Austin is one of the best markets in the U.S. for Realtors, according to a new list from Inman News.
Austin ranked No. 9. Inman said this of Central Texas: “The area had the highest year-over-year median sales price jump among the markets in May, up 9.3 percent to $203,125. The area also had the highest sales rate by population, with 1 sale for every 58 people; and the fastest-moving inventory in May, with homes on the market an average 75 days before selling.”
Fannie, Freddie, and the US Government aren’t the only entities struggling with debt. The U.S. Post Office is expected to hit its $15 billion borrowing limit next month, and banks are scrambling to determine their potential lease exposure to the agency on their retail loans. Watch for post office closings, announced several weeks ago, and then end of Saturday delivery.
And a federal judge ruled that the FDIC has to face a $10 billion lawsuit tied to the failure of WAMU: the judge refused the FDIC’s request to dismiss the lawsuit brought by Deutsche Bank National Trust Co over bad mortgages that were securitized by Washington Mutual. As we all remember, WAMU was seized by the OTS, and the FDIC was appointed receiver and immediately sold the bank to JPMorgan Chase & Co for $1.9 billion. Deutsche Bank is arguing that loans that were pooled into mortgage bonds did not meet the underwriting standards that had been promised by WaMu, causing investors to lose billions of dollars.
Robo-signing, or more specifically the argument over whether documents are signed correctly, is not a dead issue. American Home Mortgage Servicing filed a lawsuit against Lender Processing Services Inc. (LPS) alleging that the firm improperly signed mortgage documents on its behalf and triggered millions of dollars in legal expenses as a result. Did American Home incorrectly process more than 30,000 mortgage assignments when seeking foreclosure on properties in all 50 states as a result of the work by an LPS subsidiary? Stay tuned: DidYouSignThat?
A good-sized chunk of those foreclosures took place in Phoenix where, according to the latest figures from DataQuick, distressed property sales accounted for over 60% of resales in July! Overall, July home sales in the Phoenix area fell about 13% from June, but remain 19% above year-ago levels. In July, 9,050 new and resale homes and condos were closed in Phoenix. Home prices in the area also fell last month in that area. A drop in sales in July is common, according to DataQuick, but this drop was steeper than in past years. The number of homes selling below $100,000 jumped 43.2% over a year ago. The median home price in Phoenix hit $120,000 last month, down 54.6% from the peak of $264,100 in June 2006.
Nationwide, the sales of new single-family houses fell slightly in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 298,000, down from June’s 300k level. So it dropped .7% from June but is nearly 7% above the July 2010 level. There were an estimated 165,000 newly constructed homes for sale in the U.S. at the end of July which represents a 6.6 month supply at the current pace of sales and down from a year ago when we had 9 months’ worth of supply.
FDIC-insured commercial banks and savings institutions reported an aggregate profit of almost $29 billion in the second quarter of 2011, a $7.9 billion improvement from the $20.9 billion in net income the industry reported in the second quarter of 2010. This is the eighth consecutive quarter that earnings registered a year-over-year increase. As has been the case in each of the last seven quarters, lower provisions for loan losses were responsible for most of the year-over-year improvement in earnings. Second-quarter loss provisions totaled $19 billion, less than half the $40.4 billion that insured institutions set aside for losses in the second quarter of 2010. However, net operating revenue (net interest income plus total noninterest income) was $3 billion (1.8 percent) lower than a year earlier. 60% reported improvements in their quarterly net income from a year ago while institutions reporting net losses for the quarter fell to 15%.
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By writing down all underwater mortgages to market value, the nation’s banks could pump $71 billion per year into the economy, create more than one million jobs annually and save families $6,500 per year on mortgage payments.
That’s the bottom line in a new report by The New Bottom Line, a nationwide campaign representing 1,000 faith-based and community organizations seeking to hold Wall Street accountable and find solutions for struggling and middle-class families.
Grassroots organizations across the country aligned with The New Bottom Line campaign are calling on State Attorneys General who are investigating the banks for foreclosure fraud to stand firm for a settlement agreement that both includes large-scale principle reduction for underwater borrowers and does not release the banks from claims beyond the robo-signing scandal.
“Homeowners across the nation are struggling to pay their boom-era mortgages with their recession-era salaries and the economy is suffering for it. Writing down the principals and interest rates on all underwater mortgages to market value would serve as the second stimulus that America so desperately needs, only without added costs to taxpayers,” according to the report entitled “The Win/Win Solution: How Fixing the Housing Crisis Will Create One Million Jobs.”
The plan would lower homeowners’ mortgage payments by an average of more than $500 per month or $6,500 per year. Six billion dollars per month that is currently going to mortgage payments would instead go toward buying groceries, school supplies, and other household necessities.
As consumer demand picked up, businesses would start hiring again. For example, the plan would inject an annual stimulus of $20.5 billion in California and 300,000 jobs per year; $1.64 billion in Ohio and 24,000 jobs; and $12 billion in Florida and almost 180,000 jobs.
Last year, the nation’s top six banks paid out more than twice the cost of the plan ($71 billion per year) in bonuses and compensation alone ($146 billion in 2010), the report says. Currently, the nation’s banks are sitting on a historically high level of cash reserves—$1.64 trillion
