More Lies: Housing Data

BUYERS SHOULD BEWARE OF “GREAT DEALS”

AND ASK CITY OFFICIALS FOR REAL DATA

“You have to ask yourself the question “WHY?” why would banks reject modifications where borrowers would keep paying and instead foreclose and then abandon the house. Something is going on here.” — Neil F Garfield, livinglies.me

“The real answer is to go to the banks and stop asking for answers and start asking for the money they made while everyone else lost on the deal.” — Neil F Garfield www.livinglies.me

Editor’s Note: It’s all happening because whenever reporters, officials or investors research the housing market, they are getting data from the very people who don’t want you to know anything. Going to the Banks for mortgage and housing data is no different from asking a convicted felon (let’s say a rapist) for education on sex. You are going to hear what they want to tell you, not the facts.

As the article below points out, Banks and Realtors, as well as others who have a stake in making you believe that the housing market is (a) not that bad and (b) is getting better. Both statements are untrue. The people to ask are the city officials who are dealing with the aftermath of the holocaust caused by Wall Street mortgage manipulations, the county recorders, and the people themselves who live in neighborhoods that have been destroyed by foreclosure because most of the homes are vacant , stripped or the headquarters of the latest gang of thieves or drug dealers.

As pointed out below, the official Bank figures state that there are 5,000 vacant homes in Chicago. In a city that size, one would think that the vacancy is within reason. But the true facts are that more than 100,000 homes are vacant, with probably the same number about to be vacant as the homeowners confront mortgage servicers and banks claiming their homes but not yet doing anything about it.

These are the people who have strategically defaulted, stayed in the home, and then waited or put up a fight, lasting months or even years without payments, thus recovering part of the investment they made when they bought the house or bought the silly loan product that the “lender” pushed on them, knowing that the home would be in foreclosure.

So these people are sitting on homes that at best are worth 50% of the appraised value used when the “loan” was closed (albeit with someone other than the investor-lender). This part of the problem can be easily fixed by principal reductions or corrections to reflect market reality. Businesses do it everyday in Chapter 11 reorganizations. But the Banks bought their way into legislation that prevented bankruptcy judges from stripping residential liens down to their true value — which is the underlying value of the property.

So the only practical alternative is to walk away and let whoever wants to foreclose, go ahead and steal the property with a credit bid that comes from a party who never was a creditor in the financial transaction between the borrower and the lender. It all seems surreal but it is true.

THE RECESSION: Then you have the unemployment problem and the underemployment problem where people who had an income no longer have that income and they are running out of savings, retirement funds and credit to keep making the payments. This (a) obviously presents imminent foreclosures that are not yet on anyone’s books and (b) hides a valuation problem for homes that is sickening if you are accustomed to thinking of this problem as a cyclical problem that will fix itself.

As unemployment and underemployment rises, and wages either stagnate or go down as a result of inflation and a weak economy, median income drops. It is just a mathematical computation: arithmetic. If people don’t have the income to buy or maintain a house they are not going to own one. As the Case-Schiller index clearly shows, proven over 120 years of analysis, home valuations are so closely tied to median income that they can be considered the same thing.

The housing market stinks and it is dropping. City officials are stuck with figuring out how, on shrinking budgets, they are going to deal with so large a number of homes that are vacant with an endless supply of vacant homes in sight. Some cities are bull dozing the homes while others consider using eminent domain to ward off future foreclosures. The real answer is to go to the banks and stop asking for answers and start asking for the money they made while everyone else lost on the deal.

As intermediaries, the banks are supposed to get paid for their service in processing transactions, deposits and loans. We now have the banks entering any transaction they want as a principal without disclosure to either the borrower or the lender, and then, temporarily “owning” the loan, selling it 20-30 times. Having done that and made a fortune, they toss the “loss” over to the investor lender when there is nothing left in the investment. Pensions get slashed, retirement funds get reduced, and median income drops even further.

Very Bad Things Happen When We Depend on the same People Who Caused the Foreclosure Crisis to Track Its Destruction

Alternetnet/ by Sam Jewler, Chris Herwig

See Full article at very-bad-things-happen-when-we-depend-same-people-who-caused-foreclosure-crisis-track

Tags: cityies, housing data, housing prices, LOAN MODIFICATION, median income, vacant homes, valuation
Posted in bubble, Corruption, Eviction, securities fraud |