Irvine Housing Blog

Somewhat OT, but an interesting tidbit in a story about the run on Countrywide Bank:

““It’s because of the fear of the bankruptcy,” Ashmore, president of Irvine’s Impac Mortgage Holdings, which escaped bankruptcy itself recently by shutting down virtually all its lending and laying off hundreds of employees told the paper. “It’s got my wife totally freaked out. I just don’t want to deal with it. I don’t care about losing 90 days’ interest, I don’t care if it’s FDIC-insured—I just want it out.”“
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Across_country_red_flags_could_signal_0817.html

Yeah, nice folks, those realtors. They were the last to see that there’s a huge problem on their market, but the first to rescue their money from the consequences of the crash…
——-

Our wedding song, love it.

Is there some way to tag/mark the ones that definitely need an update.  If so, I’d mark this one as a ‘first-mover’ REO worth the update.

We need a schadenfreude button to click on.

I’ve got to admit, I gasped when I saw that in the LA Times this morning.

Shame on everyone involved in this debacle :-(

Is there anyway to check what the actual auction price was?  My understand was the opening bank bid is the outstanding loan balance plus accrued interest, charges, fees from the foreclosure and past due payments.

Is that correct?

I wonder if there was an ulterior motive for the president of Impac to publicly announce he was withdrawing his cash from Countrywide Bank. 

Speaking of which, what public company is going to hire a panickey executive that withdraws FDIC insured cash because his wife freaks out on him?

Shouldn’t the acking price be based on what will attract offers from qualified buyers in today’s market?  The seller’s costs have no bearing whatsoever on what the asking price should be.  Unless this listing prices is attractive to potential (qualified) buyers (I have no idea), they are just wasting their time.

Credit crunch imperils lender
Worries grow about Countrywide’s ability to borrow—and even a possible bankruptcy.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/la-fi-country16aug16,1,4356409.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

Countrywide—which made 1 of every 6 home loans in the U.S. in the first half of this year
...
However, the turmoil could spook depositors at Countrywide Bank, an Alexandria, Va.-based savings and loan that has grown dramatically since Countrywide Financial bought it in 2000. Nearly 40% of the bank’s $57.7 billion in deposits were not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. as of March 31, according to the FDIC website.

“If something happens to the parent company, the bank should be able to stand alone,” said FDIC spokesman David Barr, who advised worried depositors to talk to the bank about structuring their accounts so they are completely insured. The FDIC insures individual accounts up to $100,000, but a married couple can insure up to $1 million in deposits at a single institution by setting up multiple accounts, Barr said.

Bernanke’s Rate Cut Restores Volcker Tradition

http://online.barrons.com/article/SB118736821516201080.html?mod=b_hpp_9_0002_b_online_exclusives_weekday_r1

Maybe blogger can give robot Sue her own separate page for posting links to news articles.

I appreciate her links.

I appreciate her links as well. I also appreciate that she posts under one name only.

yes…Herbie and S…one in the same ?

Thanks for the links Sue

I enjoy Sue’s links too.

Please keep it up Sue!

Thanks!  You’re welcome.

You’re right, I should put all the links and sort them somewhere.

I got myself a domain name, but it’ll take awhile to get everything all set up.  In the meantime, I’ll just keep putting the links here as always.

Good article.  Thank you very much!

I like your links too, Sue.

Yep, no fancy dancy talking about the great attributes of why anyone would want to purchase that house.  The taxes alone would be $7,637 a year or $636 a month.  After owning a few homes in my lifetime, I realize now that it’s just a box to eat, sleep, and poop in and costly to maintain. Someday when this fiasco is on its way to recovery, I plan to sell and live in a nice apartment.

Sue I enjoy your links and news!

I keep running into the “recession” and occasionally “depression words on various posts and blogs (ex. http://www.rgemonitor.com/blog/roubini/211152), so got curious to know more about more about monitary history and the Great Depression and esp. Bernake’s views of how/why it happened (as clues to what he believes and might try in the future), found these links:

Journalists view of it:
Bernanke Sees Lesson in the Depression: Caroline Baum (Update1)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=aoc.fZ2oSoyE&refer=home

In Bernake’s own words:
Remarks by Governor Ben S. Bernanke, March 2, 2004
Money, Gold, and the Great Depression
http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2004/200403022/default.htm

No Sue has always been Sue.

Nice yard with everyone staring at you from the neighbors windows.  Might as well be a condo.

Few more jobs lost in Irvine…
http://tinyurl.com/2wkopf

Bear Stearns Cuts Mortgage Jobs as Share Advance Signals Rescue:
Encore Credit, a Bear Stearns subsidiary in Irvine, California, will eliminate 100 positions, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said yesterday. Bear Stearns Residential Mortgage Corp., based in Scottsdale, Arizona, is reducing its workforce by 140, according to the person, who declined to be named because the number of jobs isn’t being made public.

no, I meant the two that have mentioned her posts in a not so nice way, were Herbie and “S”.

no, I meant the two that have mentioned her posts in a not so nice way, were Herbie and “S”...they sound like they are the same person posting under 2 different monikers.

Today’s editorial: No government cure for housing pain
An overheated market is self-correcting; no bailouts or further regulations are needed.

http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/home-loans-buyers-1810407-subprime-mortgage

Mortgage companies are hanging tough, according to recent reports, and not lowering the sale prices on the rising number of foreclosures. These companies fear that sudden price drops will decrease overall home values and will lead to more upside-down buyers and even more foreclosures. But analysts predict that by fall mortgage companies will need to drop prices to unload their inventory. According to DataQuick, July marked the 22{+n}{+d} consecutive month that Orange County buyers bought fewer homes than in the same month a year earlier. Home purchases were 43.5 percent below the 20-year average, according to the Register. As CNN reported, “Builders’ confidence in the new-home market fell to a 16-year low, according to a trade group survey conducted this month, which reports buyers’ problems finding financing spreading beyond the subprime sector.”

Fannie Mae Predicts Price Decline Will Accelerate in ‘08
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/16/AR2007081602393.html

As of June, Fannie Mae owned or guaranteed more than 38 percent of the non-jumbo mortgages outstanding in the United States, up from about 25 percent at the end of 2006, the company said.
...
The company could withstand “the direst of scenarios”—two years of 10 percent declines in home prices coupled with two years of 2 percent increases in interest rates—with “very little loss in cash flow,” Dallavecchia told analysts.
...
The company said its reserves for losses from mortgage delinquencies and related problems as of Dec. 31 totaled $859 million, or three hundredths of a percent of its book of businesses. On a percentage basis, that was unchanged since 2003.

“The company said its reserves for losses from mortgage delinquencies and related problems as of Dec. 31 totaled $859 million, or three hundredths of a percent of its book of businesses”.

Now that’s a sobering statistic…..I feel better already.

Countrywide Bank works to reassure clients

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-countrywide18aug18,1,5507529.story?coll=la-headlines-business

This guy was quoted in Barron’s yesterday, with no mention of the pressure from his wife.

Flight to safety hits Treasury bill yields
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/699699f4-4f21-11dc-b485-0000779fd2ac.html

Separately, people close to the situation said Deutsche Bank had taken advantage of new terms offered by the Fed on Friday by borrowing at the “discount window”. Tony Crescenzi, strategist at Miller Tabak said: ”Either the Fed must again cut the discount rate and make it equal to the 5.25 per cent Fed Funds rate, or it must cut the Fed Funds rate, if liquidity is to increase enough to begin absorbing debt securities currently being shunned by large amounts of investors.”