California cities eye plan to seize mortgages | NBC News

Typically, eminent domain has been used to clear property for infrastructure projects like highways, schools and sewage plants. In this case, supporters say, the public purpose is served because communities battered by foreclosures have seen tax rolls decimated and services gutted and have suffered economic blight.

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Homeowners to receive up to $125,000 – money.cnn.com

NEW YORK CNNMoney — Homeowners who were victims of foreclosure abuses during 2009 and 2010 could receive more than $125,000 from lenders as part of an Independent Foreclosure Review that is being overseen by two government agencies.The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency OCC and the Federal Reserve laid out the framework in which borrowers will receive compensation for a wide range of foreclosure abuses and errors that occurred as a result of robo-signing.

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Confidential Federal Audits Accuse Five Biggest Mortgage Firms Of Defrauding Taxpayers | Huffington Post

The audits accuse the five major lenders of violating the False Claims Act, a Civil War-era law crafted as a weapon against firms that swindle the government…

The audits conclude that the banks effectively cheated taxpayers by presenting the Federal Housing Administration with false claims: They filed for federal reimbursement on foreclosed homes that sold for less than the outstanding loan balance using defective and faulty documents.

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Paul Ryan’s Budget Arithmetic Makes No Sense | zero hedge

How is lowering the corporate tax rate going to change that exactly? Uh, it’s not. What it would do, is create a wider budget gap and send more politicians scratching their heads over why. So, it’s really just a super-bad and dumb idea.

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RealtyTrac’s Sharga: Banks still holding 70% of REO from market « HousingWire

The major kink in the housing market’s recovery, and for the macro economy overall, is the work left to be done on homes currently in the foreclosure process, those about to enter it and the amount of repossessed homes the banks must shed. Striking a proper balance on how to mange this shadow inventory of foreclosures is vital for the banks to show a healthy balance sheet while not dumping too many distressed properties onto the market, further dragging down home prices and values.

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Thanks to Victoria Kuo for bringing this article to our attention- Ed.

What Brian and Ilsa Said To Their Bank: “Show Me The Note” | Zero Hedge

Rat Bastard!

On Thursday, when they spoke, the bank executive was sweetness and light—she told them that Ilsa and Brian qualified for HAMP, that they would get refinanced, that they would not have to pay the difference in mortgage of the last three months—“Your lower mortgage rate is locked in!”

And as to the $84 penalty fee, which had driven Brian in particular up the wall: It was waived.

Ilsa told me, “It was the nicest conversation we’ve ever had with a bank executive.”

The executive promised to have the papers drawn up, ready to be signed before November 1.

That’s right: November first. After dicking them around for months on end, Wells Fargo all of a sudden went from turtle-speed to light-speed—to warp-speed—boom!—just like that. They didn’t even engage thrusters, Captain—it was warp drive the instant Brian e-mailed that threat.

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Finding a Good Financial Bill in 2,300 Pages | NYTimes.com

I did something I doubt few people have dared. I took the liberty of a 13-hour flight back from Asia earlier this week to read all 2,300-plus pages of the bill. Yes, all of them.

My law professor verdict: There are many things to applaud in this bill and much in there that will substantially enhance the government’s power to regulate the financial industry. On the whole, if you think that the financial industry needs more supervision and financial regulators more tools, you should be relatively happy. If you are an advocate of big world changing ideas like breaking up the banks, you will be less so.

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Homes Below the 37th Parallel Most Likely to Have “Underwater” Mortgages | Nielsen Wire

Generally speaking, the 37th parallel acts as the line of demarcation between the positive equity metros (north) and the negative equity metros (south). This parallel is located at approximately the border of Virginia and North Carolina or Utah and Arizona.

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Bailout Cop Barofsky Says TARP Still Not Working | Money.CNN.com

…the 22 banks that got the most aid from the government’s various bailout programs have cut their small business loan balances by $12.5 billion since April.

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The latest complete report on the Troubled Asset Relief Program is available here (224 pages).

NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION – MOVE YOUR MONEY!!!

US foreclosures’ flurry of activity | fst

The effects of the credit crunch have been clear for all to see: from bank failings to government bailouts, to a full-blown economic fallout, the recession continues to hang over us – now with just spots of recovery on the horizon.

As such, the American people are now facing unprecedented levels of layoffs and cut backs, and US mortagage foreclosure filings remain near a record high. This comes despite news that foreclosure filings had actually fallen for a second straight month last month, largely thanks to ongoing government efforts to keep borrowers in their homes. But, while foreclosures in September were down four percent when compared with August, they remain up by 29 percent from the year-earlier month.

The RealtyTrac US Foreclosure Market Report, which is behind the current findings, provides a count of the total number of properties with at least one foreclosure filing reported during the month (or quarter). The data, collected from ore than 2000 counties nationwide, accounts for more than 90 percent of the US population.

As a result, for those people actually facing foreclosure filings – 343,638 in all throughout September – which include mortgage default notices, house auctions and home repossessions by banks, the problem seems both very intense and very, very real…

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Time Magazine’s Justin Fox: “Some Financial Market Conspiracies Are Real” | zero hedge

If you’ve swallowed the blue pill, this article will be too strong:

Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge blew the whistle on Goldman’s high-frequency trading and other frontrunning activities, and has also been called a conspiracy theorist.

PhD economist, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, and former Wall Street Journal editor Paul Craig Roberts says that the government and mainstream media are lying to the American public about how bad the economic situation really is.

PhD economist Dean Baker said in February that the true purpose of the bank rescues is “a massive redistribution of wealth to the bank shareholders and their top executives”.

PhD economist Michael Hudson says that the financial “parasites” have killed the American economy, and they are “sucking as much money out” as they can before “jumping ship”.

PhD economist Michel Chossudovsky says that the giant banks which received the most bailout money also finance a portion of the government’s debt, and are exercising their power as creditors to buy public assets for a song and to impose IMF-style austerity measures on the U.S. government.

If you want to understand so you can make a way for you and your loved ones read this.

Living Large: Wells Fargo Executive Squats in Foreclosed House | WSJ

Wells Fargo has worked with only 11% of troubled home owners to prevent foreclosure. Now this. Hmmmm…..

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P.S. Make sure you look at the pictures of the house.

As a Foreclosure Judge, Arthur Schack Tosses Out Cases, Brooklyn Style | NYTimes.com

There is hope. At least one judge is holding the banks to the same laws we have to follow. Know a judge,? Tell her or him to read this.

“If you are going to take away someone’s house, everything should be legal and correct,” he said. “I’m a strange guy — I don’t want to put a family on the street unless it’s legitimate.”

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