HousingPANIC - The Housing Bubble Blog with an Attitude Problem, 2005

December 09, 2007

19 comments:

Anonymous said...: made my morning; December 09, 2007 1:59 PM
Anonymous said...: America spent its phantom equity and has nothing left to drive consumer spending; December 09, 2007 2:38 PM
GT said...: so simply put, bravo cartoon man; December 09, 2007 2:46 PM
Anonymous said...: But! Has he been a good little boy?; December 09, 2007 2:48 PM
Anonymous said...: Hillary will be more then just the “President”.
She’ll be every woman’s hero.; December 09, 2007 3:16 PM
Paige Turner said...: RE: Santa brings North Pole FREEZE to real estate financing.

Fraud and Lawsuits and Bankruptcy -- Oh My!

This article in today's San Francisco Chronicle is the first newspaper piece that I have seen that sums up the entire mortgage meltdown mess. Here are excepts from a random sampling:

● "The sole goal of the freeze is to prevent owners of mortgage-backed securities, many of them foreigners, from suing U.S. banks and forcing them to buy back worthless mortgage securities at face value - right now almost 10 times their market worth."

● "The ticking time bomb in the U.S. banking system is not resetting subprime mortgage rates. The real problem is the contractual ability of investors in mortgage bonds to require banks to buy back the loans at face value if there was fraud in the origination process."

● "And, to be sure, fraud is everywhere. It's in the loan application documents, and it's in the appraisals. There are e-mails and memos floating around showing that many people in banks, investment banks and appraisal companies - all the way up to senior management - knew about it."

And just how bad can things get? Pretty damn bad:

● "The catastrophic consequences of bond investors forcing originators to buy back loans at face value are beyond the current media discussion. The loans at issue dwarf the capital available at the largest U.S. banks combined, and investor lawsuits would raise stunning liability sufficient to cause even the largest U.S. banks to fail, resulting in massive taxpayer-funded bailouts of Fannie and Freddie, and even FDIC."

V.L.; December 09, 2007 3:54 PM
Anonymous said...: that same jerk too all of his equity out to buy ipods, fancy cars, vacations and other comsumer junk that he did not need. f- him!; December 09, 2007 5:47 PM
Anonymous said...: Credit card debt has been increasing by leaps and bounds since the home equity faucet was turned off. I wonder when the banks will shut that spigot off with the rising defaults in CC and auto debt. I bet alot of illegal immigrant construction workers have taken their trucks back across the border. No payments and no collateral for the idiots who lent them money. If I was an illegal immigrant, I'd do the same thing. Let's see the bankers go down to Mexico to repo those trucks. LMAO; December 09, 2007 7:41 PM
whitetower said...: ... so I can get that Hummer.; December 09, 2007 11:41 PM
FlyingMonkeyWarrior said...: Enjoy 20 or so housing crash political cartoons from cagle.com.

http://cagle.com/news/HousingPrices
Crash/main.asp; December 10, 2007 12:50 AM
Anonymous said...: I work at walmart and trust me sales are in the tanks.You have a lot of darelicts walking around the store not buying anything. I guess they have nothing better to do.Rumor has it sears holding is really hurting.The only thing really selling is craftman tools.Craftsman has backed out of sponsoring nascar so things cant be that great.They will be next to monkey wards in the graveyard soon.; December 10, 2007 1:24 AM
Anonymous said...: It has always been my opinion that the fraud by Realtors ,lenders agents, and borrowers also ,was the key issue in this meltdown.

While everybody has been talking about how stupid the brainwashed sheep were to overpay for a piece of property ,I was in shock and disbelief at the appraisal practice and lending .To justify fraud ,just because the risk was being passed on to the secondary market ,is just unreal . Borrowers and commissioned sales people don't determine who qualifies for a loan or how high the appraisal is ,the lender does.

All loans have guidelines and rules whereby the borrowers have to conform to those guidelines/rules, or they don't get the loan .

The fact that all of a sudden so many borrowers suddenly conformed to those guidelines,and in spite of increased prices it should of taken more borrowers out of the running for property,in fact sales increased and the real estate industrial complex achieved a banner sales year in 2005.

Property appreciation to the tune of 40% in one year in entire States like Floria should of been a clue that a very strange happening was taking place .

