Foreclosures

Special Foreclosure Fraud Report: Banksters Still Robo-Signing

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– Special report: Banks still robo-signing (Reuters, Jul 19, 2011):

NEW YORK/IMMOKALEE, Florida (Reuters) – America’s leading mortgage lenders vowed in March to end the dubious foreclosure practices that caused a bruising scandal last year.

But a Reuters investigation finds that many are still taking the same shortcuts they promised to shun, from sketchy paperwork to the use of “robo-signers.”

In its effort to seize the two-bedroom ranch house of 87-year-old Margery Gunter in this down-on-its-luck Florida town, OneWest Bank recently filed a court document that appears riddled with discrepancies. Mrs. Gunter, who has lived in the house for 40 years and gets around with the aid of a walker, stopped paying her loan back in 2009, her lawyer concedes. To foreclose, the bank submitted to the Collier County clerk’s office on March 3 a “mortgage assignment,” a document essential to proving who owns a mortgage once the original lender sells it off.

But OneWest’s paperwork is problematic. Among the snags: state law permits lenders to file to foreclose only if they already legally own a mortgage. Yet the key document establishing ownership wasn’t signed and officially recorded until months after OneWest filed to foreclose on Mrs. Gunter. OneWest declined to comment on the case.

Reuters has found that some of the biggest U.S. banks and other “loan servicers” continue to file questionable foreclosure documents with courts and county clerks. They are using tactics that late last year triggered an outcry, multiple investigations and temporary moratoriums on foreclosures.

In recent months, servicers have filed thousands of documents that appear to have been fabricated or improperly altered, or have sworn to false facts.

Reuters also identified at least six “robo-signers,” individuals who in recent months have each signed thousands of mortgage assignments — legal documents which pinpoint ownership of a property. These same individuals have been identified — in depositions, court testimony or court rulings — as previously having signed vast numbers of foreclosure documents that they never read or checked.

Read moreSpecial Foreclosure Fraud Report: Banksters Still Robo-Signing

Recovery: US New-Home Sales Unexpectedly Fall to Lowest on Record

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…Just the wrong kind of record. At just 250,000, this was the lowest annualized new home sales number ever. So on one hand you have a TV clown tell you the housing market bottomed in August 2008, on the other you have a pathological tax cheat Welcoming all to the Recovery, and on the mutated third hand (thank you Fukushima), reality continues to indicate that the biggest depression in history persists without abating.

Source: ZeroHedge

Mar. 23 (Bloomberg) — Purchases of new U.S. homes unexpectedly declined in February to the slowest pace on record and prices dropped to the lowest level since December 2003, adding to evidence the industry is floundering.

Sales decreased 16.9 percent to a 250,000 annual pace, figures from the Commerce Department showed today in Washington. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News projected a gain to a 290,000 rate, according to the median estimate. The median price fell 8.9 percent from the same month in 2010.

Builders are struggling to compete with existing homes as foreclosures add to the overhang of unsold properties and drive down values. The figures underscore the Federal Reserve’s view that the housing market “continues to be depressed” even as the rest of the economy improves.

Read moreRecovery: US New-Home Sales Unexpectedly Fall to Lowest on Record

Socialism Gone Apeshit: Obama Wants To Use Proceeds From $20 Billion Fraudclosure Settlement To Reduce Underwater Mortgages

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Ever wonder why the banks have been stowing away cash as if in anticipation of a torrential rainy day? Well, it just started pouring. According to the WSJ: “The Obama administration is trying to push through a settlement over mortgage-servicing breakdowns that could force America’s largest banks to pay for reductions in loan principal worth billions of dollars…Terms of the administration’s proposal include a commitment from mortgage servicers to reduce the loan balances of troubled borrowers who owe more than their homes are worth, people familiar with the matter said.

The cost of those writedowns won’t be borne by investors who purchased mortgage-backed securities, these people said…some state attorneys general and federal agencies are pushing for banks to pay more than $20 billion in civil fines or to fund a comparable amount of loan modifications for distressed borrowers…Regulators are looking at up to 14 servicers that could be a party to the settlement…Banks would also have to reduce second-lien mortgages when first mortgages are modified…Under the administration’s proposed settlement, banks would have to bear the cost of all writedowns rather than passing them on to other investors.

The settlement proposal focuses on pushing servicers who mishandled foreclosure procedures to eat losses, by writing down loans that they service on behalf of clients. Those clients include mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as investors in loans that were securitized by Wall Street firms.”

In other words, we have just reached the pinnacle of banana republic socialist insanity. In one fell swoop the teleprompter will not only grant reprieve to the banks for decades of fraudulent mortgage activity, but undercapitalize themselves and have them at risk for another liquidity run, which would of course mean another record multi-trillion taxpayer bailout. And the worst case: the 10 million or whatever underwater mortgages will get an average reduction of $2000 each. This is unfuckingbelieveable!

