Everyone?

I pose this question because two journalists have weighed in with a book called Chain of Blame: How Wall Street Caused the Mortgage and Credit Crisis. So, without further ado, I'd like to hear which group you most blame. (Just to be absolutely clear: Choosing one group does not necessarily mean you're saying the rest were innocent.)

]]> http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/business/realestate/blog/2008/07/step_right_up_to_play_the_blame_game.html http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/business/realestate/blog/2008/07/step_right_up_to_play_the_blame_game.html Polls Fri, 04 Jul 2008 07:19:51 -0500 Is HOPE NOW helping much? Depends on whom you ask.

HOPE NOW, the alliance of mortgage industry players focusing on foreclosure prevention, says it's helping quite a bit, thanks. In a press release yesterday, it estimated that "more than 1.7 million homeowners have avoided foreclosure because of industry efforts" in the last 12 months. That includes 170,000 in May alone.

But the Center for Responsible Lending fired back with a press release of its own that says the numbers "greatly overstate the help being provided" and fail to note that the problem is worsening rather than improving:

[O]ver 16 percent of subprime loans were “seriously delinquent,” that is 90-days or more delinquent or in foreclosure, at the end of March. This is double the 8 percent rate from one year earlier and the highest on record. Furthermore, though defaults on subprime loans continue to drive the overall housing crisis, prime loans are also faltering, with the percent of seriously delinquent prime loans more than doubling from a year earlier.

Foreclosure prevention has been such a hot topic not only because many homeowners are behind on their mortgages but also because rising foreclosures hurt neighborhood home values, government budgets and the lending industry.

2) ForeclosurePoint, a find-foreclosures site that says it offers more information for free than its competitors.

Seen other interesting sites? Chime in.

What is offsetting the housing slump is spending by business on technology to make its operations more efficient and lower costs. But the resiliency of the U.S. economy in the face of the housing bubble is amazing. It is a testament to the Federal Reserve for doing such a good job at dealing with a difficult situation.

But for every action, there is a reaction. The Fed has flooded the economy with money, and this has depressed the value of the U.S. dollar. This boosts inflation.

Inflation is no longer well-anchored, to use [Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S.] Bernanke's term. This is going to be felt much more today than it was in the 1970s, partly because of how companies interact with their employees. In the 1970s, companies were willing to pay their employees a few percentage points more to beat inflation. But today in the era of downsizing and outsourcing, this has not happened.

Image courtesy of Stock.XCHNG

Sure, you get a tax deduction for the interest you pay on your mortgage, but that doesn't mean you aren't heartsick about all that interest. That's why paying off a mortgage early -- and cutting out as much interest as possible -- will always appeal to some homeowners.

There are various options, some better than others, experts say.

Consider, for instance, biweekly payment plans through your lender. If you make half your mortgage payment every other week, that's 26 half-payments -- or 13 full payments rather than 12, eliminating mortgage debt more quickly. But don't sign on the dotted line if the lender charges you a fee to participate, says Bankrate.com's Greg McBride.

"You can achieve the very same objective on your own," he says.

The report, written by Loyola College economics professor Stephen J.K. Walters and Loyola graduate Louis Miserendino, was produced as part of the Institute for Justice’s series on eminent domain abuse. (The institute is a libertarian public interest law firm.) The authors write:

Often, areas that were well-functioning (if unappealing to planners’ eyes) became emptied-out slums only after they were designated as part of a renewal area or were unlucky enough to sit in the path of a planner transit artery thought necessary to revitalize downtown.

Eminent domain has always been controversial, though it has seemed to have more supporters in the city than, say, a suburban community where a state or local agency was eying privately owned land. What do you think its effect has been on Baltimore?

The first scenario assumes that real house prices fall no further than their level as of March 2008. The second scenario assumes that real house prices fall an additional 10 percent as a 2009 average. The third scenario assumes that real house prices fall an additional 20 percent for a 2009 average. The projections show that the vast majority of families in these age cohorts will have little or no wealth by 2009 in any of these scenarios and that the cohorts just approaching retirement will have very little to support themselves in retirement other than their Social Security. The projections also show that a large number of families in these age cohorts will have little or no equity in their homes in 2009.

