PLEASE BE AWARE AT HOW OUTRAGEOUS WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH WALL STREET AND THE CRONY AND CRIMINAL STOCK MARKET......IT IS INCREDIBLE!
Regarding the rebounding housing market:
I spoke of the coverup in the failure of the banks to do anything as regards the postage stamp settlement for massive subprime mortgage fraud. The housing boost is the aftermath of this suspension of Rule of Law. I want to remind people that when government suspends Rule of Law it suspends Statutes of Limitation. When a crook steals money and bets that money on a pony that wins.....that profit comes back to the victim as their gain. So, as the banks enrich themselves on the tens of trillions of dollars stolen in financial fraud from individuals and government coffers.....THAT BELONGS TO YOU AND ME! WE SIMPLY NEED TO REINSTATE RULE OF LAW TO CLAIM IT....IT IS SIMPLE.
The Federal Reserve's policies of 0% interest and QE have nothing to do with employment or repairing the economy.....it has everything to do with setting an environment for massive financial gain for a select few people....that is why the entire world is calling the US financial system crony and criminal and are staying away from it. Indeed, as the market is made to look like it is soaring.....only 4 % of people have reentered what we all know to be a criminal market. That is where the Fed comes in. If no one will come to the party by choice they say.....we will have our own party and force others to eventually come!!! THAT IS THE FED POLICY GOALS!!!
Obama will go down in history as the protector of the massive looting of the US Treasury and citizens in history. IT IS AMAZING THAT THIS IS HAPPENING IN A FORMERLY FIRST WORLD COUNTRY AND INDEED IT IS WHY MANY PEOPLE HAVEN'T REACTED BECAUSE THEY DO NOT BELIEVE IT COULD HAPPEN. First Obama, through his cabinet/agency appointees made sure that the fraudulent subprime loans were not written down/off as Rule of Law would require. We know the ratings were false....we know the investment firms knew the bundled mortgages were 'dogs'....we know the originators were openly flaunting all laws regarding fiduciary duties and everyone from accountants to lawyers were flaunting law in moving these loans through the MERS mill. THE ENTIRE PROCESS WAS A FRAUD FROM TOP TO BOTTOM and Rule of Law would have had the banks write all of them off and then let the banks go after the accountants and lawyers who colluded. Obama and Eric Holder suspended Rule of Law and allowed those subprime loans to stay hidden and balance sheets using new accounting rules hide this enormous debt. The second thing Obama did was to fail to save people who were falling into foreclosure whether as a result of direct fraud or damages caused by the economic collapse caused by the fraud. Why did Obama not help main street? THE PLAN WAS TO BUNDLE THESE FORECLOSURES AND RESELL THEM FOR A SECOND ROUND OF BILLIONS IN PROFIT FOR THE SAME PEOPLE COMMITTING THE ORIGINAL FRAUD. That's where the Fed comes in. The banks need to get rid of all this bad subprime debt with as little loss as possible. QE is a mortgage buyback scheme that has the Fed buying what looks to be a trillion dollars of the worst subprime mortgages to get them off the bank's balance.....they call this recapitalizing the banks. The word has it that all that buyback will then be sent to the Treasury where all of our payroll taxes for our Social Security and Entitlements are now sent.....ergo....your retirement will be used to hand the banks back money lost on fraudulent loans. THIS IS QE POLICY. The 0% interest allows this system of bundling and selling that mirrors the subprime mortgage sales where closing and selling fees in the billions happen over and over until these bundles land in the hands of the same developers and real estate firms that created them......for bargain basement prices since they are foreclosures. This is what is making the housing market look like it is soaring.
THESE PEOPLE ARE PITIFUL!
So, now the crooks have these properties back in their hands and are ready to sell. Here is the second piece to what is international fraud.....WE HAVE THE PEOPLE WHO ARE RICH ON TENS OF TRILLIONS IN FRAUD NEEDING OFFSHORE INVESTMENTS TO LAUNDER THE LOOT! That means US looters are buying real estate overseas and the foreign looters are buying US real estate for cash. As the news reports state......much of these housing purchases are in cash. It is one great big money-laundering scheme carried out by the Federal Reserve and Obama Administration with Third Way corporate democrats working hard to handle the details at the state and local levels. So, the areas of the country hardest hit by subprime mortgage fraud are now the epicenters of this housing rebound.....Nevada, Arizona, and California. We hear of it in Maryland as well. Most of this property will be kept as rentals or sold at a higher price for profits now that the market is moving from low to high. WHICH IS WHY THE TIME IS RIGHT FOR THE FED TO END QE AND WHY HOUSING PRICES ARE RISING. They don't want the average house buyer getting something for nothing....like they just did!
RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE NEXT ELECTIONS!!!!
Wow! Check Out The New Home Sales Recovery Bernanke is Taking Credit For
Posted on 3 March 2013 by admin by Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner
The media reported a 16% rise in new home sales in January to the highest level in 4 1/2 years based on data from the Commerce Department released today. The headlines were based, as always, on seasonally adjusted data. The not seasonally adjusted data was also rocking, showing a year to year gain of 34.7% for January, and a gain of 47.6% since January 2011, which was near the bottom in new house sales. Sales have risen from 21,000 units in January 2011 to 31,000 units in January 2013. Look at the trend on this chart. Awesome!
