle for control of Congress, especially in hard-hit states such as Nevada and Florida. Democrats in tight races in the worst housing markets are pressing for a national moratorium, putting a reluctant White House on the spot.

Leading the call for a nationwide time-out on kicking people out of their homes is Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is locked in a neck-and-neck re-election contest with tea party-endorsed Sharron Angle in Nevada, which has the highest foreclose rate in the country. Reid is decrying "reports of shoddy and defective affidavit preparation."

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Builder Turns 'Trash' Into Custom Homes

A Texas homebuilder is turning trash to treasure by converting landfill items into houses for single mothers, artists and low-income families. License plate roofs, picture frame ceilings and wine cork floors are just some of the features in these custom-built homes.


"I always suspected that one could build a house out of whatever went into a landfill," said builder Dan Pillips.

He has turned his hunch into a business. Phillips and his retired art teacher wife Marsha pour their creative energy into their construction company, Phoenix Commotion.

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Most Expensive ZIP codes In The US

Los Angeles has always been home to some of the world's most expensive real estate. But forget Beverly Hills, 90210: The new hot spot for multimillion-dollar mansions is Duarte, 91008.

Duarte, Calif., home to the 91008 ZIP code, is a small suburb northeast of downtown LA, near the Los Angeles national forest. The median cost of a house in this tony town is a whopping $4,276,462, making it the most expensive housing market in the country. It ranks No. 1 on Forbes' annual ranking of America's Most Expensive ZIP Codes.

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Despite Freezes, Foreclosures March On In Utah And Beyond

For most Americans at risk of losing their homes —especially those in Utah — the brutal business of foreclosure goes on.

Bank of America halted foreclosures across the country to address banks’ use of flawed foreclosure paperwork, but three other banks did so only in 23 states where judges have to review foreclosures— and Utah wasn’t one of them. And other banks holding millions of mortgages have not suspended any foreclosures.

As with all real estate matters, location is everything. So what does the industry’s moratorium mean for states such as Utah, Arizona, California and Nevada that typically have no judicial review of foreclosure cases (except when homeowners sue a bank)?

For now, “It’s probably going to have little — if any — effect in Utah,” said Rick Sharga, senior vice president of RealtyTrac cq , a company that tracks foreclosures nationally.

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Israel Unlikely Champ In Global Real Estate

Israel, despite perennial fears of war, has emerged as one of the hottest - and least likely - property markets in the world: Since real estate collapsed around the globe in 2008, at least one industry watchdog lists it as the fastest-rising property market on earth.
But with global economic meltdown - and the subprime mortgage fiasco that precipitated it - still fresh in people's minds, officials are stepping up efforts to rein in its overheated property sector. The fear is that a property bubble could shake confidence in an economy that withstood the worst of the world's financial crisis.

Bank Foreclosure Fiasco: What It Means To The Housing Market

In the last two weeks the housing market has been shaken by the fiasco that has managed to infect the entire nation. Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500) and Ally Financial have all imposed moratoriums on their foreclosures in at least 23 states, and BOA has issued an edict to stop the foreclosure processes in all 50 states. This has collected the attention of congressional leaders, and the President. Leaders have requested investigations, asked loan servicing companies to stop filings, and the President even vetoed a bill easing the process in courts, a bill of his conception.

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Pointless Bank Requests Slow The Short Sale Procedure

Today’s installment is going to bring out some complaining. Nevertheless, by the end of the episode, we will bring this chat full circle with some information on how to overcome the problems.

Recently, we have been getting an increased amount of requests from lender workers for documents that is totally needless to the transaction. For example, we have a short sale package at B of A, accepted several months ago. Yet, the buyer walked away, so we obtained a new buyer at the identical offer price. Because the folder has a new negotiator assigned to it, the package did not get approved.

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Foreclosure Delays May Cost U.S. Banks Up to $6 Billion, FBR's Miller Says

Faulty foreclosures may cost U.S. lenders $2 billion for every month that home seizures are delayed and the tab could reach $6 billion, according to Paul Miller, the bank analyst at FBR Capital Markets.

Investigations of how banks are seizing homes may prolong foreclosures by as much as three months, at a rough cost of $1,000 per month for each property in the pipeline, Miller, a former bank examiner, said in an interview today. The biggest firms likely need to add staff to comb through the files, costing them each $1 million a year, he said.