From the WSJ:

Read moreSocialism Gone Apeshit: Obama Wants To Use Proceeds From $20 Billion Fraudclosure Settlement To Reduce Underwater Mortgages

California Cities Top Most Miserable List – ‘As Goes California, So Goes The Nation’ Still Rings True

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NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) – If the saying “as goes California, so goes the nation” still rings true, then Americans are facing a depressing future, according to a list of the country’s most miserable cities.

Ravaged by falling house prices, high unemployment, a massive budget deficit, rampant crime and high state taxes, California filled four of the top five spots in the Forbes list of unhappy urban areas.

Stockton, in the state’s Central Valley, topped the list, followed by Miami, in Florida, Merced, Modesto and Sacramento — all in California.

“California was hit by the bursting of the housing bubble about as hard as can be imagined,” said Kurt Badenhausen, Forbes senior editor.

Read moreCalifornia Cities Top Most Miserable List – ‘As Goes California, So Goes The Nation’ Still Rings True

Housing Armageddon: 12 Facts Which Show That We Are In The Midst Of The Worst Housing Collapse In US History

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This is as I’ve said many, many times ‘The Greatest Depression’.

We are officially in the middle of the worst housing collapse in U.S. history – and unfortunately it is going to get even worse.

Already, U.S. housing prices have fallen further during this economic downturn (26 percent), then they did during the Great Depression (25.9 percent).

Approximately 11 percent of all homes in the United States are currently standing empty.  In fact, there are many new housing developments across the U.S. that resemble little more than ghost towns because foreclosures have wiped them out.

Mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures reached new highs in 2010, and it is being projected that banks and financial institutions will repossess at least a million more U.S. homes during 2011.

Meanwhile, unemployment is absolutely rampant and wage levels are going down at a time when mortgage lending standards have been significantly tightened.

That means that there are very few qualified buyers running around out there and that is going to continue to be the case for quite some time to come.

When you add all of those factors up, it leads to one inescapable conclusion.  The “housing Armageddon” that we have been experiencing since 2007 is going to get even worse in 2011.

Read moreHousing Armageddon: 12 Facts Which Show That We Are In The Midst Of The Worst Housing Collapse In US History

Bank Bailouts Explained (Must-See!!!)

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Added: 28. January 2011

US: Welcome to Foreclosureland!

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‘Recovery’ is ‘The Greatest Depression’!

Take the foreclosure tour here:

– A Frightening Satellite Tour Of America’s Foreclosure Wastelands (The Business Insider)

RealtyTrac is out with the total foreclosure numbers for 2010. On the whole things are getting worse.

72 percent of major metro areas saw an increase in foreclosure volume. Although some of the worst hit areas in Nevada, California and Florida improved from 2009, the foreclosure rate in these areas remains shockingly high. If not for some foreclosure suspensions due to the robosigning scandal, these numbers would have been higher.

For a frightening way to visualize the foreclosure crisis, we’re borrowing a Google maps technique described by Barry Ritholtz.

US 2010 Home Foreclosures Top 1 Million For First Time

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WASHINGTON Jan 13 (Reuters) – Banks seized more than a million U.S. homes in one year for the first time last year, despite a slowdown in the last few months as questions around foreclosure processing arose, a leading firm said on Thursday.

Banks foreclosed on 69,847 properties in December, bringing the year’s total to 1.05 million, topping the prior record of 918,000 homes seized in 2009, real estate data firm RealtyTrac said.

The number of foreclosure filings, which includes default notices, auctions and repossessions, was a record 2.9 million last year, including 257,747 filings in December.

“Total properties receiving foreclosure filings would have easily exceeded 3 million in 2010 had it not been for the fourth-quarter drop in foreclosure activity — triggered primarily by the continuing controversy surrounding foreclosure documentation and procedures that prompted many major lenders to temporarily halt some foreclosure proceedings,” said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac.

“Even so, 2010 foreclosure activity still hit a record high for our report, and many of the foreclosure proceedings that were stopped in late 2010,-which we estimate may be as high as a quarter million, will likely be re-started and add to the numbers in early 2011,” Saccacio said.

Read moreUS 2010 Home Foreclosures Top 1 Million For First Time

14 Eye Opening Statistics Which Reveal Just How Dramatically The US Economy Has Collapsed Since 2007

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There are always some that have a lot to celebrate:

– Warren Buffett’s $600 Million INTEREST-FREE Loan From US Taxpayers Or How The Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves At Taxpayers Expense

And how about ‘main street’?

