Zillow Ranks Portland #3 For Tricks and Treats!

"According to our index, trick-or-treaters in the West stand to bring home the most Halloween loot. Seattle secured the top spot as the best city to trick-or-treat, followed by San Francisco, Portland, San Jose, and Denver. In total, 11 of the 20 cities named were in the West. The remaining cities were divided evenly across the Midwest, Northeast and South.



There is a common belief that wealthy neighborhoods are the Holy Grail for harvesting the most Halloween candy. However, to provide a more holistic approach to trick-or-treating, the Zillow Trick-or-Treat Housing Index was calculated using four equally weighted data variables: Zillow Home Value Index, population density, Walk Score and local crime data from Relocation Essentials. Based on those variables, the Index represents cities that will provide the most candy, with the least walking and safety risks."




Happy Halloween Portland!

Be safe, be smart, smash out, and be very careful/cautious if you go out after dark, or especially if you go into debt to buy real estate these days. There's really no telling how this crazy saga ends with respect to debt/prices/currency. Most Amoricans have absolutely no clue what the "bottom" looks like, much less so how it feels on the bones...

.

Is the Portland Housing Market a TRICK or a TREAT in 2010?


.

Will Late to the Party Portland Be Different?

The Portland housing market has taken it's lumps, but how does it fare with respect to the rest of the nation since the bubble burst? Rather than looking at how much prices have corrected in dollars or indexes, John Burns as part of the UCLA Anderson Forecast looks at how far prices have corrected backward in time. It's a rather interesting analysis that deserves a study.



"Detroit is back to 1995 prices, and some cities like Dallas, Portland and Seattle are only back to 2005 or 2006 prices (the bubble arrived later in the Northwest)."


If you look only at the CS data, it's obvious that Portland is the last major metro hanging on to yesterday. Will it last? Is it different here? Why? Why Not? How do real incomes in Portland support your answer?

Look on the bright side! If nothing else, it seems the title insurers have gained an implicit taxpayer back stop from on a too big to fail ticket and have suddenly resumed issuing title insurance on distressed properties again. The big boys have all backed down, or have they? Fidelity has decided that the risk is still just a wee too high when it comes to BofA.

"Three major title insurance companies - First American Financial, Old Republic InternationalStewart Information Services - told Wall Street analysts in conference calls Thursday that they had decided not to demand written indemnifications from lenders re-selling foreclosed homes. Combined, the three companies account for 52 percent of the title insurance market.

Such indemnification agreements were drafted earlier this month with input from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and their regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, along with the title industry's trade group, the American Land Title Association. They were seen as a way to keep the market for foreclosed properties working despite legal uncertainty.

Earlier this week, the nation's largest title insurance company, Fidelity National Financial, announced it would cancel its indemnification requirement, which had been scheduled to go into effect for all lenders Nov. 1. Fidelity is continuing to require the agreement when doing foreclosure business with Bank of America, however."

"Insurance" for a deed/title on a distressed property - Trick or Treat?

A Case Shiller Warning for Portland Prices

Well here's a real doozy from the Oregonian:

"The "ownership society" just ain't what it used to be. Investors watched their retirement savings brutalized not once but twice during the "lost decade" of 2000-2009. Now, Americans are watching the value of their home, which seemed last spring to be rallying, again in decline.

The Standard & Poor's Case Shiller Index fell broadly in August, including in Portland, according to just-released numbers. The index declined from the prior month in 17 of the 20 metropolitan areas tracked by the index.

In Portland, the index finished August at 147.02, down .9 percent from July and down 2.3 percent from a year ago. Home prices as of August were roughly equal to levels of 2003 and 2004, according to the report. "

Ooooohhhh Bother! The Oregonian seemed to have forgotten to print the left hand side of the price decline graph. Yep. Prices dropped and now they're stable, but where exactly did the left side of that graph go? What did PDX look like in the mid-late 90s? Y2K?!?




" "It's like a never-ending supply" of homes, said Daniel Alpert, managing partner at the New York investment bank Westwood Capital. He expects prices to fall another 10 percent over the next year -- and not improve much after that. "

.

A Core Logic Warning for Portland Prices

The Core Logic August 2010 Home Price Index (HPI) report today has a familiar ring to it no? Well...maybe. California is in better shape year over year than Oregon?!?!? What happened to California home prices from 2007-2010? What now awaits Oregon 2010-2013?