“The real true cost is not the expenses, it’s the drag in the foreclosure system,” Miller said.

Attorneys general, consumer groups and some lawmakers have pressed mortgage firms to follow Bank of America Corp., the biggest U.S. lender, which last week suspended all foreclosures to check whether faulty documents were used to confiscate homes. JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Ally Financial Inc.’s GMAC Mortgage unit froze seizures or evictions in 23 states.

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Beverly Hills Mansion Featured In 'The Godfather' On The Market For $95 Million

For $95 million, you can own the Beverly Hills mansion where scenes from The Godfather were filmed, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The property’s owner, attorney and investor Leonard M. Ross, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week, says The Journal.

The 50,000-plus-square-foot home, called Beverly Estate, was used for the famous horse head scene in the iconic film.

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GMAC Will Review Foreclosures in All 50 States

GMAC Mortgage will review its foreclosure procedures in all 50 states, broadening an initial review that began about two months ago. The move follows Bank of America's decision to do the same.

GMAC, which is a unit of Ally Bank, has hired a number of accounting and legal firms to go over its foreclosure procedures. The company earlier started reviewing foreclosure-related affidavits in 23 states, and in some cases halted the foreclosure process, though GMAC says it hasn't yet found evidence of "inappropriate" foreclosures.

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The Housing Market: Is It Time to Rent or to Buy?

The stalled economy, expiration of homebuyer tax credits, marked-down home prices, stubbornly high unemployment and concerns about a double-dip recession all leave prospective homebuyers wondering if now is the time. Is it time for renters to convert to buyers and for existing owners to grab that dream home on the cheap? Or will housing get even cheaper?

Home prices have plunged about 30% from their mid-2006 peak on average, with some areas, like Las Vegas, seeing prices plummet in excess of 60%. At the same time, foreclosures have continued to rise in 2010 from their 2009 historic highs and have pressured prices further.

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Homeowner Makes Sign In Foreclosure Fight

Juan Guzman has a large, lawn-wide sign in his front yard labeled 'JP Morgan Chase help.' It's his last hope to save his dream home.  The Acreage man built his house in 2007 but couldn't handle the mortgage payment of $3,600 a month.  He said he tried negotiating a lower loan from his bank but it wouldn't budge.  Last year Guzman became unemployed and now his house is in foreclosure.

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Homeowning Rarely Has Been More Affordable Than Now

Buying a home can be a life-changing decision and one many people take seriously, especially in this market.

Part of becoming a responsible homeowner is weighing every aspect of the decision before buying, including lifestyle preferences, job and financial situation and affordability.

Fortunately, for anyone who is considering buying a home, current housing affordability conditions can benefit today’s buyers for years to come.

 According to economists at the National Association of Realtors, NAR’s housing affordability index could reach an all-time high of near 200 in the second half of this year.

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The Great Mortgage Mystery

The big question from the mortgage meltdown isn't why so many distressed homeowners are defaulting on their loans.

It's why any of them are still making payments.

In the worst-hit areas millions have no equity left, and little hope of seeing any anytime soon. The market value of their homes is far below the size of the mortgage.

If they just stop paying, what is going to happen to them? In many cases they may get to live in the home rent-free for months, even years, until the bank gets around to seizing it.

If Frank Abagnale—the con man played by Leonardo DiCaprio in the film "Catch Me If You Can"—were operating today, he'd probably be living rent-free in a super-luxury high-rise in Miami.

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America's Most Expensive Homes

There's been a lot of denial among luxury homeowners. In 2006, it was thought that the luxury market wouldn't suffer the same fate as the broader market. A year later, high-end home buyers were thought to have endless, deep pockets, further insulating the top-tier from the cratering economy. As the nation's markets in 2008 went from bad to worse, some in the industry claimed that the dearth of trophy properties outstripped supply.

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Bob Eubanks Lists Westlake Village Home

Game-show host Bob Eubanks and his wife, Deborah James, have put their Westlake Village residence up for sale at $2,595,000.

On 3 1/2 acres at the end of a cul-de-sac, the Normandy-style home was built in 2006. The single-story house has custom built-in cabinetry, French doors, four bedrooms, an office and 4 1/2 bathrooms in nearly 5,000 square feet of living space. The kitchen has Viking appliances, granite counters and a marble backsplash.

