From HW:
Any potential settlement U.S. regulators reach with large mortgage lenders and servicers to modify loans and pay $20 billion or so to help borrowers underwater on their mortgage will do little to help the already fragile market recover, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts.
Discussing details of the settlement first reported by The Wall Street Journal, mortgage-backed securities strategists Chris Flanagan, Vipul Jain and Timothy Isgro said the likelihood of a fine and principal reduction program is low. The Journal cited anonymous people familiar with the negotiations of the settlement, and said the nation’s largest banks have yet to receive any proposal.
“We believe that a $20 billion levy on banks to fund principal reduction would bring with it enormous costs that would far outweigh any potential benefits,” the analysts said.
Analysts at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods said the suggested amount of the settlement “seems high” and talks are in the early stages, so “it is too soon to draw significant conclusions” regarding companies that could be effected.
“We believe the most likely scenario would be a settlement where the servicers agree to a certain amount of money to provide principal writedown as part of mortgage modifications,” Bose George, Jade Rahmani and Ryan O’Steen said in a research note. The proposed $20 billion fine would do little to address the nation’s aggregate negative equity of $744 billion, as estimated by CoreLogic, according to BofAML.
The analysts think banks would tighten private credit availability if this proposed settlement or others come down, “which in turn could damage the housing recovery, and force the government to assume an even larger role in housing finance than its current 94% share.”
Admitting that quantifying negative-equity risk is “almost impossible,” Flanagan said BofAML thinks banks “would immediately recognize that they have to incorporate the risk of future levies into the pricing of mortgage credit.”
In short, mortgage lending could come to a complete halt. “In our view, this proposal would re-open the property question and create somewhat unquantifiable tail risk to the downside for home prices,” the analysts said.
“There is a simple way for banks to manage this tail risk: namely stopping mortgage lending, which clearly would be an unacceptable outcome,” BofAML analysts said.
“There is a simple way for banks to manage this tail risk: namely stopping mortgage lending, which clearly would be an unacceptable outcome,” BofAML analysts said.”
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How about “there is a simple way for banks to manage this tail risk: namely, requiring larger downpayments and/or mortgage insurance, which clearly would be an acceptable outcome.”
“We believe that a $20 billion levy on banks to fund principal reduction would bring with it enormous costs that would far outweigh any potential benefits,” the analysts said.
Translation: Lower banker bonuses, which is totally unacceptable.
Push me, pull me. The banks have zero incentive to write down principal, they have all the losses they can use for years. Just about every government program run so far has been full of corruption. If the Government really wanted to do something they would cancel QE2, and let Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, HUD, FDIC, and any other agency holding property begin a orderly disposal of those properties.
If the government really wanted to fix the problem to benefit average citizens they would have taken the banks into receivership. They would have been able to do what they wanted and we probably could have found some kind of balance between tax payers and bubble buyers. Instead we allowed the bankers to loot us through extortion methods (i.e. give us money or economy will come crashing down) and still really haven’t fixed anything.
It’s still way to early to see how it will be viewed in history, but I think we still face some future consequences from these decisions.
@Livin’…. Most of the banks didn’t want the capital. That’s not extortion.