" “Price declines are geographically expanding as 78 out of the largest 100 metropolitan areas are experiencing declines, up from 58 just one month ago” said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic. The top five states with the greatest depreciation, including distressed sales, were Idaho (-14.0 percent), Alabama (-10.4 percent), Utah (-7.3 percent), Oregon (-6.3 percent) and Florida (-6.2 percent). "










Source: Core Logic

A Clear Capital Warning for Portland Prices

The median home price in Portland at the end of the summer was an even $250,000. If prices here (year over year) lost 5.6%, the median loan owner just lost $14,000 dollars of equity. If the median home price in PDX lost 2.8% in the last three months alone, that means loan owners have lost $7,000 of equity since June! The simple math and latest research shows that we seem to be accelerating in our price decline.

Can a family rent comfortably for $14,000 - $28,000 per year right now in Portland? What does that answer mean with respect to the real cost of "buying" and "owning"? Buying with cash, and renting money from a bank via mortgage are two very different risks right now. How confident are you that you or your significant other will not lose their job/income?

Could you afford to sell your house if you needed (or wanted) to move?

Where and when is the bottom for Portland?

Only time will tell...




"This special Clear Capital Home Data Index (HDI) alert shows that national home prices have declined 5.9% in just two months and are now at the same level as in mid April 2010, two weeks prior to the expiration of the recent federal homebuyer tax credit.

This significant drop in prices, in advance of the typical winter housing market slowdowns, paints an ominous picture that will likely show up in other home data indices in the coming months."



" "Compared to the softening quarterly gains we saw last month, the latest results of our Home Data Index indicate a substantial price correction has taken place in many major markets," said Dr. Alex Villacorta, Senior Statistician, Clear Capital. "With the effects of the recession still being felt by home buyers and sellers, the lack of demand is causing strong markets to lose their upward momentum, while sending weak markets into double dip territory.

"The recent halt of foreclosures by the top mortgage servicers will certainly help to slow the rate of new distressed inventory on the market, but any positive effect this will have on the market will be countered by the traditional winter slowdown that seems to be starting early this year," added Dr. Villacorta."

Sources:

Clear Capital™Reports Early Seasonal Slowdown as U.S. Home Prices Decline and Weaker Markets Head for Big Chill

Special Release: Clear Capital™ Reports Sudden and Dramatic Drop in U.S. Home Prices

Here Are the 15 US Housing Markets at The Forefront ff the Double Dip

Comic Tragedy or Tragic Comedy?

.

October Surprise = Ponzi Housing Market?

Well, well, well. In just a short sweet week or so things are suddenly different now in the housing market! The main stream media can no longer sweep the problem under the rug and convince everyone that the foreclosure crisis is just a "paperwork" problem.

Foreclosuregate is about covering up the original crime. It's actually about systemic fraud. Fraudulent mortgage brokers, fraudulent appraisers, fraudulent underwriters, and fraudulent securitization of mortgages via the Wall St/DC cartell. Quantity was pure profit. Quality? That was just someone else's problem somewhere down the line. Hello taxpayers! Ye be haunted by quantity...

The big question is: "Who's gonna end up paying for this mess?"


Let's do a short recap of what's happened in the last week or so:

• Attorneys General in ALL 50 STATES launch a foreclosure/mortgage fraud ponzi probe.
  
  
• Wells Fargo is busted. They were just as greedy, guilty, and fraudulent as other mega banksters.
  
  
• The tidal wave of foreclosures/mortgage fraud is massive. Bank of America is rather candid here.
  
  
• The US Dollar is crashing big time.
  
  
• Commodities are soaring in price. Watch what happens to fuel/food prices this winter (Fuel/Food not part of the CPI anymore).
  
  
• Will we raise interest rates and defend the dollar? Or, will we just keep selling ponzi mortgages back and forth pretending to make 'money'?
  
  
• Meet the newly hired foreclosure experts!
  
  
• MERS: The redheaded stepchild for recording deeds, titles, and notes.
  
  
• CITI is rather candid here.
  
  
• Buying a house? Good luck getting title insurance.
  
  
• Yeah, it's actually gotten that bad.
  
  
• Want a house? Just find an empty one, move you and your family in, hire a bold lawyer, and call the local media to become a celebrity. You'll be too big to fail! You can bank on it!
  
  
• Selling your gold? Mr. T will gladly buy it, as sure as you're born. I pitty the fool...
  

And last, but certainly not least, we have Oregon stuck right smack dab in the middle of this giant forclosure/mortgage fraud mess! Hang on to your hats Portland, the wheels are coming off and the bottom feels like a long long way down from here.




.

U of O Index of Economic Indicators - August 2010

Professor Duy released the U of O Index of Economic Indicators for August this week.

The University of Oregon Index of Economic Indicators™ edged down 0.2 percent to 86.3 (1997=100) in August. Compared to six months ago, more than half the index components declined while the UO Index fell 5.9 percent (annualized). In the past, declines of this magnitude signaled impending weakness in Oregon nonfarm payrolls.

