Interest Rates Continue Lower

let's take a look

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Plunging Rates for Refinancing Aid the Thrifty

For those sober souls who were thrifty long before it became fashionable, the last few years have been intensely aggravating

They did nothing to cause therecession, but they absorbed the pain. Their stock portfolios languished. The values of their homes skidded. Their savings still do not earn enough interest each month to buy a pack of gum.

Now, at last, the frugal are celebrating. With a leg up on their less creditworthy neighbors, they are qualifying for refinanced home mortgages at interest rates that in any other recent era would have been considered stealing. And unlike in late 2008, when rates started their plunge to historic lows, many lenders say they are rushing to accommodate the influx in applications.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/23/business/23refinance.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=general

Credit lines continue to decline

Consumer credit falls $3.34 billion in August

(Reuters) - Total consumer credit outstanding declined for the seventh straight month in August as credit card debt continued to fall.

The Federal Reserve said on Thursday total outstanding credit, which covers everything from car loans to credit cards, fell by $3.34 billion after dropping $4.09 billion in July.

Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast consumer credit contracting $3 billion in August.

So-called revolving, or credit-card credit, fell $4.99 billion in August after a $4.98 billion fall the prior month. That marked the 24th consecutive month credit-card debt decreased.

Non-revolving credit, which includes closed-end loans for big-ticket items like cars, boats, college education and vacations, increased $1.65 billion after increasing $888.59 million in July. It was the fourth straight month of gains

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6964N420101007

Wall Street Loots Main Street

Let's take a look: more at the link

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Attorneys general in about 40 states may announce a joint investigation into foreclosures at the largest banks and mortgage firms, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.

State attorneys general led by Iowa’s Tom Miller are in talks that may lead to the announcement of a coordinated probe as soon as Oct. 12, said the person, who declined to be identified because a final agreement hasn’t been reached. The number of states may change because several are still deciding whether to join the investigation, the person said. New Mexico Attorney General Gary King said today in a statement that his state will join a multi-state effort.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-08/attorneys-general-in-40-states-said-to-join-on-foreclosures.html

If you feel you have been taken advantage of by Wall Street. Call an affordable professional at Consumer Credit Capital. They won’t take a dime unless they can prove their ability to help you raise your credit score.

Improving Your Credit report will improve your credit rating, including your FICO score, with the major credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian, and Trans Union. Repairing bad credit, including late payments, chargeoffs, collection accounts will improve your credit score.

Bank Fraud at the Heart of the Foreclosure Crises

let's take a look:

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In foreclosure controversy, problems run deeper than flawed paperwork

By Brady Dennis and Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Staff Writers

SNIP

For struggling homeowners trying to avoid foreclosure, it could mean an opportunity to challenge the banks they argue have been unhelpful at best and deceptive at worst. But it also threatens to leave them in prolonged limbo, stuck in homes they still can't afford and waiting for the foreclosure process to begin anew.

For big banks, "there's a possible nightmare scenario here that no foreclosure is valid," said Nancy Bush, a banking analyst from NAB Research. If millions of foreclosures past and present were invalidated because of the way the hurried securitization process muddied the chain of ownership, banks could face lawsuits from homeowners and from investors who bought stakes in the mortgage securities - an expensive and potentially crippling proposition.

SNIP

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/06/AR2010100607227_pf.html

Foreclosure Crises Steepens With Resets 2011

more at the link

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The Second Wave of Mortgage Defaults

By Jim Nelson

12/21/09 Baltimore, Maryland – Our economy is about to relapse into the disease that sent us into the Great Depression: Part Deux. Subprime loans caused the initial illness. Option-ARMs will cause the relapse.

In the first half of the past decade, subprime loans were king. They were cheap and easy to get approved. Along with the subprime boom came subprime adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs), which were equally easy to afford…for a while.

http://dailyreckoning.com/the-second-wave-of-mortgage-defaults/

Credit score is key to refinancing your home. Repairing your credit is more than credit dipute and dispute letters; rather improving your bad credit score requires rebuilding your credit report with good credit accounts, payment history, mix of credit and utilization.

Call an affordable professional at Consumer Credit Capital. They won’t take a dime unless they can prove their ability to help you raise your credit score.