– US Census: Number of Poor People May Be Millions Higher

– US: Food Stamps Used by Record 43.2 Million in October, Up 15 Percent From A Year Ago

– Geithner Warns Lawmakers That Failure to Raise US Debt Limit ‘Precipitates a Default by the United States’ With Catastrophic Economic Consequences

– US Consumer Bankruptcies Hit 5-year High in 2010

– Hiding The Greatest Depression: How The US Government Does It:

The real US unemployment rate is not 9.8% but between 25% and 30%. That is a depression level of job losses – so why doesn’t it look like a depression for many people?  How can so large of a statistical discrepancy exist, and how is it that holiday shopping malls are so crowded in a depression?

This is the Greatest Depression.


The Great Depression

Most Americans have become so accustomed to the “new normal” of continual economic decline that they don’t even remember how good things were just a few short years ago.  Back in 2007, unemployment was very low, good jobs were much easier to get, far fewer Americans were living in poverty or enrolled in welfare programs and government finances were in much better shape.  Of course most of this prosperity was fueled by massive amounts of debt, but at least times were better.  Unfortunately, things have really deteriorated over the last several years.  Since 2007, unemployment has skyrocketed, foreclosures have set new all-time records, personal bankruptcies have soared and U.S. government debt has gotten completely and totally out of control.  Poll after poll has shown that Americans are now far less optimistic about the future than they were in 2007.  It is almost as if the past few years have literally sucked the hope out of millions upon millions of Americans.

Sadly, our economic situation is continually getting worse.  Every month the United States loses more factories.  Every month the United States loses more jobs.  Every month the collective wealth of U.S. citizens continues to decline.  Every month the federal government goes into even more debt.  Every month state and local governments go into even more debt.

Unfortunately, things are going to get even worse in the years ahead.  Right now we look back on 2005, 2006 and 2007 as “good times”, but in a few years we will look back on 2010 and 2011 as “good times”.

We are in the midst of a long-term economic decline, and the very bad economic choices that we have been making as a nation for decades are now starting to really catch up with us.

So as horrible as you may think that things are now, just keep in mind that things are going to continue to deteriorate in the years ahead.

But for the moment, let us remember how far we have fallen over the past few years.  The following are 14 eye opening statistics which reveal just how dramatically the U.S. economy has collapsed since 2007….

#1 In November 2007, the official U.S. unemployment rate was just 4.7 percent.  Today, the official U.S. unemployment rate is 9.4 percent.

#2 In November 2007, 18.8% of unemployed Americans had been out of work for 27 weeks or longer.  Today that percentage is up to 41.9%.

#3 As 2007 began, there were just over 1 million Americans that had been unemployed for half a year or longer.  Today, there are over 6 million Americans that have been unemployed for half a year or longer.

#4 Nearly 10 million Americans now receive unemployment insurance, which is almost four times as many as were receiving it back in 2007.

#5 More than half of the U.S. labor force (55 percent) has “suffered a spell of unemployment, a cut in pay, a reduction in hours or have become involuntary part-time workers” since the “recession” began in December 2007.

#6 According to one analysis, the United States has lost a total of approximately 10.5 million jobs since 2007.

#7 As 2007 began, only 26 million Americans were on food stamps.  Today, an all-time record of 43.2 million Americans are enrolled in the food stamp program.

#8 In 2007, the U.S. government held a total of $725 billion in mortgage debt.  As of the middle of 2010, the U.S. government held a total of $5.148 trillion in mortgage debt.

#9 In the year prior to the “official” beginning of the most recent recession in 2007, the IRS filed just 684,000 tax liens against U.S. taxpayers.  During 2010, the IRS filed over a million tax liens against U.S. taxpayers.

#10 From the year 2000 through the year 2007, there were 27 bank failures in the United States.  From 2008 through 2010, there were 314 bank failures in the United States.

#11 According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the number of U.S. families with children living in homeless shelters increased from 131,000 to 170,000 between 2007 and 2009.

#12 In 2007, one poll found that 43 percent of Americans were living “paycheck to paycheck”.  Sadly, according to a survey released very close to the end of 2010, approximately 55 percent of all Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck.

#13 In 2007, the “official” federal budget deficit was just 161 billion dollars.  In 2010, the “official” federal budget deficit was approximately 1.3 trillion dollars.

#14 As 2007 began, the U.S. national debt was just under 8.7 trillion dollars.  Today, the U.S. national debt has just surpassed 14 trillion dollars and it continues to soar into the stratosphere.

So is there any hope that we can turn all of this around?

Unfortunately, the massive amount of debt that we have piled up as a society over the last several decades has made that impossible.

If you add up all forms of debt (government debt, business debt, individual debt), it comes to approximately 360 percent of GDP.  It is the biggest debt bubble in the history of the world.