As a general rule of thumb, a decline of 2.5 percent (annualized) over six months, coupled with a decline in more than half of its components, signals that a recession is likely imminent.

On the job market

Weak economic conditions continue to weigh on labor markets. Initial unemployment claims rose again, continuing the upward drift that began in April. Employment services payrolls—largely temporary hiring—were essentially unchanged. Both trends are disappointing and signal that despite being in a recovery phase, the pace of economic activity continues to fall short of that necessary to generate solid job growth. Overall nonfarm payrolls for Oregon (not included in the index) fell 1,500 compared to a revised loss of 2,100 in July, while the unemployment rate held at 10.6 percent.

A little more bad news…

The UO Index continues to follow a pattern similar to its behavior in the 2001–3 period. The 2001 recession was followed by a sharp but temporary upturn in the UO Index. A subsequent reversal of gains signaled renewed economic weakness. The resulting “echo” recession triggered a renewal of job losses, albeit the declines were not as severe as those of the 2001 recession. Assuming the pattern is repeating itself now and is not reversed soon, the UO Index signals that, at a minimum, sustained labor market recovery will be delayed until next year with actual job losses possible over the next three to six months.

Foreclosure Moratorium Goes Nation Wide

The latest update on Foreclosure Gate is just in - Bank of America halts foreclosures in all fifty states. The real estate market lockup is coming soon due to the clouds surrounding deeds, titles, and mortgages lost in the securitization ponzi scheme and MERS.

Keep in mind, this whole mess is no longer about whether deadbeats and strategic defaulters get "saved". They will be kicked out of the house eventually. The deeper problem is that if banks cannot legally determine the chain of custody to foreclose, they in turn cannot logically do so when a mortgage is satisfactorily paid in full either!

Who owns your house/mortgage note? What confidence do you have that the deed and title will be transferred properly and the lien released after all those years of payments are completed (or after you sell)? Think that just sounds plumb crazy? Read this and this!

" “Defective documentation has created millions of blighted titles that will plague the nation for the next decade,” said Richard Kessler, a Sarasota, Florida attorney. Let me expand upon this horror. For any and every U.S. residential property which has a mortgage that has come within reach of the large U.S. banks over (at least) the last four years, it now has a title which cannot be relied upon by any potential buyer.

Readers must understand how our legal systems operate. A party which has defective title to a property (i.e. the Wall Street banks) can never pass "good title” to any buyer. From the time that defect is created, no subsequent buyer can ever own that home, legally. Should that defect be discovered – several years later – by the original owner, that owner then has several more years in which to file a claim (based upon your limitations statutes).

To be more specific, any U.S. home which has been bought / sold more than once in the last five years, and any / every home with a mortgage tied to one of these fraud-factories cannot be trusted when it comes to being able to purchase clear title."

Worse yet, trillions of the RMBS that were securitized fraudulently are now an empty box for investors. Lawsuits will be coming by the thousands from all directions. The lawyers will have a feeding frenzy, many banks will fail, few if any will go to jail, and the taxpayers will foot the bill. Mark my words.

The housing bubble and all of its repercussions is starting to look a lot like the crime of the century!

Now for some humor to help explain it all...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Foreclosure Crisis
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity

And here's a good little ditty on how the MBA (Mortgage Banker's Assoc) strategically defaults on their own mortgage, while urging the rest of us to suck it up and keep paying down that bubble era ball and chain! Nevermind the nation wide foreclosure moratorium.

Nothing to see here, move along...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Mortgage Bankers Association Strategic Default
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity

Securitization Gone Wild: A Graphic Version

Here's a much more succinct version of what happened, and what's happening now with respect to the securitization of mortgages and the MERS system for tracking deeds and titles to private property:







How could something so lawless, reckless, and fraudulent happen with "the biggest purchase of a lifetime" for most Amoricans? How could our largest of large financial institutions get away with something so scandalous and yet so wide spread?

It's simple. See the green dots in the charts below when it comes to our elected Congressional officials and their largest of large campaign donors. Federal taxation these days is a certainty. Representation is yet another topic all together. There is no meaningful difference between the Republicans and Democrats when it comes to the the banksters and their campaign donations. It's obvious who runs DC these days.

Thank you FIRE economy!



.





