Irvine Housing Blog

I’m still amazed that you find SO MANY of these particular examples:

Purchased 13 years ago (should be half paid-off by now), but instead over 10 years later they are trying to sell at TWICE their purchase price - yet IT’S A SHORT SALE… Over a decade later!

A half-million-dollar (overpriced) short-sale on a home purchased for $285k. But the bank should reduce her balance, right, to avoid foreclosure?

I didn’t see anything in this article blaming HOMEOWNERS like this one, and they should!

Yves Smith had a good entry in the room-for-debate section of the NYTimes.  She has a more complete version with the same main idea on her blog.  The gist is that terms like “greed, ineptitude or both” are simply not strong enough and not fully accurate. 

A small cartel subverted the market to create bad loans so they could bet against them. By any normal standard, this activity was both fraudulent and obscenely profitable.

You can say that a torturer was mean and nasty, but if he’s severed your legs and done even worse, calling him mean and nasty, while accurate, just doesn’t capture what happened.  The FCIC could have gone further, but that would have led to real changes, which it seems few want.

Because of when she bought it seems to me that had she just made regular payments (30 yr. fixed)and sold at the peak of the bubble she might have made quite a bit of money comparatively. Not knowing her interest rate and what this property went for at the peak who knows.
Of course when you factor in the free rent she’s had…maybe her method was better.

Greenspan didn’t see the problem because he didn’t want to.  He was wholly (or holy) devoted to the markets.  His faith was (was not is) unshakable.  His belief that markets are self-correcting and self-regulating were bedrock to his faith.  He was really more of a high-priest than anything else.

Maybe she took the money purchased elsewhere and rented this one out.
The list price is close to what is owed.
It appears to me that she’s looking to unwind this at a minimal loss.

IR

“What is shocking to me is that this report got so much right. Government reports are usually whitewashes of their own ineptitude”

And your basing this opinon on ‘what’?  You may have a low opinion of our goverment but congressional reports are generally good.  The report on the Space schuttle disaster was right on in identifying the O-ring failure and the 911 report was very good.

Cash-out refinances need to reset property value for tax purposes.  There is no good argument against this, and it will serve two good purposes: help balance CA’s budget, and discourage heloc abuse.

I happen to have some additional info on this property. First, it is scheduled to go to a foreclosure sale this week, according to my discussion with the realtor this past weekend during an open house. There is also an $11,000 2nd mortgage that the lender is refusing to release that the buyer would have to pay off in order to get it before the foreclosure sale. And last but not least, there is over $3,000 in termite damage to the house that the new buyer would have to pay to repair.

Touring through the house, the flooring appeared in decent shape, but there have been zero upgrades to anything else in the house. This may be inside the Woodbridge loop, but I’d still categorize it as a fixer-upper. Over the past couple years, it seemed like problem properties used to be confined to the less-desirable fringes of El Camino Real (e.g. along the RR tracks) and Orangetree, but now we’re seeing them migrate further and further into the mainstream of Irvine. I guess the flood of foreclosures and shadow inventory is just too much for the flippers to absorb. Hence the price declines.

Irvine is NOT immune!

-Darth

I’ve said this a million times, and I’ve never, EVER gotten a response… I’ll say it again.

Going back to 2001/2002- what would have happened if Greenspan/ Bernanke/ Anyone suggested tighter mortgage regulations?  required 20% down for a new mortgage?  require equity for refinancing?  Required notarized documentation for loan origination?  yeah, that’s right, all you people, yeah you, would have been yelling “COMMUNISTS!  FASCISTS!  LET THE FREE MARKET WORK!  THEY’RE TAKING OUR GUNS!”

So, in the end everyone deserves what happened.

“Greenspan and Bernanke were incompetent. “

I take except to that comment.  Both men are extreme bright, versed in acedemic and in practice experence.  IR and critics are forgetting who these two men work for. Hint: It’s not the US government.

As for market forces not at working, the market for these bankers include knowing that the corporation/shareholders would pay for their mistakes and if faced with BK’ed, then US taxpayers would be forced to bail them out.  They maximized their profit (personal) and left the taxpayers holding the bag.  That was the model and it did work.  You just feel bad about it because you’re left holding the bag.  Suck it up and hand over the money.  I’m sure Ron Paul is not the only one in Congress who’s figured it out.  The rest just want their share.

BHO and the Feds are doing a wonderful job in exporting inflation and unrest to foreign lands.  The unrest destabilized foreign currency and markets, thus causing flight to US currency and market for lower US interest rates and high stock prices.  Only thing, the special interest groups will demand sending humanitary aid and peace keeping troops, so the taxpayers will need to buy good to send over and pay for the goods and troops.  Hopefully the troops will be using US made ammo and not Eastern European ammo.

What’s so hard to understand?
Government Sachs tells the FED what to do.
Print money and buy equities.

Is it just me, or does Ben Bernanke look like Karl Marx?

It’s interesting that these reports now state that there is fault with the Central banks yet each one of them blames them for not REGULATING the underwriting and loans that were made. Government officials, in general, don’t see that policies that distort supply and demand are the root problem. As much as the agencies blame the Central Bank they still receive more power to guide the economy to “prosperity”...LOL