August 29, 2007

HousingPANIC Stupid Question of the Day

Is it just me, or does it seem everywhere you look, Housing PANIC is there?


NEW YORK (AP) -- Volatility returned to Wall Street Tuesday, sending stocks plunging as investors grew more uneasy about the economy and whether the Federal Reserve will take the steps needed to prevent credit market problems from spreading further. The Dow Jones industrials fell 280 points.

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

Time for an HP homework assignment.

If you can find someone still writing home loans, under what constrictions (LTV, etc.) and for what interest rates, points, down payment, etc.?

Anonymous said...

Yeah, everytime the market goes down you jump for joy. Everytime it goes up... dead silence. Just can't get away with trying to justify your point ehh?

Anonymous said...

Really quiet in the Media-red flags for sure.Bush ,and Cheney are up to something horrible again. They will bury this whole scam in a nasty episode of world conflict,and instigation.Get ready for some serious BullSh#t.

Anonymous said...

maybe the housing panic is all a conspiracy to make people forget about Iraq and get them fired up over Iran and use it as a release of frustration.

Anonymous said...

Afriend of mine who has little idea od what i do for a living stopped by my office to tell me something. He makes a living buying old cars and semi-restoring them and then selling them as projects. he went to see three cars today and all three households told him; ' I'll sell it for a lot less than in the paper, we're leaving just a soon as we can get everything sold. Three families, three foreclosures. He bought one of the cars, a tv, a computer, all kinds of good crap for peenies on the dollar. Restored 58 tbird[the ugly one] for $7000. he stopped by the office to ask me where everyone was moving and if he was missing out on anything.
When he reied the house i threatened to beat him to a pulp if he took a variable. My friend is safe and reaping reward he never expected.

Anonymous said...

Ever notice how to reporters the market is only volatile when it's going down?

Seneca said...

It's pretty cool actually after all this time to fire up the news sites and see at least 3 stories a day on every major news site about the emerging crisis in the financial sector. Admittedly, a lot of it is still full of central bank pap about 'containment' and 'this will pass (probably)' but it's a lot better than before.

I did laugh at a story I read this morning where some market commentator was saying they thought perhaps the Fed was being 'less than honest' in the past about the scale of what is happening. Well duh! It's certainly confirmation that the market is full of either liars or incredibly ignorant (yet highly paid 'experts').

David said...

I think the lines will start to blur as many concepts lead the economy into a recession.

The stated causes will be many, such as:

Credit Crunch
Mortgage Defaults
Illiquidity
Tapped out consumer
Dollar crisis
Unemployment
Hard Landing

But we will know that the last desparate act was for the general public to use a house as an ATM and buy comfort items.

And like comfort food that lands on ones hips and is carried around as an indication of hedonism, the debt that the consumer has saddled up with will be worked off after a long nasty recession.

That's what recessions do; work off the excesses.

M David
www.marketrhymes.blogspot.com

jim said...

And the nikkei appears to be shitting itself.

Anonymous said...

No, It's not just you, Keith. HP IS everywhere. So, however, (still) are denial & spin.

Anonymous said...

Asia droping like a rock, NIKKEI down >422.
This is gonna end badly, best stock up on beans and bullits folks!

Anonymous said...

Funny how DOPES hides when the market tanks. That's right, you hide little girl, and go ask mommy for allowance because the meltdown is just starting no matter how much you blow Kudlow.

Anonymous said...

While the financial world is melting and American soldiers are getting killed in a phony war created to make money to their cronies, this is what members of the GOP are doing with your tax money. You keep spinning that wheel harder, Republican sheeple, because they are not done with your wallet yet. You guys are geniuses! Get to know your "busy" leaders:


"Rep. Bob Allen cites fear of black men, weather in oral sex arrest

Representative Bob Allen, a Republican in the Florida House of Representatives, blamed the weather and his fear of black men for offering $20 to perform oral sex on a man in a public park. The man turned out to be an undercover police officer, who promptly arrested Allen.