Satirical images courtesy of WilliamBanzai7

Foreclosuregate: Securitization Gone Wild

The main stream media has been unusually quiet about, and is downplaying the latest "glitch" in the gittyup of the foreclosure crisis. It's no surprise, but it could easily become a black swan for the banks. Many of our elected officials are finally starting to cry foul and raise questions about the legality of the whole mortgage securitaztion ponzi scheme that has become the housing market of the United States. Major banks, and several states attorney generals are now on the cusp of a pissing contest:

"On September 29, the Washington Post reported that a top federal bank regulator had directed seven of the nation’s largest lenders to review their foreclosure processes, after learning about widespread mishandling of homeowner evictions. Besides JPMorgan Chase, they included Bank of America, Citibank, HSBC, PNC Bank, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo. The Washington Post noted:

"The paperwork problems range from potentially forged documents to bank employees who never read borrowers' files before signing off on an eviction. . . ."While we don't expect our review to find that consumers were harmed, we will take appropriate action if we find any impact," JP Morgan spokesman Tom Kelly said."

No harm perhaps except the illegal taking of thousands of homes without due process". Most elected officials looked the other way when loans were brokered, underwitten/funded/serviced, sold, repackaged, and sold again from 2003-2008. We all knew fraud was pervasive. Now that banks are once again on the take, they are taking advantage of the mess by foreclosing on and selling houses they do not own, and have no legal right (or proof thereof) to bring proceedings to seize the property."

WORSE YET - banks have been caught red handed for forgery, and presenting false evidence. Of course -no convictions (yet). Watch this 8 minute video from US Senator Grayson:




Those who think this will turn into a free house bonanza where judges give away houses to delinquent owners -don't hold your breath. The free house bonanza is for the banks. Due to securitization, ownership of the title/note is spread far and wide. Banks have limited resources with which to obtain this information. MERS has become a crime scene, and 60% of US mortgages are now in the MERS system.

If the mortgage servicer cannot establish legal ownership of the note -what makes anyone think that the banks are going to see that the "note holders" get paid when the house is sold in foreclosure? Are banks servicing and seizing delinquent properties with no legal right to do so, and KEEPING the profit from the sale?

Will the "toxic mortgage backed securities" be dumped on the tax payers via Frannie/Freddie, while banks that never held the full loan seize, foreclose, and profit from the massive legal mess made by securitization gone wild?

It sure looks that way to me...this is a backdoor bailout of the banks that is just now being seen for the theft that it truly is. The battle between the banks, congress, the executive, and judicial branches of government will be epic. In the mean time, my advice is to stay far far away from any further leveraging into the real estate market, pop some popcorn, and enjoy the shit show!

Below is more reading, and note that Oregon is not a judicial foreclosure state. How many homes is Wells Fargo seizing/foreclosing on here that go uncontested? How many counties have title insurable legal records showing exactly what entity has the right to foreclose?

What does all this mean for title insurers? They don't like it one bit and many of the larger players are already backing away from insuring titles on REO/foreclosed deals. How many REO/short sales/foreclosure sales have happened that are about to be unwound as a result of this news? Foreclosures were 25% of sales nationwide last quarter. They are about to be a LOT lower percentage going forward.

The housing bubble is now taking on a whole new meaning, and with 60% of the mortgages out there already lost in the electronic blender of MERS - how long will be until we hear the Federal Government call for centralized control of registering deeds/titles for all real estate?
If you hear of such a call, I strongly recommend you work with your local township/county where deeds/titles are recorded and fight to keep that authority held locally.

Keep your ears/eyes on this developing story. Will there be prosecutions, or will the whole thing just quietly go away? With election season here and now, and voters from both parties having no love lost for banks, congress and the Obama administration might actually have to act and put a bansker/insurer/broker/realtor or two in jail!

Can you say "class action RICO charges"?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqnHLDeedVg

http://www.truth-out.org/shock-therapy-wall-street-jpmorgan-suspends-56000-foreclosures-gmac-and-boa-many-more63803

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/bank-america-joins-jpmorgan-and-ally-admitting-it-never-validated-foreclosures-docs

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/are-250000-foreclosure-sales-q2-about-be-reversed

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/two-original-%E2%80%9Cwet-ink%E2%80%9D-notes-discovered-same-foreclosure-case-%E2%80%93-beth-cottrell-jpmorgan-chase

http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast/Entries/2010/9/24_Chris_Whalen_files/Chris%20Whalen%209%3A24%3A2010.mp3

http://www.thetruthaboutmortgage.com/seven-major-banks-told-to-review-foreclosures-processes/

http://www.housingwire.com/2010/10/01/california-ag-demands-jpmorgan-chase-halt-foreclosures-2

http://www.housingwire.com/2010/10/01/robo-signers-put-homebuyers-tax-credit-at-risk

http://titlesearchblog.com/2010/09/30/illegal-foreclosures-represent-the-largest-seizure-of-private-property-ever-by-banks/

http://titlesearchblog.com/2010/09/25/mortgage-assignment-crisis-could-cripple-the-real-estate-market/

http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/10/nightly-mortgage-mess.html