Common Sense Prevails

Last Friday, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that two banks did not have the right to seize homes from two parties because they could not prove the banks owned the mortgage at the time of foreclosure. While this will undoubtedly slow down the foreclosure process and reduce the inventory of properties for investors who make money off foreclosed homes (of which I am one), I have to applaud this decision. It seems like a pretty basic idea to me - in order to foreclosure on a home, you must be able to show proof you are the mortgage holder.

The Next Mortage Crisis: Option ARMS

Now that the subprime loan debacle is pretty much behind us, the next threat on the horizon for the mortgage industry are Option-ARMs and Alt-A loans. Alt-A loans are loans made to people just above the sub-prime cutoff. Option-ARMs are loans that allow the borrow to choose from a variety of different payments each months, including payments that are less than the interest that has accrued during the previous month. As the graph here shows, a large wave of these loans are getting ready to reset (have their interest rate adjusted) in the next two years.

Reuters has a story about the Option-ARMs here.

Many Updates

The big news in the real estate market this weekend, of course, is the government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I'm not sure what to make of this, other than the fact that I think they waited too long. If they were going to do something, I think it should have been done long ago and maybe some of the damage to the housing market could have been avoided. I think we'll have to wait to see how things play out before we know if this is a good move or bad move or even if it was a good move made too late. The stock market loves the news, but that doesn't really mean anything as the market tends to focus on the short term view.

I received my second payment from Hard Money loan #3. Glad to see that the borrower is paying on time, although only two payments do not constitute a trend. But it's only a one year loan, so it's already 1/6 over.

I am expecting a monthly statement from the operations at Multi #1 any day now. This month should also include the first profit distribution.

And finally, Rental #1, the property in Tulsa that I sold for a loss recently, is still not quite wrapped up. I spoke with the property manager on the phone early last week and was told everything was paid and the remainder of my deposit was being sent to me. Last Thursday, I received an email from the PMs that included scans of all the receipts for repairs and a scan of the refund check. None of it has actually shown up in the mail yet though, so I'll wait to write about that until I actually get it. Back in May, I sent them a $3,000 deposit. Their estimate of the repair work was $1,500. Figuring that plus the $100 a month management fee they charged (although they only had it for 1 or 2 months before it was sold), I was expecting a refund of somewhere close to $1,500. The email showed the check to be just over $500, so obviously there were more expenses or they did not estimate the needed repairs very well. I'll go over it it more detail when the hard copies arrive in the mail.

Going On Vacation

I'm heading off to Kansas today for the Thanksgiving holiday, so there won't be any posts for a while. My PC also crashed and I'm having an extremely difficult time re-installing Windows, so even when I get back, it might be a while before I can post again..

Two quick notes:

Goldman Sachs today announced that mortgage lenders may need to scale back lending by up to $2 trillion dollars which could lead to a "substantial recession."

In response to the mortgage meltdown, the House voted to strengthen the rules on mortgage lenders. I don't have enough information now on the details of this particular bill, but I do think something needs to be done to help prevent the current situation from happening again. One thing that troubles me is that the bill prohibits balloon payments. As a private or hard-money lender, all of the mortgages and loans that I make have balloon payments. They are interest-only loans with the entire principle due in a balloon payment at the end of the term. However, I am not sure if this bill would apply to private money lenders, so it may not even affect people like me.

Bankrupt AMH's Property Tax Checks Bounce

I heard about this from Savvy Saver - American Home Mortgage, the subprime lender who is in serious financial difficulty, has apparently been bouncing checks that it sent out to pay mortgage holder's property taxes in Maryland. Curiously, I can't find this story on CNN or MSNBC, but there is an article here. I did find a story from three days earlier about Freddie Mac trying and failing to take over loan servicing from AMH. However, AMH filed for bankruptcy protection before Freddie Mac could get the servicing rights.

There are a couple scary things about this. First, the escrow accounts of mortgage holders are supposed to be get separate from the other funds of the business. These accounts are protected by state law from bankruptcy proceedings, but there is a possibility the accounts were incorrectly frozen when AMH filed for bankruptcy. Being of a more cynical nature, I tend to think the company "borrowed" money from these accounts as their financial crisis escalated. We'll have to wait to see how this thing plays out to find out for sure. However, the big losers in this mess are the people whose property taxes were not paid. They are still responsible for the taxes and will need to find some way to pay the bill.