Click to enlarge
Here’s how Dow Jones’s Marketwatch put it.
Sales of newly constructed U.S. housing jumped almost 16% in January — hitting the highest level in 4½ years — offering strong proof that the sector’s rebound trend is intact.
Sales of new homes rose to an annual rate of 437,000 last month from an upwardly revised 378,000 in December, marking the biggest one-month gain since 1993, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. The figures are seasonally adjusted.
The pace of sales easily blew by the 384,000 consensus estimate of the economists polled by MarketWatch.
I skimmed through the lead-ins for this story in Google News, and trust me, this wasn’t even close to being the most ebullient.
So to give you a better idea of just how fabulous this mammoth recovery is, here’s a long term perspective. It looks fabulous, doesn’t it.
Click to enlarge
Wait a minute! That 48% gain looks a little different from this angle. The range of 20,000 to 40,000 unit sales per month since 2009 compares with a range of 80,000 to 130,000 per month in the early to mid 2000′s. Could Bernanke be exaggerating just a little when he claims credit for a housing recovery?
Looking at single family housing starts versus new house sales, the pattern is similar. Starts are up from 26,600 units in January 2011 to 39,600 units in January 2013, a whopping gain of 49%. But the numbers today are only 30% to 50% of the levels of 2000-2005. Of course 2005 was when the housing bubble was getting ready to drive the economy off the cliff, but current levels are still only half what they were in the recession years of 2001 and 2002.
Click to enlarge
The charts make it plain that while housing is no longer a drag on the economy, its net positive contribution to economic growth isn’t much. The Fed may claim credit for the recovery, but it hasn’t gotten much bang for the trillions it has printed since 2008. What the Fed has gotten is a return to house price inflation (another story), but it hasn’t really gotten a recovery.
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Insight: The Wall Street gold rush in foreclosed homes
NEW YORK | Tue Mar 20, 2012 3:44pm EDT
(Reuters) - Dan Magder recently gave up a top job with private equity firm Lone Star Funds to strike out on his own and become a landlord.
He's joining a growing list of big and small investors who see fat profits to be made in renting out foreclosed homes, especially now the U.S. government is moving ahead with a trial project to sell big pools of single-family homes that Fannie Mae currently owns in some of the hardest-hit housing markets.
Investors seeking higher yields are drawn to foreclosures because the rental market is red hot. But the heated competition for foreclosed homes is reminiscent of the frothy expectations that seem to accompany each new Wall Street investing craze.
Even proponents of buying foreclosed homes are advising caution about the kind of returns that investors can expect to reap and the potential negative headlines that can come with being a landlord.
Critics, meanwhile, contend the federal government is fostering a transfer of wealth of sorts by selling big pools of foreclosed homes to big fund investors and high-net-worth individuals. There's also concern that some of the players who helped create the housing crisis will now benefit by buying foreclosed homes at a steep discount.
Between them, Fannie and Freddie Mac own more than 200,000 foreclosed homes. The nation's banks own more than 600,000 single-family homes, according to RealtyTrac, a housing tracking service.
Housing experts expect the foreclosure machinery to crank up again now that regulators and banks have agreed to a $25 billion settlement to deal with earlier foreclosure abuses.
Some of the high-profile institutional investors who are committing money to buying foreclosed homes - or seriously considering jumping in - include private equity firm TPG Capital, investment firm Oaktree Capital Management, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc., Starwood Capital, Och-Ziff Capital Management and bond fund manager TCW, say people familiar with the fast-growing market.
PILOT PROJECT
The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates Fannie and Freddie Mac, expects it will receive a considerable number of bids in April for the initial round of 2,500 Fannie-owned homes in cities like Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles and Phoenix.
"This is really a test and we don't know what the results will be," says Meg Burns, senior associate director for housing and regulatory policy for the FHFA. "But the beauty of this pilot is we are going out with properties that are largely rented already, so people know what the cash flows look like and we know it is far preferable to have people living in the homes rather than the properties sitting vacant."
In August, when the FHFA first announced its intention to conduct bulk sales for Fannie and Freddie properties, it received expressions of interest from more than 4,000 investor groups, not-for-profits and other organizations.
If the pilot is successful, the FHFA is also considering selling off pools of distressed mortgages held by Fannie and Freddie, according to people familiar with discussions about that.
On the Internet, the gold rush mentality clearly has taken hold with some small investment firms. Wong Diversified International Investments of Austin, Texas, for example, offers a fund to invest in foreclosed homes, boasting on its website that it is pursuing the Fannie bulk sale.
"It is clearly over-hyped, but I think this is real and it's going to happen," said Magder, who about a week ago left Lone Star, where he had focused on distressed banks and financial services firms. "There is definitely room for people who have a well-thought-out operational plan and are careful about putting the pieces together."
Magder has formed Rock Creek Capital Group, based in Washington, D.C., and intends to raise money from investors and submit a bid for some of the foreclosed homes Fannie is selling in Los Angeles and Phoenix and across Florida.
RETURN ON INVESTMENT
One of the most bullish investors is Carrington Capital Management, which has teamed up with Los Angeles-based OakTree Capital. They have created a $450 million fund to buy foreclosed homes in bulk and rent them out.
