From Sean at www.foreclosureradar.com:
Five major lenders made announcements last week that they would be suspending certain foreclosure activities in various states. These lenders included Ally (GMAC), JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Litton and PNC.
While this report is primarily focused on September foreclosure activity, it is important to note that we have yet to see any impact to foreclosure sales within our coverage area through Friday, October 8, 2010 by these lenders.
“We regularly see lenders make minor mistakes in foreclosure filings” says Sean O’Toole, CEO and Founder of ForeclosureRadar.com. “But the reality is that far more homeowners are behind on their mortgage payments than are even in foreclosure. The clear problem in the housing market today is not foreclosures, but negative equity; and as long as the focus remains on the symptom rather than the disease we will see little progress towards real solutions and this crisis will drag on for years to come.”
View all California stats by county, city or ZIP:
http://www.foreclosureradar.com/california-foreclosures
View the San Diego County stats by city or zip code:
http://www.foreclosureradar.com/california/san-diego-county-foreclosures
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The properties getting foreclosed in SD County – mostly the older, cheaper homes:
Equator.com is the website that BofA uses to process transactions:
“On average there have been 55,000 Short Sales initiated through Equator per month compared to an average of 28,000 REOs.”
Recon has postponed all trustee sales in San Diego county until 10/18, and the majority of them until 10/22. We will see what happens then.
Thanks IRE!
Screw the banks. As a buyer I’m just digging in further.
Me too, shadash. This has become a circus.
The thing that worries me the most right now is clear title and title insurance. Obviously someone not paying their mortgage deserves to be foreclosed on, but if I’m going to buy I don’t want to be stuck in litigation over the title. If the banks securitized the loan using MERS which not not really have a legal claim to the title, then all sorts of bad things can happen until the title chain is cleared.
If you’re going to buy now make sure you can get title insurance from a strong title insurance company that has the ability to pay if things get a little crazy with all this litigation. You never know what kind of prescient the courts might come up with.
The real comedy starts when somebody who lied on the mortgage application as to their income goes to court to claim they should get the house for free because some processor lied.
“The clear problem in the housing market today is not foreclosures, but negative equity;”
Economy is stuck because people are stuck in their homes, people cannot downsize, upsize, relocate or refinance.
And The economy will remain stuck until the negative equity issue is resolve either by back to peak pricing or something else
No policy , no election no big Job’s project will change that.
And that’s the real inconvenient truth..
I’ve been sitting on a pile of cash waiting for some sense of normalcy to begin in the RE markets, but as far as I can see the bankers & politicos will be working overtime to pump the bubble back, without bothering to create an environment where jobs, investment and/or business opportunities come back from multi-generational NEGATIVE numbers…
I betcha I can stay liquid a LOT longer than home owners can hang onto their “dream” McMansions 😉
California State Assemblyman Ted Lieu, a Democrat from Torrance, has asked two state regulatory agencies to temporarily halt foreclosures for 60 days and launch an investigation into the practices of mortgage servicers even though California is a non-judicial foreclosure state.
California will join a multistate investigation of whether banks violated laws by cutting corners while foreclosing on homes, a spokesman for Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown says.
The task force is headed by Iowa Atty. Gen. Tom Miller, who, as reported in this L.A. Times story on the investigation:
http://www.latimes.com/business/realestate/la-fi-foreclosure-probe-20101012,0,988931.story
has taken the lead in previous mortgage-related probes conducted by coalitions of state officials.
Thirty-eight states took part in a recent conference call on the probe, although it’s not clear how many will sign on.
But the Golden State is in: “California has decided to join the other attorneys general in the multi-state group,” a spokesman for Brown said Tuesday in an e-mail to The Times.
An official announcement on the investigation and participating states was likely to be made Wednesday morning, officials said.
#8 makes a very strong point.
Looking at the Case-Shiller historical chart, I’d be tempted to predict that prices won’t stabilize nationally for a couple more years, and when they do it will be at near 1997 levels, adjusted for inflation. Of course, the national trend doesn’t really mean much to a specific local market, but it argues that the market will be affected for a long time by people who are stuck in their houses, financially unable to move.
maybe it’s just a matter of signage:
http://www.wptv.com/dpp/news/region_c_palm_beach_county/loxahatchee_acreage/homeowner-makes-sign-in-foreclosure-fight-
“We regularly see lenders make minor mistakes in foreclosure filings” says Sean O’Toole, CEO and Founder of ForeclosureRadar.com. “But the reality is that far more homeowners are behind on their mortgage payments than are even in foreclosure. The clear problem in the housing market today is not foreclosures, but negative equity; and as long as the focus remains on the symptom rather than the disease we will see little progress towards real solutions and this crisis will drag on for years to come.”
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Sean is absolutely correct. The problem is that people are stuck in their “negative equity” homes and cannot move.
That’s why we really need to get that streamlined short sale program up and running efficiently; and for those who refuse to pay/can’t pay their mortgages, the lenders need to foreclose as quickly as possible. By getting in good, solid buyers at lower, affordable prices and with 20%+ down payments, we can halt the “foreclosure crisis” in a meaningful way. All the rest are stall tactics, and will end up prolonging the recession/depression.
So far, those of us who have predicted the long grind (not to mention the fact that we were warning about the bubble years before the “crisis” hit) have been right. Why are policymakers trying to get advice from who caused the crisis, and who swore that forcing more debt at the *problem of too much debt* was the answer to the crisis? Isn’t it about time they listened to us “Chicken Littles” who got this entire thing right all along? When will they begin listening to us? What they’re doing is making things much, much worse. Asset price inflation/debt expansion is NOT the answer to our problems.
My limited view on the whole halting of foreclosures/MERS/throw in any other latest RE mess, is 99.9% of the ‘homeowners’ crying foul have been legitimately foreclosed on. They didn’t make their payments and like a convicted felon, are getting off on a technicality. But, what time of year is it? Yes, election time! And this group of potential votes is ENORMOUS. Guesstimating, at least 25% of the population is either behind or soon to be behind on their payments, or stopped making payments months ago. What better way for the politicians to get their votes? It really doesn’t matter which party slat you have either. Give them free rent for another bunch of months. It just sucks being a regular and legitimate home buyer these days.
ALERT: this is a mess that threatens the entire system –
the foreclosure is adding more uncertainty into the housing market
1.) buyers will pull back
2.) those considering strategic foreclosures will go for it (more time in house mortgage-free)
3.) real estate market will seize up
4.) holders of the securitized mortgage crap will be taking a bath, but not without suing the banks
5.) banks will either get another bailout or go under
6.) stock market turmoil
7.) political turmoil
Anyone agree/disagree?