If the federal government and our state governments stop borrowing and spending so much money, our economy would collapse.  But if they keep borrowing and spending so much money they will continually make the eventual economic collapse even worse.

We are in the terminal stages of the most horrific debt spiral the world has ever seen, and when the debt spiral gets stopped the house of cards is going to finally come down for good.

So enjoy these times while you still have them.  Yes, today is not nearly as prosperous as 2007 was, but today is most definitely a whole lot better than 2015 or 2020 is going to be.

Sadly, we could have avoided this financial disaster completely if only we had listened more carefully to those that founded this nation.  Once upon a time, Thomas Jefferson said the following….

I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government to the genuine principles of its Constitution; I mean an additional article, taking from the federal government the power of borrowing.

January 10th, 2011

Source: Economic Collapse Blog


Recovery: US home foreclosures jump in 3rd quarter

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Related information:

– Hiding The Greatest Depression: How The US Government Does It


A sign on a foreclosed home is seen in Los Angeles, California (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. home foreclosures jumped in the third quarter and banks’ efforts to keep borrowers in their homes dropped as the housing market continues to struggle, U.S. bank regulators said on Wednesday.

The regulators said one reason for the increase in foreclosures is that banks have “exhausted” options for keeping many delinquent borrowers in their homes through programs such as loan modifications.

Newly-initiated foreclosures increased to 382,000 in the third quarter, a 31.2 percent jump over the previous quarter and a 3.7 percent rise from the same quarter a year ago, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) said in a quarterly mortgage report.

The number of foreclosures in process increased to 1.2 million, a 4.5 percent increase from the second quarter and a 10.1 percent increase from a year ago, according to the regulators.

Read moreRecovery: US home foreclosures jump in 3rd quarter

US Home Values: $1.7 Trillion Drop in 2010 – $9 Trillion Drop Since June 2006!!!

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Peace is war and recovery is the Greatest Depression.

(Bloomberg) — U.S. home values are poised to drop by more than $1.7 trillion this year amid rising foreclosures and the expiration of homebuyer tax credits, said Zillow Inc., a closely held provider of home price data.

This year’s estimated decline, more than the $1.05 trillion drop in 2009, brings the loss since the June 2006 home-price peak to $9 trillion, the Seattle-based company said today in a statement.

“It’s definitely going to continue into 2011,” Stan Humphries, Zillow’s chief economist, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television today. “The back half of 2010 looked horrible and 2011 should look like the mirror image of that.”

The drop in home values pushed more buyers underwater, meaning they owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth, Zillow said. The percentage of homeowners with mortgages with so-called negative equity reached 23.2 percent in the third quarter, up from 21.8 percent at the end of 2009.

Housing demand has slumped since the start of the year as the government tax credit expired and unemployment hovers near 10 percent. Sales of existing homes in October fell to an annual pace of 4.43 million, compared with 5.98 million a year earlier and an annual average of 5.81 million over the past decade, the National Association of Realtors said Nov. 23. The median price was $170,500, down from $172,000 a year earlier.

Read moreUS Home Values: $1.7 Trillion Drop in 2010 – $9 Trillion Drop Since June 2006!!!

US: Foreclosed Homeowners Sue Banksters to Regain Homes

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See also:

– Wells Fargo Admits to Thousands of Foreclosure Mistakes (Daily Finance)

South Florida homeowners have filed suit against three major banks and are demanding more than compensation for what they say were illegal foreclosures.

They want their property back, according to a complaint filed this week in U.S. District Court in Miami.

Legal experts, however, say it’s highly unlikely the courts would force out new owners of these homes if they had bought them in good faith, as they would have protection under the law, said Nina Simon, director of litigation for the Center for Responsible Lending. That probably is particularly true in states like Florida, she said, where judges must approve foreclosure actions.

But if the lender or an affiliate still has the property? “Who knows?” Simon said. “A lot of stuff still is in inventory.”

Attorneys who filed the suit have requested it be certified as a class action lawsuit.

The suit, filed on behalf of three Miami-Dade County homeowners, names three major lenders: BAC Home Loans Servicing, a subsidiary of Bank of America; Deutsche Bank National Trust Company, and US Bank National Association. The action alleges that court documents used in the homeowners’ foreclosures were improperly notarized and false, because the agents testifying to the paperwork’s accuracy never personally reviewed it.

Spokesmen for Deutsche Bank and US Bank said their companies acted as trustees for the trusts holding the mortgage securities. So it was not them but the loan servicers, and the foreclosure law firms they employed, that handled the foreclosure procedures referenced in the lawsuit, they said.

Bank of America spokeswoman Shirley Norton said the lender, one of the largest in Florida and the nation, had not yet seen the suit. But in regards to other suits filed against the company, “we believe we have valid defenses against them and intend to vigorously defend against them,” she said.