In a marketing document for one of its funds, Carrington claims that without using leverage or borrowed money it can generate an annual yield of 7 percent from rental income alone. Its long-term strategy is to package the fund into a publicly traded real estate investment trust. If that strategy is successful, Carrington projects investors can see an internal rate of return of 25 percent over three years.
Rick Sharga, an executive vice president with Carrington, says the firm is optimistic that if the Fannie auction attracts a lot of bidders, then banks will begin holding their own bulk sales of foreclosed homes.
Other investors looking at the foreclosed home market say Carrington's projections seem too rosy and they are projecting a return on investment of between 8 percent and 15 percent. That said, in an environment where U.S. Treasuries are yielding less than 2.5 percent on a 10-year Treasury note, those kind of returns are piquing the interest of wealthy individuals.
Miami-based Carlos Guajardo, who is considering bidding for some of the Fannie properties being sold in bulk in Florida, says he is seeking to raise about $50 million, largely from wealthy individuals and small family offices. To date, his firm Maynada Capital Advisors has acquired about 70 foreclosed homes in southeast Florida, which he has fixed up and is in the process of renting out.
In Las Vegas, Laus Abdo is doing something similar and he's trying to expand his potential reach by partnering with a hedge fund or private equity firm to back him.
"I think the majority of your return in this portfolio comes in the form of cash flow from renting, not capital appreciation, unless you buy properties at a huge discount," says Abdo, executive director at TriArchic Advisors, a Las Vegas-based real estate advisory and management firm.
Even as some investors are getting into the market, others are looking at getting out because they fear the presence of big institutional players will drive up prices.
New York hedge fund manager Jason Ader says he and a business partner in Phoenix are looking at selling some of the more than 100 homes they acquired at foreclosure auctions over the past year. Ader, founder of Ader Investment Management, said the market in Phoenix for foreclosed homes began getting more competitive this year. He expects institutional money will start to crowd out smaller investors bidding for the Fannie properties.
PR NIGHTMARE
Some hedge fund managers say they're staying out of the market largely for fear of getting vilified as being a bad landlord if the need comes to evict a tenant. One manager who did not want to be identified said while there's a lot of money to be made from investing in foreclosed homes, "it is a potential PR nightmare."
In February, Phil Angelides, the former chairman of a federal commission set up to look into the causes of the financial crisis, stepped down as executive chairman of Mortgage Resolution Partners one month after Reuters reported on his involvement in the company which aimed to turn a profit from buying distressed mortgages. Angelides' involvement had drawn scrutiny on Capitol Hill, where one congressman sent a letter warning about potential political influence peddling.
Already, some liberal economists are questioning the wisdom of the federal government pushing to sell homes owned by Fannie and Freddie to institutional investors at a potential 20-30 percent discount to prevailing market price.
"This is actually moving the underlying physical assets, or homes, to the top 1 percent," says L. Randall Wray, a professor of economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and a senior scholar with Bard College's Levy Economics Institute.
Laus, the Las Vegas housing entrepreneur, says there could be a "potential backlash" if some of the buyers are subsidiaries of the big banks that got bailed out by the federal government.
But many more public policy experts say the bulk sales by the government are worth trying, given the huge stockpile of foreclosed homes controlled by Fannie and Freddie.
"We have a shortage of rental housing already and I think this is a win-win situation," says Kenneth Rosen, chairman of Rosen Consulting Group, which advises on urban planning and real estate management.
In February, Rosen co-authored a report with mortgage-backed securities guru Lewis Ranieri, which advocated the need for a private sector solution to the foreclosure crisis. A Ranieri-backed hedge fund, Selene Finance, has been investing in distressed mortgages for the past few years and is now eyeing foreclosed homes.
"I don't think the money to do this is the problem," says Rosen. "It's the execution."
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Not only are the banks not meeting the terms of the settlements and the State AG's not enforcing it.....Obama's supposed rescue for homeowners of $70 billion to modify loan for underwater and foreclosing homes has hardly been used.
What is the incentive for banks and the government to modify when bundling foreclosures makes lots of money for the same few.
National Mortgage Settlement inadequate, Md. consumer group says
February 26, 2013|By Steve Kilar | The Baltimore Sun
The National Mortgage Settlement’s relief is not reaching enough Maryland homeowners and is not as effective as it could be in keeping people in their homes, the Maryland Consumer Rights Coalition said Tuesday.
“The number of Maryland families facing new foreclosures continues to dwarf those getting help under the settlement,” said Marceline White, the group’s executive director, in a statement.
Between March 1, 2012 and the end of last year, about 14,200 homeowners received assistance through the settlement, intended to resolve accusations by 49 states and the federal government that five major mortgage servicers abused borrowers during the foreclosure process.
During the same nine-month period, though, notices of intent to foreclose were sent out to nearly 131,000 homeowners, according to MCRC’s review of the settlement monitor’s third progress report, which was released last week, and statistics from Maryland’s labor department.
“The relief offered under the settlement doesn’t begin to match the scale of the foreclosure crisis,” White said.
The servicers bound by the settlement — Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Ally Financial — are also failing to provide ample principal reductions, an effective tool in keeping people in their homes, according to MCRC. Instead, the servicers are opting to arrange short sales, which result in homeowners losing their residences, the group said.
“Since the settlement was signed, the five big banks that are part of the settlement have provided 3,450 Marylanders with short sales relief, while providing principal reductions for 1,583 families,” MCRC said.