In fact, the renters within each wealth quintile in 2004 will have more wealth in 2009 under all three scenarios, than will the homeowners from the same quintile. These projections underscore the dramatic impact of policies that promoted homeownership during the housing bubble.

Well -- you know what comes next. Poll time:

]]> http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/business/realestate/blog/2008/06/retirement_wealth_hurt_by_housing_market.html http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/business/realestate/blog/2008/06/retirement_wealth_hurt_by_housing_market.html Polls Sat, 28 Jun 2008 08:10:36 -0500 lookie loos like to see huge mansions. But if tiny properties appeal to your curiosity, check out this Yahoo slideshow of photos from America at Home, which range from a shack (a very nice shack) to a houseboat.]]> http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/business/realestate/blog/2008/06/unusual_homes.html http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/business/realestate/blog/2008/06/unusual_homes.html Sat, 28 Jun 2008 06:53:40 -0500 Zillow says that homebuyers getting a mortgage now will pay significantly more than buyers two months ago, even as home prices have dropped. That's because interest rates are up.

People getting a median-priced home in the Baltimore area and making a 20 percent down payment on a 30-year fixed-rate loan will pay $1,188 extra a year than if they'd borrowed in April, Zillow says. (It based its calculations off rates offered through its Mortgage Marketplace to borrowers who had "good or better" credit scores.) The change in the annual percentage rate? From 5.75 percent in April to 6.44 percent in June, Zillow says.

It's a useful reminder that dropping prices won't always mean a better bottom line.

1. Ask your Realtor

2. Investigate the companies

3. Make the moving company look at your home

4. Get three estimates

5. Demand a contract that covers everything

6. Ask about the claims process

7. Do the movers conduct drug tests and background checks?

8. Be cautious of Internet movers

9. Look at the actual trucks used

10. Pay little up front

More details can be found HERE.

Would you add anything to that list? What about suggestions for moving yourself successfully?

The February increase was greeted with cautious hope from some economists, who say declining home prices will attract bargain-hunters, increasing sales. The May numbers, released today, brought this comment from Wachovia: "It is still too early to call a bottom in the home sales market, but clearly the vast majority of the declines in sales are behind us." (The continuing problem, Wachovia says, is "excess inventory" -- too many would-be sellers competing for too few buyers.)

Compared with May 2007, sales are down about 16 percent, the NAR says. Both the average and median price of a U.S. home dropped more than 6 percent in May compared with a year earlier.

May numbers for the Baltimore metro area, released earlier by Metropolitan Regional Information Systems, show fairly flat prices -- up a bit on average, down a bit on median -- but a larger, 30 percent drop in year-over-year sales.

Instead of using powers granted by Congress to buy jumbo loans for the first time, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are purchasing their own mortgage-backed securities, helping reduce losses, company filings show. ...

The National Association of Realtors estimated last year that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would buy $150 billion of jumbo loans in 2008. UBS AG analysts now say the amount may be $74 billion; the companies' own projections indicate that they may not even reach that figure.

So-called jumbo mortgages are above the $417,000 limit previously set for Fannie and Freddie. The feds temporarily raised the limit for a number of markets. It's $560,000 in the Baltimore metro area.

Associated Press photo

The more you hear about foreclosures piling up, the more you may be tempted to buy one. There's a lot to consider if you do -- but first things first: how to find them.

Such a program might be structured this way: The federal government would offer all homeowners with mortgages the opportunity to replace one-fifth of their existing mortgage (up to some dollar limit) with a government loan. This loan would carry a substantially lower interest rate than the individual's mortgage (reflecting the government's cost of funds). It would be a full-recourse loan that would have to be repaid regardless of what happens to the borrower's mortgage or home. By law, it would take priority over all non-mortgage debt.

... Because this program would, in effect, swap government bonds for individual IOUs, it would not involve any increase in government spending or in the deficit. Because the loans would appeal primarily to those who now have positive equity in their homes, it would not reward people who made high-risk purchases and now have high negative equity.

Most plans to help homeowners -- those facing foreclosure or hurt by the slump in other ways -- have proved controversial. So -- weigh in:

]]> http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/business/realestate/blog/2008/06/government_loans_for_everyone.html http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/business/realestate/blog/2008/06/government_loans_for_everyone.html Polls Sun, 22 Jun 2008 16:57:53 -0500