Read moreUS: Foreclosed Homeowners Sue Banksters to Regain Homes

The Dylan Ratigan Show with Prof. William Black: ‘Fire Holder, Fire Geithner, Fire Bernanke’

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Complete administrations should have been fired a long time ago:

– Elite Puppet President Obama Exposed

Even firing complete administrations would not solve the problem, because they are all only puppets of the elitists that OWN governments (all big parties), the Federal Reserve, other central banks, the big corporations and the mass media worldwide.

– The Rothschild Documentary


Added: 25. October 2010

The fraudulent CEOs looted with impunity, were left in power, and were granted their fondest wish when Congress, at the behest of the Chamber of Commerce, Chairman Bernanke, and the bankers’ trade associations, successfully extorted the professional Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) to turn the accounting rules into a farce.

The FASB’s new rules allowed the banks (and the Fed, which has taken over a trillion dollars in toxic mortgages as wholly inadequate collateral) to refuse to recognize hundreds of billions of dollars of losses. This accounting scam produces enormous fictional “income” and “capital” at the banks.

The fictional income produces real bonuses to the CEOs that make them even wealthier. The fictional bank capital allows the regulators to evade their statutory duties under the Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) law to close the insolvent and failing banks.

See also:

– Prof. William Black’s Testimony on Lehman Bankruptcy: ‘Lehman Was The Leading Purveyor of Liars’ Loans in The World’ (Transcript & Video)

– Prof. William Black: Timothy Geithner ‘Burned Billions,’ Shafted Taxpayers on CIT Loan

Rep. Alan Grayson To FBI: Handcuff The Banksters

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October 14, 2010

Robert S. Mueller III
Director Federal Bureau of Investigation
935 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20535

Robert O’Neill
US Attorney
Central District of Florida
400 North Tampa Street, Suite 3200
Tampa, FL 33602

Dear US Attorney Robert O’Neill and Director Mueller,

When it comes to foreclosures, there is mounting evidence of a state of rampant lawlessness in Central Florida.  There are increasing signs that big banks routinely evade laws meant to protect homeowners, in many well-documented cases of ‘foreclosure fraud’.  Despite the demonstrated existence, for instance, of ‘robosigners’ signing affidavits attesting to documents that they have never seen, the parties engaging in such misconduct are not being brought to justice.  Big banks are mischaracterizing this as mere “technical problems,” and apologizing only where there is clear and very public evidence of harm.

It is not enough for big banks only to apologize for fraud, perjury, and even breaking and entering – when they are caught.  It is time for handcuffs. Fraud does not become legal just because a big bank does it.

On September 20, 2010, after my office found evidence of systemic foreclosure fraud perpetrated by big banks and foreclosure mills, I called for a halt to illegal foreclosures.

Since then, big banks such as Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, GMAC, PNC and others have suspended foreclosures or foreclosure sales.  These banks are still claiming that the massive fraud they have perpetrated amounts to nothing more than a series of technical mistakes.  This is absurd.  This is deliberate, systemic fraud, and it is a crime.

Read moreRep. Alan Grayson To FBI: Handcuff The Banksters

Attorneys General of All 50 US States Announce Foreclosure Probe

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The attorneys general of all 50 U.S. states announced Wednesday that they are joining to probe mortgage loan servicers who are accused of submitting false affidavits, but they stopped short of calling for a national moratorium.

The multistate investigation will initially focus on whether Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase, Ally Financial and other large mortgage companies made misleading or fraudulent statements to evict struggling borrowers from their homes.

Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoellersaid investigators initially will focus on whether industry employees – so-called “robo-signers” – signed off on thousands of foreclosures every month without reviewing the files as legally required. Homeowner attorneys also allege that lenders forged signatures and improperly notarized documents.

Such actions might have violated laws against unfair and deceptive trade practices, which could result in civil penalties. Typically the laws have been used to protect consumers from false advertising, but state officials say they could also be applied to foreclosure.

Law enforcement officials said they also could use their findings to press lenders to modify more loans for struggling homeowners or change how the industry processes foreclosures.

Read moreAttorneys General of All 50 US States Announce Foreclosure Probe

Bank of America Extends Freeze on Foreclosures to All 50 States

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Oct. 08 (Bloomberg) — Bank of America Corp., the biggest U.S. lender, extended a freeze on foreclosures to all 50 states as concern spread among federal and local officials that homes are being seized based on false data.

“We will stop foreclosure sales until our assessment has been satisfactorily completed,” the Charlotte, North Carolina- based company said today in a statement. “Our ongoing assessment shows the basis for foreclosure decisions is accurate.”

Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Ally Financial Inc. already froze foreclosures in 23 states where courts supervise home seizures amid allegations that employees used unverified or false data to speed the process. Bank of America’s new policy extends its moratorium to the entire nation, and the announcement spurred more demands from public officials and community groups for other banks to follow suit.

“We have a lot of people raising questions,” Bank of America Chief Executive Officer Brian T. Moynihan said today in an interview in Washington before a scheduled speech to the National Press Club. The review “will take a few weeks” and is an effort “to clear the air,” he said.

PNC Financial Services Group Inc. halted sales of foreclosed homes for a month to review documents in its mortgage servicing procedures, according to an Oct. 4 memo the bank sent to lawyers handling the lender’s foreclosures.

Bank of America rose 3 cents to $13.34 at 12:57 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares lost 12 percent this year through yesterday.

Fraud Concern

At least seven states are investigating claims that home lenders and loan servicers took shortcuts to speed foreclosures. Attorneys general in Ohio and Connecticut have said some of the practices used by banks to take away homes may amount to fraud. Acting Comptroller of the Currency John Walsh last week asked the nation’s seven biggest lenders to review foreclosures for defective documents, spokesman Bryan Hubbard said.

Read moreBank of America Extends Freeze on Foreclosures to All 50 States

US: Foreclosures Rise; Bank Repossessions Set New Record

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War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Recovery is collapse.

US foreclosure activity rose in August from the previous month, and banks and lenders took ownership from homeowners at a record pace, according to a new report released Thursday.

us_foreclosure_home_for_sale
Fuse | Getty ImagesForeclosure fillings rose 4.18 percent in August from July.

Bank repossessions, often the final step in the foreclosure process after a home fails to sell at auction, increased about 3 percent from the month before to 95,364, a record high. At the same time the number of properties that received default notices-the first step in the foreclosure process-decreased 1 percent from a month ago and fell 30 percent from a year ago, a sign that lenders are focusing on their backlog of foreclosure inventory before tackling new distressed loans, according to foreclosure listing website RealtyTrac, which released the report.

Overall, foreclosure fillings rose 4.18 percent in August from the previous month, and were down 5.48 percent from a year ago. In all, 338,836 properties were in the foreclosure process. One in 381 U.S. households received a foreclosure notice in August. (Foreclosure notices are defined as a default notice, auction sale notice or bank repossession.)

“There is a buildup in delinquent loans that are not in foreclosure,” said Rick Sharga, senior vice president of RealtyTrac, adding that banks and lenders are slowing the process to avoid a drop in home prices. “It’s a managed slowdown more than anything else,” he said.

“The underlining conditions haven’t improved,” Sharga added, referring to high unemployment and falling home prices in certain markets.

Read moreUS: Foreclosures Rise; Bank Repossessions Set New Record

Deutsche Bank: ‘America’s Foreclosure King’ – How The US Became A PR Disaster

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Read the article in German here.

And Joseph Ackermann was at Bilderberg 2010:

– Bilderberg 2010: Final (Official) List of Participants

Part 1: How the United States Became a PR Disaster for Deutsche Bank

deutsche-bank-ceo-josef-ackermann
According to real estate expert Steve Dilbert, “some 85 to 90 percent of all outstanding mortgages in the USA are ultimately controlled by four banks, either as trustees or owners of a trust company. Deutsche Bank is one of the four.” Criticized publicly for his company’s role in the foreclosures, Deutsche-Bank CEO Josef Ackermann (pictured) responded: “It’s painful to look at these houses.”

Deutsche Bank is deeply involved in the American real estate crisis. After initially profiting from subprime mortgages, it is now arranging to have many of these homes sold at foreclosure auctions. The damage to the bank’s image in the United States is growing.

The small city of New Haven, on the Atlantic coast and home to elite Yale University, is only two hours northeast of New York City. It is a particularly beautiful place in the fall, during the warm days of Indian summer.

But this idyllic image has turned cloudy of late, with a growing number of houses in New Haven looking like the one at 130 Peck Street: vacant for months, the doors nailed shut, the yard derelict and overgrown and the last residents ejected after having lost the house in a foreclosure auction. And like 130 Peck Street, many of these homes are owned by Germany’s Deutsche Bank.

“In the last few years, Deutsche Bank has been responsible for far and away the most foreclosures here,” says Eva Heintzelman. She is the director of the ROOF Project, which addresses the consequences of the foreclosure crisis in New Haven in collaboration with the city administration. According to Heintzelman, Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank plays such a significant role in New Haven that the city’s mayor requested a meeting with bank officials last spring.

The bank complied with his request, to some degree, when, in April 2009, a Deutsche Bank executive flew to New Haven for a question-and-answer session with politicians and aid organizations. But the executive, David Co, came from California, not from Germany. Co manages the Frankfurt bank’s US real estate business at a relatively unknown branch of a relatively unknown subsidiary in Santa Ana.