The MCRC’s full analysis of the settlement monitor’s third report can be found here.
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This US housing rise is from the selling of foreclosures in bundles to investment firms but also many are going to the wealthy foreign buyers trying to launder all the loot taken during the massive financial frauds. So US looters are buying overseas and UK looters are buying real estate in the US. All that money is sure to be apart of offshore shelter accounts that hide the tens of trillions of dollars stolen in financial fraud last decade!!
Foreign buyers behind half of £2m+ home sales in London Spending spree led by Russians Chinese, Americans, Emiratis and Indians looking for safe haven investments
A foreign spending spree, led by Russians, Chinese, Americans, Emiratis and Indians, resulted in the number of overseas buyers overtaking the number of Britons buying London properties worth more than £2m in the 12 months to April 2013, according to new research by estate agent Knight Frank.
This is from 2011 but the same news headline aired yesterday as 1/3 of the housing market was paying cash and foreign buyers! Meanwhile foreclosures are going sky high because of the stagnation and no bank modifications are help from the government even as it pretends to do so!
Foreign buyers cashing in on U.S. housing closeout sale
by Broderick Perkins
DeadlineNews.Com
(6/1/2011) Some say the end is near -- for either an up or down housing market -- when foreigners rush ashore to jump on the bandwagon or go for the spoils.
Right now they are after the spoils.
"In recent years, we have seen more and more foreign buyers coming here to take advantage of low prices and plentiful inventory," said NAR President Ron Phipps, broker-president of Phipps Realty in Warwick, RI.
Foreign buyers are joining domestic investors to take up some of the slack left by first-timers and other traditional buyers who are more susceptible to the hostile lending market, according to the National Association of Realtors 2011 Profile of International Home Buying Activity. Hostile lending market = massive subprime loans.
"The word that may apply in this case is capitulation. Smart investors, both foreign and domestic, want to invest in an asset when no one else wants to and that may be exactly what's happening here. Investing in real estate may seem a safer bet by comparison than other options at this point," said Nancy Osborne, chief operating officer of Erate.com, a Santa Clara, CA-based financial information publisher and interest rate tracker.
Sales from those abroad or those who were new to this country, equaled $82 billion for the past year ending March 2011, up from $66 billion in 2010.
The sales were split evenly between non-resident foreigners and recent immigrants and amounted to about 8 percent of the $1.07 trillion figure for all existing-home sales in the U.S. during the period. Foreigners purchased 7 percent of U.S. existing homes or $907 million worth in 2010.
Foreign buyers are coming to America with boatloads of money.
Sixty-two percent of foreign buyers used all cash. In recent months, nearly one in three foreigners buying existing homes were plunking down bags of cash, NAR said.
Compared to foreigners, that makes domestic real estate investors real pikers.
Only 18.5 percent of domestic investors were cash buyers, according to a recent Move.com study.
NAR also said foreign buyers are high-rollers. The average purchase price paid by an international buyer was $315,000 compared to the overall U.S. average of $218,000. However, 45 percent of international purchases were under $200,000.
Again, that beats out American investors.
Another study by Econohomes.com said today's breed of U.S. investors is only putting out for homes in the $50,000 market.
According to NAR, foreign buyers favor U.S. properties because they are generally cheaper than comparable foreign properties and right now they are bargain basement steals. They also see homes as a good long-term investment with the potential for rental income.
Some Realtors say more foreign families are also housing their college kids in properties near colleges and universities. International demand also stems from foreign executives temporarily working in America.
Said Phipps, "Many foreigners perceive owning a home here as an important accomplishment in their efforts to become established in this country."
Most buyers were Canadians, accounting for 23 percent of sales to foreigners, followed by China and, tied for third, Mexico, the United Kingdom and India. The top five nations accounted for 53 percent of all international transactions. Argentina and Brazil both reported an increase in foreign sales, together account for five percent of all sales, up from two percent in 2010, NAR said.
Foreigners are largely shopping in Florida (31 percent), California (12 percent), Texas (9 percent) and Arizona (6 percent), NAR reported.
Single-family homes accounted for 61 percent of foreign sales, compared to 36 percent for condos, apartments or townhomes.
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When the Fed floods trillions of dollars in mortgage buybacks into the Treasury he is doing just as Bush et al did in using Social Security to pay for tax cuts, wars, and now the mortgage fraud. Meanwhile they are telling us that SS and Entitlements need to be cut because the Trusts do not have enough money......OH REALLY?
Time to live up to Reagan's Social Security deal
By David Sarasohn, The Oregonian
on February 08, 2011 at 5:13 PM, updated February 08, 2011 at 5:19 PM
The Social Security surpluses were used to help pay off years of federal deficits. When the prospect of federal surpluses first appeared, Bill Clinton urged, in his 1998 State of the Union speech, that the money be used to "save Social Security first." Running for president in 2000, Al Gore wanted the Social Security surpluses put in a "lockbox," an idea that struck people as so hilarious it became a punchline.
Instead, hundreds of billions of dollars of Social Security taxes -- a flat tax that the government stops collecting above certain incomes -- were used to help balance three major George W. Bush tax cuts. As Harry J. Holzer, public policy professor at Georgetown University, put it seven years ago, "Thus the Social Security surplus -- financed by payroll tax increases on the lower and middle classes -- has been used to fund income tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit high-income people."