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Heber B Creeper Leaves The Haunted Canyon To Visit

Whether your family enjoys spooky stories or a pleasant autumn excursion, Heber Valley Railroad has something for everyone this October.

Every year in October the Provo Canyon becomes haunted with ghosts and legends of its past. The safest way to experience the canyon is on the Heber Valley Railroad's Haunted Canyon ride departing every weekend at Vivian Park in Provo Canyon. This is a fun and exciting FAMILY Halloween activity because you are all together safely on aboard Utah's only historic railroad. The stories and legends are spooky and fun but not too scary for kids. You don't have to worry about losing anyone in a maze or haunted house.

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BofA Halts Foreclosures In 23 States

Bank of America has joined GMAC Mortgage and JP Morgan Chase in suspending foreclosure proceedings in 23 states where courts have jurisdiction over foreclosures, to check that it followed correct procedures in filing affidavits.

The latest development in the "robo-signing" controversy follows allegations that workers at GMAC Mortgage and JP Morgan Chase signed court affidavits that contained information they had not personally verified, opening the door to potential legal challenges.

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After Foreclosure: The Consequences of Bad Credit

After foreclosure, you can expect your credit score to drop – by as much as 180 points. Even if your home is lost through short sale or deed in lieu of foreclosure, the result is the same – bad credit. Considering that you need a credit score of at least 580 to get a loan, a reasonable interest rate on a credit card, or even many apartments, the effect of foreclosure on your credit, and your life, is significant.

1. HOUSING: First, realize that after foreclosure, your housing situation is going to change. This may be somewhat obvious as you are losing your home, but consider the effect of foreclosure a bit deeper. You will not be able to purchase a home for at least seven years unless there were verifiable extenuating circumstances. Likewise, you may experience problems finding a new place to live as many landlords will not rent to people with bad credit (in many cases, property management agencies have strict guidelines prohibiting it). As such, it is in your best interest to apply for housing before filing for foreclosure (or at least spend time figuring out where you will live).


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Hands Off My house: Dutch Outlaw Squatting

The scene has unfolded countless times in the Netherlands: Young people break into an unused building, move in a table, chair and bed, and then tell the police they are now the official residents _ with no permission from the owner and no plans to pay rent.


On Friday, the once-respected Dutch tradition of squatting becomes illegal. It is the latest pillar of the country's liberal institutions _ such as legal prostitution and cafes that openly sell marijuana _ to be abolished or curtailed as the Dutch become more conservative and rethink the boundaries of their famed tolerance.

In Amsterdam, the epicenter of the movement known in Dutch as "kraken," or "breaking," squatters plan a demonstration Friday against the new law that makes their way of life punishable by up to one year in prison.

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Ten Habits Of Highly Effective Real Estate Investors

Real estate has long been regarded as a sound investment. Wholesaling and property management of commercial and residential property are just a few of the ways investors can profit from real estate, but it takes a little savvy to become successful in this competitive arena.

While certain universities do offer coursework and programs that specifically benefit real estate investors, such as the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School's Master of Science in Real Estate, a degree is not necessarily a prerequisite to profitable real estate investing. Whether an investor has a degree or not, there are certain characteristics that top real estate investors commonly possess.

Successful real estate investors:

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RealtyTrac: Chase and GMAC Could Prolong Housing Recovery

Halting the foreclosure process on tens of thousands of homes nationwide will likely skew RealtyTrac’s closely watched foreclosure data in coming months and prolong the housing market’s recovery, says Rick Sharga, a RealtyTrac senior vice president.

Chase and GMAC Mortgage Co. both suspended foreclosure sales in some states to review paperwork and the document-signing process. 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,” Mr. Sharga warns.

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A New Way To Save Housing? Let The Rich Profit From Poor Homeowners

Could the government create a better housing rescue? Some people say it should try, and their favorite idea is “shared appreciation”—wherein rich investors profit from the travails of the poor.

The idea of the government helping transfer wealth from the poor to the rich may strike you as unseemly. But before you dismiss it, give it a listen. (And remember that by “the rich” we’re talking about anybody with money to invest. That could mean a member of the Forbes 400 but it could also be a pension fund for teachers or even a non-profit group set up by concerned neighbors.)