Banks Commit Mortgage Fraud

let's take a look. / more a the link

snip

In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke and U.S. Comptroller John Dugan, the lawmakers said recent reports that Bank of America,J.P. Morgan Chase and Ally Financial may have improperly approved thousands of foreclosures "amplify our concerns that systemic problems exist."

Banks "have repeatedly misled and obstructed homeowners from receiving the help Congress and the Administration have sought to provide," they wrote. "The excuses we have heard from financial institutions are simply not credible three years into the crisis."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/05/AR2010100503969.html?hpid=topnews

FED's Sue Credit Card Companies over $35 billion in fees

let's take a look: more at the link

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(AP) The Justice Department on Monday sued the three largest U.S. credit card companies for anticompetitive practices and reached a proposed settlement with two of them, MasterCard and Visa.

“We want to put more money in consumers' pockets, and by eliminating credit card companies' anticompetitive rule, we will accomplish exactly that,” Attorney General Eric Holder told an afternoon news conference. “The companies put merchants and their customers in a no-win situation” and “consumers are being held hostage.”

In papers filed in federal court in Brooklyn, the department and various state attorneys general sued all three companies, saying they were attempting to insulate themselves from competition.

At the same time, the Justice Department filed a proposed settlement with Visa and MasterCard.

Under the proposed settlement, Visa and MasterCard agree not to prohibit merchants from offering customers discounts or rebates for using a particular kind of card.

The lawsuit says the card companies are impeding merchants from promoting the use of competing credit or charge cards with lower acceptance fees.

Each time consumers use a credit card to make a purchase, the merchant must pay a fee. Such fees brought in $35 billion last year to the three credit card companies and their affiliated banks.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/10/04/business/main6926403.shtml

foreclosures just keep coming

let's take a look

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APNewsBreak: BofA delays foreclosures in 23 states

By ALAN ZIBEL (AP) – 31 minutes ago

WASHINGTON — Bank of America says it is delaying foreclosures in 23 states as it examines whether it rushed the foreclosure process for thousands of homeowners without reading the documents.

Bank of America is not yet able to estimate how many homeowners cases will be affected, a spokesman for the nation's largest bank says.

A bank official acknowledged in a legal proceeding in February that she signed up to 8,000 foreclosure documents a month and typically didn't read them. The Associated Press obtained the document Friday.

The executive's admission adds the nation's largest bank to a growing list of mortgage companies whose employees signed documents in foreclosure cases without verifying the information in them.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jKkgz2hAAZZAeRlJNBmM31MPUnhgD9IJ4SP00?docId=D9IJ4SP00

2011 The year of the Re-finance

let's take a look

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snip

After helping corporations issue over $1 trillion of debt a record-low yields, the Fed is now turning its attention to consumers' balance sheets, says John Lekas, senior portfolio manager at Leader Capital where he runs theLeader Short-Term Bond Fund.

"They're going to continue to buy" Treasuries until the yield on the 30-year bond hits 2.75%, Lekas predicts. That, in turn, will drive 30-year fixed rate mortgages to around 3.75%, which "reloads the consumer with a 30-year stream of income," he says, estimating savings of about $400 per month for the average U.S. household.

snip

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/2011-outlook-deflation-and-dow-4200-followed-by-%22wave-of-refinancings%22-535470.html;_ylt=Alsw3.Ta2MT8fZ3L2VFX6JVk7ot4;_ylu=X3oDMTB2ZDUzYTg0BHBvcwMxNQRzZWMDYXJ0aWNsZUxpc3QEc2xrA2hlcmU-?tickers=^DJI,TLT,XHB,UUP,UDN,^VIX,DBC

Housing Crises through 2012

JPMorgan Suspends Certain Foreclosures As Doubts Grow Over Legality

Even as August saw more Americans lose their homes to foreclosure than in any other month on record, there are growing concerns over the legality of many of those proceedings.

JPMorgan Chase has suspended legal proceedings on 50,000 foreclosures, due to concerns about the validity of the foreclosure documents, a spokesman for the bank toldCNBC Wednesday (hat tip to Zero Hedge).

JPMorgan spokesman Tom Kelly confirmed to the AP Wednesday that "employees signed some affidavits about loan documents without personally verifying the files."