How many houses was he responsible for, Co was asked? “Two thousand,” he replied. But then he corrected himself, saying that 2,000 wasn’t the number of individual properties, but the number of securities packages being managed by Deutsche Bank. Each package contains hundreds of mortgages. So how many houses are there, all told, he was asked again? Co could only guess. “Millions,” he said.

Deutsche Bank Is Considered ‘America’s Foreclosure King’

Deutsche Bank’s tracks lead through the entire American real estate market. In Chicago, the bank foreclosed upon close to 600 large apartment buildings in 2009, more than any other bank in the city. In Cleveland, almost 5,000 houses foreclosed upon by Deutsche Bank were reported to authorities between 2002 and 2006. In many US cities, the complaints are beginning to pile up from homeowners who lost their properties as a result of a foreclosure action filed by Deutsche Bank. The German bank is berated on the Internet as “America’s Foreclosure King.”

Read moreDeutsche Bank: ‘America’s Foreclosure King’ – How The US Became A PR Disaster

US Foreclosure Rates Surge, Biggest Jump In 5 Years; ‘More Than 1 Million Bank Repossessions This Year’

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There is no recovery!

foreclosure-rates-surge-biggest-jump-in-5-years

LOS ANGELES (AP) – A record number of U.S. homes were lost to foreclosure in the first three months of this year, a sign banks are starting to wade through the backlog of troubled home loans at a faster pace, according to a new report.

RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday that the number of U.S. homes taken over by banks jumped 35 percent in the first quarter from a year ago. In addition, households facing foreclosure grew 16 percent in the same period and 7 percent from the last three months of 2009.

More homes were taken over by banks and scheduled for a foreclosure sale than in any quarter going back to at least January 2005, when RealtyTrac began reporting the data, the firm said.

“We’re right now on pace to see more than 1 million bank repossessions this year,” said Rick Sharga, a RealtyTrac senior vice president.

Read moreUS Foreclosure Rates Surge, Biggest Jump In 5 Years; ‘More Than 1 Million Bank Repossessions This Year’

US: ‘The Coming Wave is the Commercial Foreclosures’

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The commercial real estate crisis will not be a wave, but a tsunami that will dwarf the subprime mortgage crisis.

The 5-foot alligator lurking in the algae-green waters of the community swimming pool was not the worst thing code-enforcement officers have found in recent years at AAA Apartments in Cocoa.

Bathrooms infested with mold. Walls with gaping holes where air conditioners had been ripped out. Garbage and trash strewn about the 52-unit complex. The city began issuing code-violation fines in 2007, back at the beginning of the housing slump, and the apartments’ co-owners soon owed the city $1.8 million — more than three times the current list price of the property, and enough money to motivate the now-former co-owners to try bribing a code-enforcement officer.

AAA Apartments, now bank-owned, may be an example of things to come. As home foreclosures continue to mount throughout Central Florida, code-enforcement officers say apartments, condominiums and other commercial buildings are being abandoned by their owners and repossessed by banks in growing numbers.

“The coming wave is the commercial foreclosures,” said Mike Rhodes, code-enforcement division director for the city of Orlando.

Trepp LLC, a New York-based provider of commercial-mortgage information, recently reported seven Orange County apartment properties as being in foreclosure: Mallard Cove Apartments, Orlando; Cornerstone Apartments, Orlando; Nob Hill Apartments, Winter Park; Seville Place Apartments, Orlando; Woodbridge Apartments, Winter Park; Windover of Orlando, Orlando; and Oak Cluster West Apartments, Orlando.

Read moreUS: ‘The Coming Wave is the Commercial Foreclosures’

US: Homeowners Facing Foreclosure Take Own Lives

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PHILADELPHIA (CBS 3) ? The foreclosure crisis in Philadelphia is now becoming a matter of life and death. Eyewitness News has learned that in the past month, two homeowners took their own lives before sheriff’s deputies arrived to tell them that they were being evicted.

On March 5, deputies arriving to post an eviction notice on Lynda Clark’s South Philadelphia home found she had hanged herself.

Read moreUS: Homeowners Facing Foreclosure Take Own Lives

US: Foreclosures, Homes ‘Under Water’, Mortgage Delinquencies

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– Metro Atlanta foreclosures set new monthly record (Atlanta Journal Constitution):

Metro Atlanta’s foreclosure problem keeps getting worse.

The number of foreclosure notices this month — 12,568 — set a new record for metro Atlanta, according to data just released by Equity Depot.

Foreclosure notices in the 13-county metro area jumped 22 percent when compared with February and 24 percent compared with March of last year, Alpharetta-based Equity Depot said.

