Today, Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies released its 2010 report on the state of the American housing market. The verdict? Not good, if stable. The bottom line:
The nation has not faced housing problems of this magnitude since the Great Depression. Heavy job losses and lingering high unemployment
That is the worst-case scenario, according to Egan-Jones Ratings Co., quoted in a Bloomberg article making the rounds. The agency says that if home prices decline 20 percent from their current level — they are now off around 25 percent from their summer 2006 peak — losses will ultimately More…
In another sign that the foreclosure crisis might have peaked, foreclosure filings declined 3 percent in May, RealtyTrac reported this morning. Florida, Nevada, California and Arizona remain the hardest-hit states. From the report:
“The numbers in May continued and confirmed the trends we noticed in April: overall foreclosure activity
Two reports from the Mortgage Bankers Association today — one mixed, one troubling.
First, mortgage loan applications — measured by the MBA’s purchase index, which includes all mortgage applications for single-family homes — dropped 27 percent week-on-week, to 24 percent lower than a year ago. The news is not More…
Good news from RealtyTrac this morning, as it reports that foreclosure filings — default notices, auctions and reposessions — fell 9 percent from March to April, evidence that the foreclosure crisis might have peaked last month.
In the good column: The number of homes receiving default notices fell 12 More…
Shahien Nasiripour at the Huffington Post parses a J.P. Morgan filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission and notes that the bank, the second largest in the United States, is concerned about the rising tide of strategic defaulters — underwater homeowners who choose to walk away from their homes. More…
This morning, Fannie Mae — a government-sponsored enterprise that buys mortgages on the secondary market and that made $72 billion in losses last year — reported a first-quarter loss of $13.1 billion. The company, under a governmental conservatorship, said it would seek $8.4 billion from the Treasury.
The More…
On mortgage giant Freddie Mac’s blog, “Featured Perspectives,” executive Don Bisenius takes on strategic defaulters — underwater mortgage-holders (that is, homeowners who owe more on their mortgage than their home is worth, meaning that if they sell their house they will still owe the bank money) who chose to More…
I think it’s a bit above my pay grade to speculate on the broader sociological meaning of this. But for what it is worth, the arrested subject of this past weekend’s Times Square bomb plot is a homeowner in the midst of foreclosure.
Today, April 30, is the last day for the Obama administration’s tax-credit programs for homebuyers. Purchasers need to have signed a binding agreement by the end of the day and have closed on the home by June 30 in order to receive the credits — $8,000 if it is their More…
rss