Titusville Officer Danny Kavanaugh who was on plainclothes duty says he observed Allen entering the washroom twice. Kavanaugh said he was drying his hands in a stall when Allen peered over the stall door.

The officer's report said that after peering over the stall a second time, Allen pushed open the door and joined Kavanaugh inside. Allen muttered "'hi,'v" and then said, "'this is kind of a public place, isn't it,'" the report said.

Kavanaugh wrote that he asked Allen about going somewhere else and Allen suggested going "across the bridge, it's quieter over there."

"Well look, man, I'm trying to make some money; you think you can hook me up with 20 bucks?" Kavanaugh wrote in the report that he had asked Allen.

The Republican lawmaker, the report said, replied, "Sure, I can do that, but this place is too public."

According to Kavanaugh's statement, the officer said, "do you want just (oral sex)?" and Allen replied, "I was thinking you would want one."
It was at that point Allen was arrested.


When Allen was loaded into the patrol car, the statement said, he asked if "it would help" that he was a state legislator.
"No," the officer said.

Soon after taking office in 2001, Allen was one of 21 Florida legislators to sign Gov. Jeb Bush's friend-of-the-court brief supporting the state's ban on gays adopting children.

In March, he co-sponsored an unsuccessful bill that would have enhanced penalties for "offenses involving unnatural and lascivious acts" such as indecent exposure.

The Florida Times Union reports: "In his seven years in the Legislature Rep. Bob Allen of Merritt Island has built up a 92 percent approval rating with the Christian Coalition of Florida on issues like abortion, marriage and pornography."

Anonymous said...

Keith: I wonder what you are going to do with all the free time you will have once this all falls apart.

May I suggest you switch to the illegal immigration thing?

This Housing Bubble thing is practically over...and done with.

Anonymous said...

Why is it always called volatility on the way down? Isn't it volatile if there are big movements either way?

Anonymous said...

You're right-on Keith! It's everywhere and everything -

Just in the last few days, I've read or heard:

Housing Bust
Housing Bubble
Housing Crash
Housing Fall
Housing Panic
Housing Slump
Housing Slowdown
Housing Collapse
Housing Meltdown
Housing Decline

And to top it off, a majority of these reporterd the worse is yet to come, in one way or another.

** Yet, I dont see how things could get any worse? (although dumbya has lots of time left before he's tossed out of the white house for good.) We've been flim-flamed!

Anonymous said...

Panic for some, jail time for others! If this continues this could cause a lot of brokers to think about leaving the country.


Ex-American Home Mortgage manager going to prison

BY DANIEL WAGNER | daniel.wagner@newsday.com
5:56 PM EDT, August 28, 2007

A former American Home Mortgage branch manager in Alaska who had fled overseas to escape arrest was sentenced Monday to serve more than two years in prison.

The former manager, Kourosh Partow, was also ordered to pay a $50,000 fine and $190,000 in restitution for wire fraud after he falsified documentation to secure "stated income" mortgage loans from Melville-based American Home and Countrywide Financial.

But in a document submitted before the sentencing, his lawyer argued that the highly troubled companies -- American Home now in bankruptcy and Countrywide facing large financial pressures -- had competitive cultures that encouraged "a blind eye mentality."

Judge H. Russel Holland heard the case at U.S. District Court in Anchorage.

Partow was fired from Countrywide in June 2006 after FBI scrutiny of his loans provoked an internal audit. American Home immediately hired him to be a loan officer and branch manager of its Anchorage office, court records show.

After federal authorities executed a search warrant on his American Home office in Oct. 2006, Partow withdrew the equity from his house and sent it oversees, then fled to France and Iran.

But he returned to the United States and on April 20, he pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud, one at each bank, in exchange for other charges being dropped.

In the American Home case, Partow, 41, of Chugiak, helped a client refinance his home in 2006. Despite the client having provided accurate information about his income, Partow listed the income as $20,000 per month -- "an amount that significantly overstated \[the client's\] true income," according to Partow's plea agreement.

In the Countrywide case, he admitted to knowingly overstating an applicant's income to qualify the client for a loan in April 2004.