I’ve been interested in this idea of helping homeowners with equity infusions for a long while. Some bright people steeped in the economics of the housing market, including Michael Feder of housing-data analytics firm Radar Logic, have been lobbying officials at the U.S. Treasury to consider shared-appreciation programs. There’s been a fair amount of action in Congress on it, from both sides of the aisle. The big Frank-Dodd financial reform package passed this year contained language commanding the government to study shared-appreciation arrangements as a solution for the country’s housing ills. And on Wednesday Representative Gary Miller, a Republican from California, introduced H.R. 6256, “the Strengthening FHA Through Shared Equity Homeownership Act of 2010.”

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Chase Puts Hold On 56,000 Foreclosures

In what's been dubbed the "robo-signing" scandal, JP Morgan Chase and Co. has joined GMAC Mortgage in temporarily halting foreclosure proceedings in judicial foreclosure states, following allegations that workers the companies employed failed to follow the proper legal procedures in filing paperwork demonstrating that the lenders had the right to foreclose.

In the past, such allegations -- often brought by attorneys representing homeowners in disputed foreclosure proceedings -- have mostly delayed, not stopped foreclosure proceedings.

But the robo-signing allegations could affect other lenders who rely on a paperless loan registration system developed for the industry by Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc. (MERS), slowing foreclosure proceedings in courts nationwide.

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Luxury Hong Kong Home Sells For Record 36 Million US Dollars

Hong Kong - A Hong Kong home has sold for a record 280 million Hong Kong dollars (36 million US dollars) as property prices in the wealthy city boom and fears of a bubble proliferate, a news report said Tuesday.

The ocean-view, three-storey, 395-square-metre property on Repulse Bay Road last changed hands in 1998 for less than 5 million US dollars, the Hong Kong Standard reported.

The price of the home, called Sunbeam House 5 and sold by the son of a property developer, makes it Hong Kong's most expensive home in terms of price per square meter, the newspaper said.

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10 Things Your Real Estate Broker Won't Say

1. “Your open house is really just a networking party for me.”
Hire a real estate broker to sell your home, and one of the first things he’ll likely suggest is hosting an open house so that potential buyers can casually check out your property on a weekend afternoon. But while open houses are promoted as a great way of finding a buyer, a National Association of Realtors study found that their success rate is quite slim.

No matter. Holding an open house serves another important purpose—for the broker. “It gives him a database of clients,” says Sean McNeill, an independent real estate broker based in New York City who says that he doesn’t like open houses, preferring to match clients with appropriate buyers. “At open houses, you get all kinds of people walking in. Some are [trying] to see how much they should sell their own places for; others just want to get a look at what’s out there.” All are perfect pickings for a broker looking to increase his roster of buyers and sellers. “Think about it,” McNeill says. “The broker is devoting a couple hours of a weekend. He won’t do that unless it helps him in a big way.” But it doesn’t necessarily mean that a seller should forego an open house altogether—says McNeill, “It’s still a real good way to showcase your house.”


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Building The Next Subprime Crisis

President Obama and Democrats in Congress haven't moved to stop subprime lending -- they've just taken it over.
They've created a federal subprime-lending monopoly by seizing control of the financial apparatus -- Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration -- and lending 100 percent of the home price to borrowers who can't afford it.
Private lenders can't make these loans -- they need to get paid back.


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CEDIA 2010 Wrap Up: New Trends In Home Theater

Green home automation, 3D projectors and iPad remote apps all took center stage at this year’s annual CEDIA custom electronics trade show.

The annual CEDIA Expo in Atlanta might not perk up ears quite the same way CES ignites public interest in January, but for true techies, it’s still a sight to behold. From home automation systems that will prime your house for relaxation before you even arrive to stereos that rival the cost of a modest house, CEDIA presents a look into an amazing high-tech lifestyle few of us can afford, but also a peek ahead of the curve to technologies heading down the pipeline to the mass market. Here’s what made waves at CEDIA this year – and what could be coming down the pipe to a retailer near you sometime soon.

