Foreclosure Tsunami 2.0 Is Coming, And Is About To Kill Any Hopes Of A “Housing Bottom”

Housing ‘Bottom’ about to drown in a new wave of foreclosures.

“In what appears to be surprising news for some, Reuters has an article titled “Americans brace for next foreclosure wave” whose key premise is that “a painful part two of the [housing] slump looks set to unfold: Many more U.S. homeowners face the prospect of losing their homes this year as banks pick up the pace of foreclosures.” Thank the robosettlement, where in exchange for a few wrist slaps, contract law was thoroughly trampled by America’s attorneys general, but far more importantly to the country’s crony capitalist system, the foreclosure pipeline was once again unclogged, and whether one does or does not have a legal title on a given house, the banks are now fully in their right to foreclose on it. What this means also is that America’s record shadow housing inventory, which is far greater than any fabricated number the NAR reports on a monthly basis, is about to get unleashed on buyers, shifting the supply curve much further to the right, as up to 9 million new properties slowly but surely appear on the market. And while many will no longer be able to live mortgage free, forcing them to go out and rent (and no longer be able to afford incremental iGizmos), it also means that the prevalent price of homes is about to take another major tumble, making buffoons out of all those who, once again, called for a housing bottom in early 2012. Here’s the simple math: there will be no housing bottom until the 9 million excess homes clear.”

Shadow inventory about to go vertical

Two comments re: the bolded portions above. First, the legal principal protecting your property from unreasonable seizure has now been dismantled and absent a Supreme Court miracle gone forever. In fact holding clear title to a piece of property doesn’t even protect you from Continue reading Foreclosure Tsunami 2.0 Is Coming, And Is About To Kill Any Hopes Of A “Housing Bottom”

MA Supreme Court upholds rule of law in foreclosure case.

Yesterday’s decision by the MA Supreme Court upholding the basic premise that the true owner of piece of real estate is the last legitimate signer on the actual title to the property and that title must be presented to prove ownership before a foreclosure can take place has been widely decried in the financial press as a grave injustice to the bank’s right to unlimited profits no matter what they did to find themselves in such sorry shape..

“WHILE THE BANKS may HAVE FAILED TO SATISFY the letter of THE LAW….” is a typical lead in to a conclusion like “With this ruling, you’re left with the problem that people who didn’t pay their mortgages get to keep their houses BECAUSE OF PAPERWORK MISTAKES”. [Emphasis mine] Continue reading MA Supreme Court upholds rule of law in foreclosure case.

The Bank Bailout Trap

We’ve cornered ourselves trying to bail out the “Too Big To Fail” banks. In trying to keep them alive in the name of saving the financial system we’ve been pumping them full of our childrens’ tax dollars to little effect and we wonder why they’re not really lending. The downward spiral of their balance sheets from both toxic assets and falling stock price continues but how to stop that spiral is being debated hotly in boardrooms, financial markets and congress.

What’s preventing a solution from emerging is the “Too Big To Fail” trap. Until we recognize that these banks have already failed and we are throwing good money after bad we will continue pouring money down a bottomless hole. It’s like lending ‘grocery money’ to a junkie. We can’t allow ourselves to be held hostage by a handful of big banks. Continue reading The Bank Bailout Trap

“Those who fail to learn from history…

…are doomed to repeat it”. Winston Churchill’s advice is very timely because it seems like 60 years is about as long as we can go before having to RE-learn the important lessons from The Depression.

The repeal of the The Banking Act of 1933 (AKA The Glass-Steagall Act) in 1999 was the beginning of the failure that ultimately led us to where we are now. One of the big lessons that the Crash and Depression taught us was that banks who took deposits and made loans should be separated from investment houses so that problems on Wall St. wouldn’t wipe out the whole financial system. When we unlearned the lesson in ’99 the banks and Wall St. had a heyday of buying each other up in a rush to create ‘financial super markets’. The idea was that once you came in to deposit your paycheck, they could sell you a few stocks, bonds, mutual funds and even some insurance.

Eventually we ended up with a couple of these huge financial institutions and the smaller regional players followed suite, merging and buying each other up to get big enough to stay competitive with the giants. Those from the Northwest may remember when Washington Mutual was a regional savings bank in the Puget Sound area and ran ads saying that they were your friendly local bank and would never do the bad things that the huge evil banks do. Continue reading “Those who fail to learn from history…

5 signs we’re not heading into Depression 2.0

In a series of emails with Vince Farrell, CIO of Soleill Securities we were discussing his comments on CNBC about the contrast between 1929 and now. His point was that the policy decisions being made now are the correct ones and that there are a number of protections in place, as a result of the depression, that will prevent this recession from becoming a depression.

Briefly here are Vince’s points that are both necessary steps to preventing depression and signs of hope for the future:

On World Trade-
Then: Smoot Hawley Tariffs enacted, result, world trade falls by two-thirds (66%!)
Now: During the last G7 meeting, members agree to “do no harm” in terms of protectionism. Continue reading 5 signs we’re not heading into Depression 2.0