Regarding the rebounding housing market:
I spoke of the coverup in the failure of the banks to do anything as regards the postage stamp settlement for massive subprime mortgage fraud. The housing boost is the aftermath of this suspension of Rule of Law. I want to remind people that when government suspends Rule of Law it suspends Statutes of Limitation. When a crook steals money and bets that money on a pony that wins.....that profit comes back to the victim as their gain. So, as the banks enrich themselves on the tens of trillions of dollars stolen in financial fraud from individuals and government coffers.....THAT BELONGS TO YOU AND ME! WE SIMPLY NEED TO REINSTATE RULE OF LAW TO CLAIM IT....IT IS SIMPLE.
The Federal Reserve's policies of 0% interest and QE have nothing to do with employment or repairing the economy.....it has everything to do with setting an environment for massive financial gain for a select few people....that is why the entire world is calling the US financial system crony and criminal and are staying away from it. Indeed, as the market is made to look like it is soaring.....only 4 % of people have reentered what we all know to be a criminal market. That is where the Fed comes in. If no one will come to the party by choice they say.....we will have our own party and force others to eventually come!!! THAT IS THE FED POLICY GOALS!!!
Obama will go down in history as the protector of the massive looting of the US Treasury and citizens in history. IT IS AMAZING THAT THIS IS HAPPENING IN A FORMERLY FIRST WORLD COUNTRY AND INDEED IT IS WHY MANY PEOPLE HAVEN'T REACTED BECAUSE THEY DO NOT BELIEVE IT COULD HAPPEN. First Obama, through his cabinet/agency appointees made sure that the fraudulent subprime loans were not written down/off as Rule of Law would require. We know the ratings were false....we know the investment firms knew the bundled mortgages were 'dogs'....we know the originators were openly flaunting all laws regarding fiduciary duties and everyone from accountants to lawyers were flaunting law in moving these loans through the MERS mill. THE ENTIRE PROCESS WAS A FRAUD FROM TOP TO BOTTOM and Rule of Law would have had the banks write all of them off and then let the banks go after the accountants and lawyers who colluded. Obama and Eric Holder suspended Rule of Law and allowed those subprime loans to stay hidden and balance sheets using new accounting rules hide this enormous debt. The second thing Obama did was to fail to save people who were falling into foreclosure whether as a result of direct fraud or damages caused by the economic collapse caused by the fraud. Why did Obama not help main street? THE PLAN WAS TO BUNDLE THESE FORECLOSURES AND RESELL THEM FOR A SECOND ROUND OF BILLIONS IN PROFIT FOR THE SAME PEOPLE COMMITTING THE ORIGINAL FRAUD. That's where the Fed comes in. The banks need to get rid of all this bad subprime debt with as little loss as possible. QE is a mortgage buyback scheme that has the Fed buying what looks to be a trillion dollars of the worst subprime mortgages to get them off the bank's balance.....they call this recapitalizing the banks. The word has it that all that buyback will then be sent to the Treasury where all of our payroll taxes for our Social Security and Entitlements are now sent.....ergo....your retirement will be used to hand the banks back money lost on fraudulent loans. THIS IS QE POLICY. The 0% interest allows this system of bundling and selling that mirrors the subprime mortgage sales where closing and selling fees in the billions happen over and over until these bundles land in the hands of the same developers and real estate firms that created them......for bargain basement prices since they are foreclosures. This is what is making the housing market look like it is soaring.
THESE PEOPLE ARE PITIFUL!
So, now the crooks have these properties back in their hands and are ready to sell. Here is the second piece to what is international fraud.....WE HAVE THE PEOPLE WHO ARE RICH ON TENS OF TRILLIONS IN FRAUD NEEDING OFFSHORE INVESTMENTS TO LAUNDER THE LOOT! That means US looters are buying real estate overseas and the foreign looters are buying US real estate for cash. As the news reports state......much of these housing purchases are in cash. It is one great big money-laundering scheme carried out by the Federal Reserve and Obama Administration with Third Way corporate democrats working hard to handle the details at the state and local levels. So, the areas of the country hardest hit by subprime mortgage fraud are now the epicenters of this housing rebound.....Nevada, Arizona, and California. We hear of it in Maryland as well. Most of this property will be kept as rentals or sold at a higher price for profits now that the market is moving from low to high. WHICH IS WHY THE TIME IS RIGHT FOR THE FED TO END QE AND WHY HOUSING PRICES ARE RISING. They don't want the average house buyer getting something for nothing....like they just did!
RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE NEXT ELECTIONS!!!!
Wow! Check Out The New Home Sales Recovery Bernanke is Taking Credit For
Posted on 3 March 2013 by admin by Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner
The media reported a 16% rise in new home sales in January to the highest level in 4 1/2 years based on data from the Commerce Department released today. The headlines were based, as always, on seasonally adjusted data. The not seasonally adjusted data was also rocking, showing a year to year gain of 34.7% for January, and a gain of 47.6% since January 2011, which was near the bottom in new house sales. Sales have risen from 21,000 units in January 2011 to 31,000 units in January 2013. Look at the trend on this chart. Awesome!
Click to enlarge
Here’s how Dow Jones’s Marketwatch put it.