Stated income mortgages, a type Alt-A loan, allow loan officers to list borrowers' incomes on mortgage applications but do not require documentary verification of those figures.

By misstating applicants' financial statuses, Partow enabled them to qualify for loans they might not otherwise have gotten.

The indictment against Partow listed 14 loans or fraudulent applications and charged him with eight counts of wire fraud related to $2.2 million in American Home loans and a $156,000 loan from Countrywide.

In addition to overstating borrowers' incomes, it was alleged that Partow engaged in a scheme to generate paperwork showing falsely that borrowers had made 20-percent down payments on their properties by engaging in "an unwritten side agreement to have the seller repay the borrower the alleged down payment amount."

Such tactics often involve the complicity of an appraiser who overstates the value of the property, mortgage experts said.

A document written by Partow's lawyer said he was compensated "most importantly" by commissions based on branch profitability, and that he "had authority ... to accept loans otherwise not strictly complying with the loan criteria.

The document said he was one of "a fair number" of employees hired by American Home after Countrywide fired them in connection with the FBI probe.

"In order to stay competitive, and increase sales, the companies also encouraged what could be characterized as manipulation," it reads.

An attached Nov. 2006 email purportedly from American Home's senior vice president for product and sales support in the Western Region, reads, "At AHM we pride ourslves on having a loan for virtually any borrowers, regardless of whether or not they have the ability to verify their Income, Assets or Employment history."

Another purported company email, from Oct. 2006, instructs loan officers to "play around with the loan all they want ... as long as it has NOT been released to processing."

There were no court papers available indicating that American Home took any action against Partow. An American Home spokesman would not comment on the case.

A Countrywide spokesman offered a statement released before the sentencing, saying that Countrywide was a victim of Partow's operation and had cooperated with federal officials during the prosecution.

Anonymous said...

Everyday bad news comes out about something related to the housing market.
No matter how hard they try they can't get a up rally going in the stock market.
You would think that people would of noticed by now that the stock market isn't very stable . I predict another bad day for Wed at the stock Market .

Anonymous said...

First.....
...
Watched Larry "cocaine" Kudlow Tuesday,he was really grasping for straws, oddly he used terms how the others just want him and his ilk to EAT CAKE.
I sware ive read that a dozen times here the whole show with Shiller and Larry screaming was like some discussions here in the past.
Only this time it was unfolding infront of me on TV.
My eyes couldnt believe it, my little inner voice kept telling me to listen unbias but all I could do was smile with glee.

Anonymous said...

Keith your bearish calls on US Economy is going to end very sadly for you.

US still has plenty capacity to take on debt (debt to GDP is only 60% compared to 180% for Japan)

Copter King will soon be selling more Treasuries to Foreigners and you will see the effects. All you bears will be running for cover.

We the borrowers will be enjoying at the expense of Pension Funds.

Watch my words.

Anonymous said...

yeah, the MSM are finally picking up on the mess that is the housing market. time to move on, call the next bubble, predict our future, prepare for the future!
i second the idea of focusing more on the problem of illegal immigration that is turning this country into a third world hellhole. post pics of miami and LA. lets talk about CulturePANIC, once americans realize that english will soon be extinct and many immigrants have no plans of assimiliating into the american way of life.

Agent #777 said...

Anonymous said...

Watch my words.

August 29, 2007 12:59 PM



You are really going out on a limb there, posting as anon... ;)

Agent #777 said...

charged him with eight counts of wire fraud related to $2.2 million in ... loans

Eight and 2.2 Million are starting to look like a recurring theme in this racket, aren't they?

Anonymous said...

Keith,

BRIC-PANIC.COM is still the future.
Brazil, Russia, India, China the current bubbles.

Just watch in late 2008 when the ROW - rest of world "miracle" economies burst due to massive over investment and speculation.

That's when the real world wide financial markets go into full turmoil mode!!

p.s. I'll still go 50/50 on BRIC-PANIC.COM w/ you. But I can't wait! I will launch on my own this October.