Builders were building for investors/speculators and their special lenders would close their eyes to speculators and flipper liar loans ,where now they are ghost towns ,filled with foreclosures .

The real estate industry ran out of greater fools by late 2005 and the demand factor for getting in on the investment scheme changed on a dime .So cash back fraud became the fraud of choice, along with straw buyers and bogus incentives and you name it to make the sales ,including the standard loan application and appraisal fraud .

The lending fraud went into full gear the second the market prices reached a level that no longer was affordable(about 2002 ). See, usually prudent lending and appraisals keeps bubbles from getting to out of hand in real estate and borrowers not being able to qualify keeps prices from getting out of hand .

If the lenders excuse is that the borrowers committed fraud ,than the lenders and their agents breached their duty to prevent fraud .The real truth is that the lenders agents (who were on commission),didn't care about any duty and only saw dollar signs and in a lot of cases helped the borrower commit fraud on the loan application .The real estate agents brought borrowers to property they couldn't afford ,knowing that the fraudulent lender would push the appraisal and the loan through the system .

Had one set of clowns in the real estate transaction chain refused to go along with the "do anything to make money " business chant ,this horrible mess could of been prevented .Escrow and title people must of been sleeping on the job also and it must of been red flag all the time about strange checks being issued to third parties ,but what the hell they were making money to .

Wall Street ,who provided the endless easy money from the secondary market ,didn't feel compelled to question "how is it that in spite of prices going up in real estate ,borrowers can still qualify for these loans ?.AAA ratings because the loan package and appraisal were made to look like they conformed .

At one point the risk raters from Wall Street claimed they could not compute fraud as a factor in the risk rating models . Well let me tell you ,fraud is one of the greatest risks in lending and this is why there is suppose to be arms length underwriting and appraisals .
And we can't forget the article that Keith posted about the underwriters getting the "bat" (by the commissioned sales people )if they didn't approve the loans

.Appraisers starving or being cut off if they didn't conform to hit the mark appraisals isn't what I would call a arms length transactions .

This fraud in lending mess is really bad ,and it is the biggest reason for the bubble after 2002.; December 10, 2007 3:22 AM
Anonymous said...: Rumor has it sears holding is really hurting.

Seriously, does anyone shop at Sears? What do you buy? They have ugly clothes. You can get better prices on just about anything else. Maybe their tools section is good, but is that enough to keep them afloat?; December 10, 2007 4:55 AM
Anonymous said...: It looks like FB's are getting a lump of debt in their stocking this year. They've been very bad with all those liars loans and gluttonous spending.; December 10, 2007 4:57 AM
Anonymous said...: All RE appreciation from 2004 onwards was driven by fraudulent mortgages in the form of cashback deals and liars loans. Too bad everybody will be facing the pain for the REIC and Wall Street's greed and fraud.; December 10, 2007 5:01 AM
Princess Mononoke said...: Veronica Lodge said...
● "The catastrophic consequences of bond investors forcing originators to buy back loans at face value are beyond the current media discussion.
December 09, 2007 3:54 PM

Bye Bye Tangelo!!! I hope you enjoy the lump of coal dear Santa has left you under your Countryslim tree... Ho HO HO; December 10, 2007 6:15 AM
Anonymous said...: Seriously, does anyone shop at Sears? What do you buy? They have ugly clothes.

Don't forget that their auto shop is all about ripping the customer off. Every time I got an estimate from them it was wrong and 3 X more expensive. I will never take my car to Sears or buy anything there. Finally their lies are catching up.; December 10, 2007 9:23 AM
Anonymous said...: >> Craftsman has backed out of sponsoring nascar so things cant be that great.

That reminds me - sometimes I see various sporting events where the players/teams are sponsored by one of our armed forces, such as the Army or Navy. Why the hell is taxpayer money being used to fund these players/teams?; December 10, 2007 2:19 PM
AndrewHac said...: America is a fooked-up country.
Americano is a way too fooked-up people.

There is no hope at all whatsoever for this sewage nation !; December 11, 2007 2:43 AM

HousingPANIC - The Housing Bubble Blog with an Attitude Problem, 2005 - 2008

December 09, 2007

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