Sales of newly constructed U.S. housing jumped almost 16% in January — hitting the highest level in 4½ years — offering strong proof that the sector’s rebound trend is intact.
Sales of new homes rose to an annual rate of 437,000 last month from an upwardly revised 378,000 in December, marking the biggest one-month gain since 1993, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. The figures are seasonally adjusted.
The pace of sales easily blew by the 384,000 consensus estimate of the economists polled by MarketWatch.
I skimmed through the lead-ins for this story in Google News, and trust me, this wasn’t even close to being the most ebullient.
So to give you a better idea of just how fabulous this mammoth recovery is, here’s a long term perspective. It looks fabulous, doesn’t it.
Click to enlarge
Wait a minute! That 48% gain looks a little different from this angle. The range of 20,000 to 40,000 unit sales per month since 2009 compares with a range of 80,000 to 130,000 per month in the early to mid 2000′s. Could Bernanke be exaggerating just a little when he claims credit for a housing recovery?
Looking at single family housing starts versus new house sales, the pattern is similar. Starts are up from 26,600 units in January 2011 to 39,600 units in January 2013, a whopping gain of 49%. But the numbers today are only 30% to 50% of the levels of 2000-2005. Of course 2005 was when the housing bubble was getting ready to drive the economy off the cliff, but current levels are still only half what they were in the recession years of 2001 and 2002.
Click to enlarge
The charts make it plain that while housing is no longer a drag on the economy, its net positive contribution to economic growth isn’t much. The Fed may claim credit for the recovery, but it hasn’t gotten much bang for the trillions it has printed since 2008. What the Fed has gotten is a return to house price inflation (another story), but it hasn’t really gotten a recovery.
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Insight: The Wall Street gold rush in foreclosed homes
NEW YORK | Tue Mar 20, 2012 3:44pm EDT
(Reuters) - Dan Magder recently gave up a top job with private equity firm Lone Star Funds to strike out on his own and become a landlord.
He's joining a growing list of big and small investors who see fat profits to be made in renting out foreclosed homes, especially now the U.S. government is moving ahead with a trial project to sell big pools of single-family homes that Fannie Mae currently owns in some of the hardest-hit housing markets.
Investors seeking higher yields are drawn to foreclosures because the rental market is red hot. But the heated competition for foreclosed homes is reminiscent of the frothy expectations that seem to accompany each new Wall Street investing craze.
Even proponents of buying foreclosed homes are advising caution about the kind of returns that investors can expect to reap and the potential negative headlines that can come with being a landlord.
Critics, meanwhile, contend the federal government is fostering a transfer of wealth of sorts by selling big pools of foreclosed homes to big fund investors and high-net-worth individuals. There's also concern that some of the players who helped create the housing crisis will now benefit by buying foreclosed homes at a steep discount.
Between them, Fannie and Freddie Mac own more than 200,000 foreclosed homes. The nation's banks own more than 600,000 single-family homes, according to RealtyTrac, a housing tracking service.
Housing experts expect the foreclosure machinery to crank up again now that regulators and banks have agreed to a $25 billion settlement to deal with earlier foreclosure abuses.
Some of the high-profile institutional investors who are committing money to buying foreclosed homes - or seriously considering jumping in - include private equity firm TPG Capital, investment firm Oaktree Capital Management, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc., Starwood Capital, Och-Ziff Capital Management and bond fund manager TCW, say people familiar with the fast-growing market.
PILOT PROJECT
The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates Fannie and Freddie Mac, expects it will receive a considerable number of bids in April for the initial round of 2,500 Fannie-owned homes in cities like Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles and Phoenix.
"This is really a test and we don't know what the results will be," says Meg Burns, senior associate director for housing and regulatory policy for the FHFA. "But the beauty of this pilot is we are going out with properties that are largely rented already, so people know what the cash flows look like and we know it is far preferable to have people living in the homes rather than the properties sitting vacant."
In August, when the FHFA first announced its intention to conduct bulk sales for Fannie and Freddie properties, it received expressions of interest from more than 4,000 investor groups, not-for-profits and other organizations.
If the pilot is successful, the FHFA is also considering selling off pools of distressed mortgages held by Fannie and Freddie, according to people familiar with discussions about that.
On the Internet, the gold rush mentality clearly has taken hold with some small investment firms. Wong Diversified International Investments of Austin, Texas, for example, offers a fund to invest in foreclosed homes, boasting on its website that it is pursuing the Fannie bulk sale.
"It is clearly over-hyped, but I think this is real and it's going to happen," said Magder, who about a week ago left Lone Star, where he had focused on distressed banks and financial services firms. "There is definitely room for people who have a well-thought-out operational plan and are careful about putting the pieces together."
Magder has formed Rock Creek Capital Group, based in Washington, D.C., and intends to raise money from investors and submit a bid for some of the foreclosed homes Fannie is selling in Los Angeles and Phoenix and across Florida.
RETURN ON INVESTMENT
One of the most bullish investors is Carrington Capital Management, which has teamed up with Los Angeles-based OakTree Capital. They have created a $450 million fund to buy foreclosed homes in bulk and rent them out.
In a marketing document for one of its funds, Carrington claims that without using leverage or borrowed money it can generate an annual yield of 7 percent from rental income alone. Its long-term strategy is to package the fund into a publicly traded real estate investment trust. If that strategy is successful, Carrington projects investors can see an internal rate of return of 25 percent over three years.