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Talk Is Cheap for Fannie and Freddie

When it comes to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the most likely course of action over the coming year might end up being inaction. Not that you would know, listening to the Obama administration or its Republican opponents. Both are preparing plans to overhaul the mortgage giants and housing finance.

The administration says it will have proposals ready by January. Its revamp may include some form of continued backstop for mortgage-finance. Republicans in their "Pledge to America" last week, meanwhile, called for an end of the "government takeover" of Fannie and Freddie and a "shrinking of their portfolios."

For all the talk, paralysis may be more likely, especially if elections change control in Congress. And secretly, this may be just what politicians from both parties prefer.

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Squatters Moving Into Upscale Neighborhoods

On the big screen, actor Randy Quaid may be best known for his mooching, move-in-and-never-leave character “Cousin Eddie” from National Lampoon's "Vacation” films. Last weekend, he allegedly followed his own Hollywood script.

Quaid and his wife, Evi, were arrested Saturday after they were found living in a guest house on a million-dollar, Montecito, Calif., property Quaid once owned. While Quaid claims his name remains on the deed, the actor and his wife were jailed until they were able to post $10,000 bail.

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Home Sales Up; Prices Down

Home sales along the Wasatch Front are up dramatically so far this year, but what happens now that a federal buying incentive of up to $8,000 is expiring?

Certainly, the federal tax credit — along with low mortgage rates — played a leading role in pushing up sales of single-family homes in the first quarter. Although prices continued to fall, sales in Salt Lake County rose by 15.3 percent and condo sales by nearly 27 percent, compared with the same period in 2009.

Exactly how many of the buyers of 1,716 homes and 350 condos that changed hands in the first three months will claim or have claimed the credit isn’t known, but it could have been as high as a third, said Bill Heiner, president of the Salt Lake Board of Realtors, which issued its home-sale report Tuesday.

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$305M 'Fire Sale' On Safra's Ex-Digs

Two British speculators made a killing on one of the world's most expensive homes, despite its dark past.

Reclusive developers Christian and Nick Candy sold an over-the-top, luxury apartment in Monaco for $305 million, in a deal that reportedly netted them a profit of about $291 million.

The buyer is believed to be a Middle Eastern sheik.


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Short Sales Not Having Intended Effect On Real Estate Market

Homeowners who are strapped with a mortgage loan that is higher than their home's value often turn to short sales to rid themselves of debt and avoid foreclosure. Although this is a popular option for both individuals and lenders to reduce their financial loss, homeowners are finding the process may pose additional obstacles.

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Will There Ever Be a ‘Tidal Wave’ of REO Listings?

Today’s Outlook column looks at how bank-owned foreclosures and other involuntary home sales will govern the pace of home price declines over the coming months.

Banks and other companies that sell REO, or real-estate owned, properties are typically faster to reduce prices than traditional sellers, so they tend to speed along any price correction. That’s why it’s a good idea to keep an eye on the share of distressed sales—including foreclosures and short sales, where banks approve a sale for less than the amount owed.

While that share is rising—Barclays estimates that it jumped to 30% of all sales in July, from 22% in June—there’s nothing to suggest, at this point, that a tidal wave of foreclosures will hit the market.

The reason: banks are taking greater steps to avoid foreclosures, including loan modifications and short sales, where a home sells for less than the amount owed.

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1st Quarter 2010 Wasatch Front Home Prices

Why You Should Blame Your Grandparents For The Mortgage Crisis

The current mortgage crisis in the US is more severe than any since the 1930s. So it makes good sense to examine the origins, impacts, and consequences of that last great mortgage crisis great mortgage crisis – indeed many commentators have made a direct comparison between the two (see for example Eichengreen and O'Rourke 2010). The case for examining the last great crisis is especially pronounced given that the US Secretary of the Treasury has just asked Americans to “consider the challenge of how to build a more stable housing finance system” (Geithner 2010).