The decision is the latest signal of a potentially massive stall in the nation's foreclosure process. Last week, after GMAC Mortgage halted its foreclosures in 23 states, the Washington Postreported that one of GMAC's employees hadn't read the roughly 10,000 foreclosure documents he approved each month (and now Coloradowants to be added to that list of states). It then turned out that the "robo signer" might not have been alone.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/29/jpmorgan-suspends-foreclosures_n_744289.html

foreclosures will continue unabated

let's take a look

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Obama Homeowner Program Hits 10-Month Low As Prices Drop And Foreclosures Surge

The number of homeowners receiving permanent relief under the Obama administration's primary foreclosure-prevention initiative hit a 10-month low as home prices dropped and repossessions jumped, threatening more homeowners just as the administration's aid program winds down.

Just over 33,000 homeowners had their monthly mortgage payments reduced in August for the next five years as part of the administration's Home Affordable Modification Program, Treasury Department data released Wednesday show. Obama promised in 2009 that some 3 to 4 million homeowners would be helped. About 449,000 borrowers have thus far received mortgage modifications.

The program, sold as a $50-billion effort, is unlikely to spend that much helping delinquent homeowners keep their homes. Nearly one and a half years into the program, only 1 percent of that money has been spent.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/22/hamp-obama-homeowner-program-hits-low_n_735720.html

Bank gets caught lying in court filing.

let's take a look

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Saving Americans Requires Sticking It to Them: Jonathan Weil

The banks were saved by the American people. Now who will save the people from the banks?

Last week, in a rare and possibly fleeting victory for the little guy, Ally Financial Inc.’s mortgage-servicing unit temporarily halted evictions tied to foreclosures in 23 states. This came after some attorneys for homeowners caught the company saying things that weren’t true in its court filings.

There’s no sense complaining to the federal government about Ally’s conduct, though. That’s because the Treasury Department is the company’s majority shareholder, after spending $17.2 billion of bailout money on Ally under the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-23/saving-americans-requires-sticking-it-to-them-jonathan-weil.html

Fort Worth Pension "trending toward Insolvency"

We are all California. let's take a look

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Fort Worth pension bubble will blow up in our faces

By MITCHELL SCHNURMAN

You don't have to be an actuary to know that this pension plan will end badly. The technical phrase is "trending toward insolvency."

Except that the city is on the hook for all the promised benefits. Taxpayers will have to pony up hefty contributions for years, even generations, and the city may have to cut services to afford it. The pension for city employees is currently projected to pay out $432 million more than it brings in over the next 30 years.

And that's the optimistic scenario. If investment returns average 7 percent, rather than the dreamy 8.5 percent in the assumptions, the unfunded liability could approach $1 billion.

The pension will require $60 million in city funds next year, and it's already a drag on a strapped city budget that has to close swimming pools and libraries and impose furloughs. Every year, the pension hole grows, because the benefits keep piling up.

"This is the elephant in the room," Mayor Mike Moncrief told the council in late July. "Not only for this budget, but for all the budgets to come."

http://www.star-telegram.com/2010/09/04/v-print/2445012/fort-worth-pension-bubble-will.html

Shadow Housing Inventory Weighs on Market

let's take a look

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U.S. Home Prices Face 3-Year Drop as Inventory Surge Looms

The slide in U.S. home prices may have another three years to go as sellers add as many as 12 million more properties to the market.

Shadow inventory -- the supply of homes in default or foreclosure that may be offered for sale -- is preventing prices from bottoming after a 28 percent plunge from 2006, according to analysts from Moody’s Analytics Inc., Fannie Mae, Morgan Stanley and Barclays Plc. Those properties are in addition to houses that are vacant or that may soon be put on the market by owners.

“Whether it’s the sidelined, shadow or current inventory, the issue is there’s more supply than demand,” said Oliver Chang, a U.S. housing strategist with Morgan Stanley in San Francisco. “Once you reach a bottom, it will take three or four years for prices to begin to rise 1 or 2 percent a year.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-15/u-s-home-prices-face-three-year-drop-as-inventory-surge-looms.html

States cutting Pension benifits

let's take a look

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States cutting benefits for public-sector retirees

snip

Since 2008, New Jersey and at least 19 other states from Wyoming to Rhode Island have rolled back pension benefits or seriously considered doing do — and not just for new hires, but for current employees and people already retired.

It's not just a U.S. phenomenon. In France on Wednesday, lawmakers voted to raise the retirement age from 62 to 65. If the measure wins final approval, France will become the latest European Union country to require workers to stay on the job longer because of a deficit-plagued pension system.