Rick Sharga, an executive vice president with Carrington, says the firm is optimistic that if the Fannie auction attracts a lot of bidders, then banks will begin holding their own bulk sales of foreclosed homes.
Other investors looking at the foreclosed home market say Carrington's projections seem too rosy and they are projecting a return on investment of between 8 percent and 15 percent. That said, in an environment where U.S. Treasuries are yielding less than 2.5 percent on a 10-year Treasury note, those kind of returns are piquing the interest of wealthy individuals.
Miami-based Carlos Guajardo, who is considering bidding for some of the Fannie properties being sold in bulk in Florida, says he is seeking to raise about $50 million, largely from wealthy individuals and small family offices. To date, his firm Maynada Capital Advisors has acquired about 70 foreclosed homes in southeast Florida, which he has fixed up and is in the process of renting out.
In Las Vegas, Laus Abdo is doing something similar and he's trying to expand his potential reach by partnering with a hedge fund or private equity firm to back him.
"I think the majority of your return in this portfolio comes in the form of cash flow from renting, not capital appreciation, unless you buy properties at a huge discount," says Abdo, executive director at TriArchic Advisors, a Las Vegas-based real estate advisory and management firm.
Even as some investors are getting into the market, others are looking at getting out because they fear the presence of big institutional players will drive up prices.
New York hedge fund manager Jason Ader says he and a business partner in Phoenix are looking at selling some of the more than 100 homes they acquired at foreclosure auctions over the past year. Ader, founder of Ader Investment Management, said the market in Phoenix for foreclosed homes began getting more competitive this year. He expects institutional money will start to crowd out smaller investors bidding for the Fannie properties.
PR NIGHTMARE
Some hedge fund managers say they're staying out of the market largely for fear of getting vilified as being a bad landlord if the need comes to evict a tenant. One manager who did not want to be identified said while there's a lot of money to be made from investing in foreclosed homes, "it is a potential PR nightmare."
In February, Phil Angelides, the former chairman of a federal commission set up to look into the causes of the financial crisis, stepped down as executive chairman of Mortgage Resolution Partners one month after Reuters reported on his involvement in the company which aimed to turn a profit from buying distressed mortgages. Angelides' involvement had drawn scrutiny on Capitol Hill, where one congressman sent a letter warning about potential political influence peddling.
Already, some liberal economists are questioning the wisdom of the federal government pushing to sell homes owned by Fannie and Freddie to institutional investors at a potential 20-30 percent discount to prevailing market price.
"This is actually moving the underlying physical assets, or homes, to the top 1 percent," says L. Randall Wray, a professor of economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and a senior scholar with Bard College's Levy Economics Institute.
Laus, the Las Vegas housing entrepreneur, says there could be a "potential backlash" if some of the buyers are subsidiaries of the big banks that got bailed out by the federal government.
But many more public policy experts say the bulk sales by the government are worth trying, given the huge stockpile of foreclosed homes controlled by Fannie and Freddie.
"We have a shortage of rental housing already and I think this is a win-win situation," says Kenneth Rosen, chairman of Rosen Consulting Group, which advises on urban planning and real estate management.
In February, Rosen co-authored a report with mortgage-backed securities guru Lewis Ranieri, which advocated the need for a private sector solution to the foreclosure crisis. A Ranieri-backed hedge fund, Selene Finance, has been investing in distressed mortgages for the past few years and is now eyeing foreclosed homes.
"I don't think the money to do this is the problem," says Rosen. "It's the execution."
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Not only are the banks not meeting the terms of the settlements and the State AG's not enforcing it.....Obama's supposed rescue for homeowners of $70 billion to modify loan for underwater and foreclosing homes has hardly been used.
What is the incentive for banks and the government to modify when bundling foreclosures makes lots of money for the same few.
National Mortgage Settlement inadequate, Md. consumer group says
February 26, 2013|By Steve Kilar | The Baltimore Sun
The National Mortgage Settlement’s relief is not reaching enough Maryland homeowners and is not as effective as it could be in keeping people in their homes, the Maryland Consumer Rights Coalition said Tuesday.
“The number of Maryland families facing new foreclosures continues to dwarf those getting help under the settlement,” said Marceline White, the group’s executive director, in a statement.
Between March 1, 2012 and the end of last year, about 14,200 homeowners received assistance through the settlement, intended to resolve accusations by 49 states and the federal government that five major mortgage servicers abused borrowers during the foreclosure process.
During the same nine-month period, though, notices of intent to foreclose were sent out to nearly 131,000 homeowners, according to MCRC’s review of the settlement monitor’s third progress report, which was released last week, and statistics from Maryland’s labor department.
“The relief offered under the settlement doesn’t begin to match the scale of the foreclosure crisis,” White said.
The servicers bound by the settlement — Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Ally Financial — are also failing to provide ample principal reductions, an effective tool in keeping people in their homes, according to MCRC. Instead, the servicers are opting to arrange short sales, which result in homeowners losing their residences, the group said.
“Since the settlement was signed, the five big banks that are part of the settlement have provided 3,450 Marylanders with short sales relief, while providing principal reductions for 1,583 families,” MCRC said.
The MCRC’s full analysis of the settlement monitor’s third report can be found here.