Yet we should be humble in taking up this challenge. We are after all reforming a mortgage system that was built on a framework that Depression-era policymakers forged in response to their own crisis. One of those policymakers was Henry Hoagland, who described the situation he faced in 1935 as a member of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board thus:

[A] tremendous surge of residential building in the [last] decade…was matched by an ever-increasing supply of homes sold on easy terms. The easy terms plan has a catch…[o]nly a small decline in prices was necessary to wipe out this equity. Unfortunately, deflationary processes are never satisfied with small declines in values. In the field of real-estate finance… we have depended so much upon credit that our whole value structure can be thrown out of balance by relatively slight shocks. When such a delicate structure is once disorganized, it is a tremendous task to get it into a position where it can again function normally. (Hoagland 1935)

This column looks back over the terrain that Hoagland described by examining how the residential mortgage market worked before 1930 and how it was changed by crisis and policy in the 1930s. It turns out that this history lesson provides some fresh perspective on today’s mortgage crisis (see my accompanying paper, Snowden 2010, for more details).


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A Downside of Short Sales

STRUGGLING homeowners have found some refuge in short sales, in which lenders allow borrowers to escape foreclosure by selling a home for less than what is owed on the mortgage. Government programs offering incentives to both parties will push the number of short sales to 400,000 this year from 100,000 in 2008, according to CoreLogic, a financial consulting firm.

But the jump in short sales has also given rise to a new form of fraud — which, as a recent study by CoreLogic suggests, could undermine the burgeoning practice.

Fraudulent short sales take many forms, but Frank McKenna, the vice president for fraud strategy at CoreLogic and one of the report’s authors, says one arrangement is more common than others.

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Resale Fees That Only Developers Could Love

REBECCA AND TRENT DUPAIX of Eagle Mountain, Utah, spent a year searching for their dream home. The couple, who have five children, considered 15 to 20 houses before finding “the one.”

They were thrilled when they closed on a $227,000, rock-and-stucco home with five bedrooms and two and a half baths in March 2009.

But four months later, when a local television reporter was doing a story on housing taxes in their subdivision, the Dupaixs discovered that their sales contract included a “resale fee” that allows the developer to collect 1 percent of the sales price from the seller every time the property changes hands — for the next 99 years.

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Obama Awards Utah $5 Million To Stabilize Communities

Five million dollars in grants, intended to reverse the effects of foreclosures in local communities, will be headed to Utah, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced Thursday.

The funds will provide emergency assistance to help Utah communities acquire, redevelop or demolish foreclosed properties.

"These grants will support local efforts to reverse the effects these foreclosed properties have on their surrounding neighborhoods," said Secretary Shaun Donovan. "We want to make certain that we target these funds to those places with especially high foreclosure activity so we can help turn the tide in our battle against abandonment and blight."

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Utah Remains Among Highest In Surge Of Foreclosure Filings

The number of Utah households facing foreclosure jumped by 75 percent in the first quarter from a year ago, much higher than the 16 percent increase nationally, a new report shows.

Nearly 10,800 households in the state, or one in every 88 homes, received a foreclosure-related notice, said RealtyTrac, an Irvine, Calif.-based company that tracks filings. The firm said Utah has the fifth-highest rate of foreclosure filings of all states, behind only Nevada, Arizona, Florida and California. The Beehive State has been in the top tier for much of the past year.

Nationally, more than 900,000 households, or one in every 138 homes, received a foreclosure-related notice, which ranges from a homeowner being warned he or she is behind on their mortgage to a bank taking possession. Across the country, more homes were taken over by banks and scheduled for a foreclosure sale than in any quarter going back to at least January 2005, when RealtyTrac began reporting the data, the firm said. Experts say it’s a sign that banks are starting to wade through the backlog of troubled home loans at a faster pace, according to the report.

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10 Market Facts for Uncertain Times

Although the economy is soft and consumer confidence remains low, new data from the National Association of REALTORS® shows positive signs for the future. To help REALTORS® interpret current economic data and address clients’ concerns, here are 10 key facts to understand about today’s market.

1. The economy is growing, though slowly.
2. The private sector is finally creating some jobs.
3. Consumer confidence remains low, though clearly off bottom.
4. The 30-year mortgage rate is at generational lows.

Click to Read: 10 Market Facts for Uncertain Times...

Alabama Association of Realtors Receiving $15M For Lost Income

Three months of negotiations ended favorably Friday for the Alabama Association of Realtors, which received $15 million from the Gulf Coast Claims Facility for emergency payments to real-estate licenses of oil spill-related lost income.

“We want to thank Gov. (Bob) Riley for all of his hard work on behalf of all real estate licensees so they can file claims,” said Keith Kelley, president of the Montgomery-based association.