New Jersey's governor spelled out the details of his proposal Tuesday after telegraphing his intentions for months. They include: repealing an increase in benefits approved years ago; eliminating automatic cost-of-living adjustments; raising the retirement age to 65 from 60 in many cases; reducing pension payouts for many future retirees; and requiring some employees to contribute more to their pensions.

"We must reverse the damage caused by fairy-tale promises that have fattened benefits and pensions to unsustainable levels," Christie said.

snip

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100915/ap_on_bi_ge/us_pension_headaches

Home Buyer tax credit really a loan

lets take a look:

By Martin Vaughan

Snip......

More than 2.6 million have claimed the first-time home-buyer tax credit since it was enacted in July 2008, for a total of $19 billion in tax breaks.

At first, the credit was structured like a no-interest loan of up to $7,500, and required taxpayers to pay it back over a 15-year period.

Congress later eliminated the repayment requirement for homes purchased after 2008. But taxpayers who claimed the credit for homes purchased in 2008 will still be required to repay it in 15 equal installments, beginning when they file their 2010 income tax return. That will apply to about 950,000 taxpayers, TIGTA said.

snip

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2010/09/09/irs-needs-strategy-to-recoup-home-buyer-tax-credit/

Bank Closures Continue to pile up

Problem bank list climbs to 829

http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/31/news/companies/fdic_problem_bank_list/index.htm?source=cnn_bin&hpt=Sbin

1 in 10 face foreclosure

le't take a look
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WASHINGTON — One in 10 American households with a mortgage was at risk of foreclosure this summer as the government's efforts to help have had little impact stemming the housing crisis.

About 9.9% of homeowners had missed at least one mortgage payment as of June 30, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Thursday.

That number, which is adjusted for seasonal factors, is down slightly from a record-high of more than 10% as of April 30.

In a worrisome sign, the number of homeowners starting to have problems with their mortgages rose after trending downward last year. The number of homes in the foreclosure process fell slightly, the first drop in four years.

The news comes despite record low mortgage rates. Rates fell to the lowest level in decades for the ninth time in 10 weeks as concerns grow that the economy is weakening.

Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday that the average rate for a 30-year fixed loan was 4.36% this week, down from 4.42% last week. That's the lowest since Freddie Mac began tracking rates in 1971.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2010-08-26-mortgages-foreclosure_N.htm

What's the difference between CA and the titanic?

Let's take a look:

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LA unveils $578M school, costliest in the nation

LOS ANGELES – Next month's opening of the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools will be auspicious for a reason other than its both storied and infamous history as the former Ambassador Hotel, where the Democratic presidential contender was assassinated in 1968.

With an eye-popping price tag of $578 million, it will mark the inauguration of the nation's most expensive public school ever.

The K-12 complex to house 4,200 students has raised eyebrows across the country as the creme de la creme of "Taj Mahal" schools, $100 million-plus campuses boasting both architectural panache and deluxe amenities.

"There's no more of the old, windowless cinderblock schools of the '70s where kids felt, 'Oh, back to jail,'" said Joe Agron, editor-in-chief of American School & University, a school construction journal. "Districts want a showpiece for the community, a really impressive environment for learning."

Not everyone is similarly enthusiastic.

"New buildings are nice, but when they're run by the same people who've given us a 50 percent dropout rate, they're a big waste of taxpayer money," said Ben Austin, executive director of Parent Revolution who sits on the California Board of Education. "Parents aren't fooled."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100822/ap_on_re_us/us_taj_mahal_schools

Commercial Office space Over supply

Shadow space haunts office market

Office vacancies, already high, are actually much worse because of untold "shadow" space -- space that's leased but empty.

By JENNIFER BJORHUS, Star Tribune

That section of empty cubicles, the conference rooms collecting cast-off office furniture ... for employees, they're dreary reminders of layoffs, consolidations and shelved expansion plans.

To real estate professionals, it's "shadow" office space -- space that's leased or owned but largely empty and not officially listed anywhere as vacant. And brokers are fretting about the buildup of unprecedented amounts of it around the Twin Cities. All that idle square footage will likely prolong the recovery of the area's hard-hit office sector, already struggling with high vacancy rates. Slow demand for new space will likely mean a dearth of new construction, and all the jobs and building material sales that go with it

http://www.startribune.com/business/98980004.html