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This US housing rise is from the selling of foreclosures in bundles to investment firms but also many are going to the wealthy foreign buyers trying to launder all the loot taken during the massive financial frauds. So US looters are buying overseas and UK looters are buying real estate in the US. All that money is sure to be apart of offshore shelter accounts that hide the tens of trillions of dollars stolen in financial fraud last decade!!
Foreign buyers behind half of £2m+ home sales in London Spending spree led by Russians Chinese, Americans, Emiratis and Indians looking for safe haven investments
- Rupert Neate
- The Guardian, Monday 6 May 2013 13.15 EDT
A foreign spending spree, led by Russians, Chinese, Americans, Emiratis and Indians, resulted in the number of overseas buyers overtaking the number of Britons buying London properties worth more than £2m in the 12 months to April 2013, according to new research by estate agent Knight Frank.
This is from 2011 but the same news headline aired yesterday as 1/3 of the housing market was paying cash and foreign buyers! Meanwhile foreclosures are going sky high because of the stagnation and no bank modifications are help from the government even as it pretends to do so!
Foreign buyers cashing in on U.S. housing closeout sale
by Broderick Perkins
DeadlineNews.Com
(6/1/2011) Some say the end is near -- for either an up or down housing market -- when foreigners rush ashore to jump on the bandwagon or go for the spoils.
Right now they are after the spoils.
"In recent years, we have seen more and more foreign buyers coming here to take advantage of low prices and plentiful inventory," said NAR President Ron Phipps, broker-president of Phipps Realty in Warwick, RI.
Foreign buyers are joining domestic investors to take up some of the slack left by first-timers and other traditional buyers who are more susceptible to the hostile lending market, according to the National Association of Realtors 2011 Profile of International Home Buying Activity. Hostile lending market = massive subprime loans.
"The word that may apply in this case is capitulation. Smart investors, both foreign and domestic, want to invest in an asset when no one else wants to and that may be exactly what's happening here. Investing in real estate may seem a safer bet by comparison than other options at this point," said Nancy Osborne, chief operating officer of Erate.com, a Santa Clara, CA-based financial information publisher and interest rate tracker.
Sales from those abroad or those who were new to this country, equaled $82 billion for the past year ending March 2011, up from $66 billion in 2010.
The sales were split evenly between non-resident foreigners and recent immigrants and amounted to about 8 percent of the $1.07 trillion figure for all existing-home sales in the U.S. during the period. Foreigners purchased 7 percent of U.S. existing homes or $907 million worth in 2010.
Foreign buyers are coming to America with boatloads of money.
Sixty-two percent of foreign buyers used all cash. In recent months, nearly one in three foreigners buying existing homes were plunking down bags of cash, NAR said.
Compared to foreigners, that makes domestic real estate investors real pikers.
Only 18.5 percent of domestic investors were cash buyers, according to a recent Move.com study.
NAR also said foreign buyers are high-rollers. The average purchase price paid by an international buyer was $315,000 compared to the overall U.S. average of $218,000. However, 45 percent of international purchases were under $200,000.
Again, that beats out American investors.
Another study by Econohomes.com said today's breed of U.S. investors is only putting out for homes in the $50,000 market.
According to NAR, foreign buyers favor U.S. properties because they are generally cheaper than comparable foreign properties and right now they are bargain basement steals. They also see homes as a good long-term investment with the potential for rental income.
Some Realtors say more foreign families are also housing their college kids in properties near colleges and universities. International demand also stems from foreign executives temporarily working in America.
Said Phipps, "Many foreigners perceive owning a home here as an important accomplishment in their efforts to become established in this country."
Most buyers were Canadians, accounting for 23 percent of sales to foreigners, followed by China and, tied for third, Mexico, the United Kingdom and India. The top five nations accounted for 53 percent of all international transactions. Argentina and Brazil both reported an increase in foreign sales, together account for five percent of all sales, up from two percent in 2010, NAR said.
Foreigners are largely shopping in Florida (31 percent), California (12 percent), Texas (9 percent) and Arizona (6 percent), NAR reported.
Single-family homes accounted for 61 percent of foreign sales, compared to 36 percent for condos, apartments or townhomes.
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When the Fed floods trillions of dollars in mortgage buybacks into the Treasury he is doing just as Bush et al did in using Social Security to pay for tax cuts, wars, and now the mortgage fraud. Meanwhile they are telling us that SS and Entitlements need to be cut because the Trusts do not have enough money......OH REALLY?
Time to live up to Reagan's Social Security deal
By David Sarasohn, The Oregonian
on February 08, 2011 at 5:13 PM, updated February 08, 2011 at 5:19 PM
The Social Security surpluses were used to help pay off years of federal deficits. When the prospect of federal surpluses first appeared, Bill Clinton urged, in his 1998 State of the Union speech, that the money be used to "save Social Security first." Running for president in 2000, Al Gore wanted the Social Security surpluses put in a "lockbox," an idea that struck people as so hilarious it became a punchline.
Instead, hundreds of billions of dollars of Social Security taxes -- a flat tax that the government stops collecting above certain incomes -- were used to help balance three major George W. Bush tax cuts. As Harry J. Holzer, public policy professor at Georgetown University, put it seven years ago, "Thus the Social Security surplus -- financed by payroll tax increases on the lower and middle classes -- has been used to fund income tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit high-income people."
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