Kelley also thanked independent claims czar Kenneth Feinberg for “seeing the true hardships facing real estate licensees on the coast due to the oil spill.”

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Utah Panel Pushing For Energy-Efficient Homes

Utah’s Uniform Building Code Commission is poised to push the Legislature to mandate that new houses be more energy-efficient.

But a key group is already pushing back.

Homebuilders say the new standards would unnecessarily jack up the prices for new houses, while conservation advocates counter that they would save energy — and homeowners’ money.

The commission last month approved the new code on a 5-2 vote but will take a final vote after a public hearing Wednesday.

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Paramount Chief Sells in L.A. For $21.5 Million

Paramount Chairman and CEO Brad Grey has sold his Pacific Palisades home for $21.5 million, according to people familiar with the matter. The buyer was Jordan L. Kaplan, CEO of Douglas Emmett, a real-estate investment trust. The home initially listed about a year ago for $29.9 million, but most recently asked $24.5 million.

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An Ad Man's $35 Million Pitch

Jerry Della Femina has spent his life selling everything from Pan Am to Meow Mix. But the advertising executive hasn't yet succeeded with his latest pitch: his sprawling East Hampton estate, which officially hit the market for $40 million last spring.

Last month, Mr. Della Femina dropped the asking price to $35 million. He said he isn't all that surprised the house hasn't yet sold. Perched on a dune on a mansion-lined stretch between East Hampton's Main Beach and Georgica Beach, the 8,500-square-foot European villa-style house on 1.7 acres overlooks the ocean. Neighbors include Martha Stewart, who on a recent Friday was walking three dogs nearby alongside a row of neatly trimmed hedges.

Known for his ad copy, Mr. Della Femina said pitching high-end real estate is not what he does. "I don't even really talk to the real estate people, it's their job," he said.

"In this price range, you don't exactly have open houses," added his wife, Judy Licht.

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Paying Off the House in 15 Years

A growing number of homeowners are choosing to pay down their mortgages at a faster rate--even if it means a substantial jump in their monthly payments.

Between January and June, 26% of homeowners who refinanced chose a 15-year fixed-rate mortgage, according to data from CoreLogic, a provider of financial, property and consumer information. During all of 2009, 18.5% of borrowers who refinanced opted for a 15-year term.

What's prompting the shift to shorter loans? Historically low interest rates for fixed-rate mortgages.

Homeowners are doing the math and realizing that rates have fallen enough so the increase in payment between a new 15-year mortgage and their current loan is no longer unbearable for their budgets, says Bob Walters, chief economist at online lender Quicken Loans.

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Government to Deploy Broader Mortgage Aid

The Obama administration on Tuesday will launch its most ambitious effort at reducing mortgage balances for homeowners who owe more than their homes are worth.

Officials say between 500,000 and 1.5 million so-called underwater loans could be modified through the program, the first initiative to target homeowners who are current on their mortgage payments but are at risk of default because they have no equity in their homes. Some experts are warning, however, that the same knots that tied up prior initiatives could do so again.

Under the new "short refinance" program, banks and other creditors that write down mortgages to less than the value of the property can essentially hand off the reduced loan to the government. The process involves refinancing borrowers into loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration.

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David and Victoria Beckham Sell £18 Million Beckinham Palace

David and Victoria Beckham purchased a 7-bedroom mansion in Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire, dubbed the Beckinham Palace, in 1999 – but they’re now having it appraised in the hope of selling it.

The celebrity couple is looking at unloading the property in the hope of looking for a brand new home in what has been, until now, their home away from home, Los Angeles.

Admittedly, as per reports cited by the British publication the Daily Mail, the two are set on moving to the US for good, which is why they no longer deem it necessary to keep the fancy Palace.

To see this happen, they’ve already had a real estate agent have a look at the 24 acre property, sources say.

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Another Home Buyer Tax Credit?

Just when I thought the housing market was finally being left to correct on its own, I'm starting to hear talk regarding yet another home buyer tax credit. From HUD to the hedge funds, it sounds as if it is gaining steam yet again. This one could involve not just first time/move-up buyers, but a credit for buyers purchasing foreclosed properties or short sales (when the bank allows you to buy a home for less than the value of the outstanding mortgage).

HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, appearing on CNN's State of the Union this weekend, didn't rule out another tax credit. He did say it's "too early to say," but then added that "we're going to be focused like a laser on where the housing market is moving going forward, and we are going to go everywhere we can to make sure this market stabilizes and recovers."

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Surprise! Banks Help More Homeowners Than Obama

Remember how everyone complained that banks weren't doing enough to help troubled borrowers?

Well ...

Banks have realized that foreclosing on home after home after home may not be in anyone's best interest -- least of all their own. So they've ramped up the number of loan modifications they're handing out to their delinquent clients.

Banks are doing nearly twice as many modifications under their own foreclosure prevention initiatives than under the Obama administration's signature Home Affordable Modification Program, known as HAMP.

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Conflict of Interest? ABC 4 investigates judges' ties to Bank of America

"They're foreclosing illegally here in Utah.” Those were the words of St. George Attorney John Christian Barlow spoken in early June. Barlow at the time had appeared before a Federal Judge arguing that the banking giant, Bank of America, was foreclosing illegally in the State of Utah. The Southern Utah Attorney believed that because B.O.A. was not a registered business or corporation in the state, they lacked authority to do business here.

Barlow had succeeded in getting a 5th Circuit Court Judge to agree with him. As a result, the judge imposed an injunction on all Bank of America foreclosures. Weeks later, the case went before a Federal Judge where B.O.A. argued that they were regulated by federal, not state laws. Federal Judge Clark Waddoups heard the case, and threw out the injunction therefore Bank of America’s foreclosure company (ReConTrust) was allowed to foreclose once again.

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Obama Ready To Sink Millions More Into Housing To Stem Foreclosures

The Obama administration, seemingly at a loss for fresh solutions to jump-start the nation's moribund economy plans to sink millions more dollars into the housing market to help unemployed homeowners keep their homes by providing refinance assistance.

Appearing on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan indicated the additional mortgage aid is in response to atrocious July housing statistics. "The July numbers were worse than we expected, worse than the general market expected, and we are concerned," he said.

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UPDATE: Home Builders Rise As Investors Bet Worst May Be Over

Shares of home builders rose Tuesday, shaking off data showing existing-home sales fell to their lowest level in 15 years, as investors bet the worse-than-expected number may be a bottom.

The National Association Of Realtors reported earlier Tuesday that home resales dropped a record 27.2%--nearly twice as much as analysts had expected--to an annual rate of 3.83 million in July. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had expected existing-home sales to fall by 14.3% to an annual rate of 4.6 million.

The data spurred losses in the broader markets, giving investors another reason to worry about the health of the economy. Though home-builder shares immediately fell following the data, they quickly turned higher. Analysts said investors in the sector were likely expressing optimism the number will rebound in August.

Among the largest gainers, Meritage Homes Corp. (MTH) recently traded 2.8% higher to $16.83, while KB Home (KBH) rose 2.7% to $10.06. Lennar Corp. (LEN) was recently up 2.4% to $13.03, while Ryland Group Inc. (RYL) increased 2.6% to $16.17. The sector has seen widespread losses in the past year, with Meritage down 25% and KB Home off 43%.

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Still Rising: Spec Houses Worth $20 Million

Enzo Morabito, a luxury real estate broker in New York's Hamptons, saw a line of people at his open house on Aug. 29. The property was a new, $25.95 million spec home by Michael Davis Design & Construction at 232 Parsonage Lane in Sagaponack, N.Y.—the country's most expensive small town, according to Businessweek.com. By the end of the day, more than 75 people had passed through the mansion. "That is an extraordinary turnout," says Morabito, executive vice-president of Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate in Bridgehampton, N.Y. Equally surprising, given the tough environment for builders: This is Michael Davis' biggest and most expensive house ever.

Amid concerns about unemployment, an uneven housing rebound, and difficulty getting financing, some elite developers continue to build ultra-luxury homes on spec—for sale on the open market, not for an owner. Some cost even more than the residences they built during the housing boom. In high-end markets such as the Hamptons, Beverly Hills, Calif., Palm Beach, Fla., and Aspen, Colo., a number of new spec houses have entered the market this year in the $20 million range. A few are asking for far more.

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