This month’s number also is greater than the previous monthly record of 12,318 notices, set in September of last year.

– Foreclosures are still on the Rise in Illinois (The Chicago 77):

Foreclosures in Illinois increased 22% in February, 2010. The high foreclosure rate can be attributed to the high unemployment rate and declining home prices. With the declining market many people are finding themselves underwater in their homes. Meaning . . . they owe more on their home than their home is worth.
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Lucky for those that live in Illinois, the state had the lovely distinction of having 17,312 properties in foreclosure, which is the fourth-highest state nationwide. California ranked number one

– Foreclosures: February ties November for highest number of foreclosure filings (Daily Press):

Foreclosure filings were reported on 134 properties in Hampton last month.

That’s roughly one for every 449 housing units, ranking it 12th highest among Virginia cities and counties for its foreclosure rate, according to RealtyTrac’s latest foreclosure report.

Across the Peninsula, foreclosure filings were reported on 361 properties. That’s ties November for the highest monthly number recorded.

February’s 361 filings are up 18 percent from January and up 57 percent from February 2009.

–  Connecticut Foreclosures Up 3 Percent in February (New York Times):

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A new report says the number of foreclosures in Connecticut increased 3.4 percent from January to February, despite a national decline.

Foreclosure tracking firm RealtyTrac Inc. released its monthly report Thursday. It says there were nearly 2,300 foreclosure filings in the state last month, compared with about 2,200 in January.

Total foreclosures nationwide decreased 2 percent from January to February, raising hopes that the housing crisis may be ending. RealtyTrac says more than 308,000 households nationwide, or one in every 418 homes, received a foreclosure-related notice in February.

– Md. foreclosure filings skyrocket in February (Washington Examiner):

Prince George’s County saw nearly 1,800 foreclosure filings last month — about one-third of Maryland’s total — as state and federal officials scramble to find a solution to the unrelenting mortgage crisis.

Nine of the 10 Washington-area ZIP codes with the most foreclosure filings in February were in Prince George’s. The county’s filings increased 71 percent from last February, pushing Maryland to the 10th-worst rate in the country, according to the online foreclosure tracking company RealtyTrac.

Just a few years ago, Northern Virginia was ground zero for the foreclosure crisis; Prince William County had more than 6,500 actual foreclosures in 2008, according to data from the county’s assessments office. Over the past 16 months, though, the crisis has shifted from the Virginia suburbs to Maryland.

– Foreclosure starts up nearly 20 percent in California (Central Valley Business Times):

After reaching the lowest level in a year in January, Notice of Defaults, the start of the foreclosure process, increased by 19.7 percent in February, according to a report Monday from ForeclosureRadar Inc., a Discovery Bay-based foreclosure information company that says it tracks every California foreclosure.

– More than half of mortgaged homes in St. Lucie, Martin are ‘under water’ (Vero Beach Press-Journal):

More than half of mortgaged residential properties in St. Lucie and Martin counties are “under water,” a recent report by a company that tracks home sales, price trends and foreclosures shows.

The report by California-based First American CoreLogic found that 56 percent, or 62,696, of all residential properties with a mortgage in the Port St. Lucie Metropolitan Statistical Area were in a negative equity position for the fourth quarter of 2009. That’s more than double the national rate of 24 percent.

The Port St. Lucie Metropolitan Statistical Area encompasses St. Lucie and Martin counties. First American did not report similar data for Indian River County.

Another 3 percent, or 3,345, in the two-county area had equity of less than 5 percent.

– Jacksonville mortgage delinquencies rise above 10% (Florida Times-Union):

The number of Jacksonville homeowners who have fallen behind on mortgage payments rose steadily over the past three years and today stands at more than 10 percent, according to a national credit monitoring company.

Mortgage delinquencies of 60 days or more were 2.2 percent at the end of 2006 – a figure that grew to 10.3 percent by the close of 2009, according to TransUnion LLC, a company that maintains credit histories on about 500 million people internationally.

New Obama Administration Program Will Pay Homeowners to Sell at a Loss

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In an effort to end the foreclosure crisis, the Obama administration has been trying to keep defaulting owners in their homes. Now it will take a new approach: paying some of them to leave.

This latest program, which will allow owners to sell for less than they owe and will give them a little cash to speed them on their way, is one of the administration’s most aggressive attempts to grapple with a problem that has defied solutions.

More than five million households are behind on their mortgages and risk foreclosure. The government’s $75 billion mortgage modification plan has helped only a small slice of them. Consumer advocates, economists and even some banking industry representatives say much more needs to be done.

For the administration, there is also the concern that millions of foreclosures could delay or even reverse the economy’s tentative recovery — the last thing it wants in an election year.

Read moreNew Obama Administration Program Will Pay Homeowners to Sell at a Loss