The second scary thing about this is this quote:

Anthony McCarthy, a spokesman for Mayor Sheila Dixon, said the city does not plan to notify the affected homeowners. They will get a notice in November along with all other delinquent taxpayers if the problem isn't resolved by then.

So your government officials aren't going to notify you until your taxes are past due and the penalties and fees have started accruing. That's nice. Instead of giving people an extra two months notice and more time to find a way to come up with the tax payment, they'll just hope the problem goes away by then. Yup, the mayor sure does care about her constituents.

Commentary On The Subprime Meltdown

...from the comics pages:

Foreclosures Up Again - Government Bail Out?

CNN is reporting that RealtyTrac says foreclosures were up another 9 percent in July over June and up 93% over the same month last year. They originally predicted a 33% increase over last year in foreclosures for the year, but have now raised that forecast to 60%.

But more ominous is this story from msnbc.com. Congress is looking at bailing out homeowners and lenders. Right now, it seems most of the possible action seems to be related to modifying the rules of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to allow them greater flexibility in the types of loans they can insure. I don't know about you, but I get nervous whenever the government decides to step in and "fix" a problem.

And in other mortgage related moves, there is this story that says Warren Buffett is considering buying part of Countrywide's mortgage business. Buffett has a pretty good track record at picking up good companies and discounted prices..

The Mortgage Meltdown Fallout Continues

Reuters reports that American Home Mortgage Investment, a REIT, could no longer fund loans and may be forced to liquidate its assets. This comes after last Friday's announcement that it would not be paying its quarterly dividend to shareholders. The company is unable to fund $300 million of loans it already committed to make on Monday. It is expected to be unable to fund another $450 to $500 million in loans today. Shares of the REIT closed at $1.04 on Monday, down from a high of $36.36 in December. But this is the important part of the article:

"It is raising concerns about the whole mortgage market because American Home really didn't do anything in subprime," said Sam Rahman, a portfolio manager at Baring Asset Management Inc.

Stop and think about the full ramifications of this. On the personal level, how many home buyers are going to not be able to purchase their houses now because AHM can't fund the loans? How many shareholders have lost substantial chunks of money due to the drop in the share price - never mind the stopping of the dividend. And how many mutual funds had positions in this company and will also lose money? And all this from a company that had very little, if anything, to do with subprime lending and accounted for roughly 2.5 percent of the U.S. mortgage market.

And then there are the collateral effects. Mortgage insurers are getting hit. MGIC Investment Corp. and Radian Group Inc. said they were going to write off a combined $1.03 billion investment in the subprime mortgage arena. Add this on top of the other $1.4 billion loss I wrote about a couple days ago and we are starting to talk about some serious money. Does anyone still think this isn't anything to worry about? That it won't have ramifications in our broader economy? Just think about those people whose loans won't get funded. Their purchases will probably fall through. This may cause them to cancel the sale of their existing homes. Moving companies won't get hired, new furniture won't be bought, money stops changing hands. The effects trickle down.

So what's a real estate investor to do? If you invest in REITs or other real estate related stocks or mutual funds, take a close look at the company's portfolio and how much exposure they have to adjustable mortgages. Check to see how much cash they have on hand and how close they are to being maxed out on their credit lines. Check the rate of defaults and late payments on their loans. Are they rising? All this information is available in the reports companies are required to file with the SEC. If you prefer to invest in properties, now is the time to stick to basics - buy below fair market value (significantly below if possible because FMV can drop like a rock in some places). Be sure the property will positive cash flow when rented at or below market rates. Don't count on appreciation or tax deductions to turn your negative cash flow into a positive cash flow. Like all else, this period will pass, but you need to make sure you can weather the storm.

Subprime Mortgage Meltdown Begins To Gather Steam

The meltdown in the subprime mortgage market is gathering steam and beginning to be widely felt. Yesterday, Bear Stearns told its clients that two of its hedge funds were now worthless.

Bear Stearns, the nation's fifth-largest investment bank, began disclosing in March that the two hedge funds had sustained heavy losses tied to subprime loans extended to risky borrowers. At the time, its High-Grade Structured Credit Enhanced Leveraged Fund was worth about $638 million -- and now has no value.

Meanwhile, the larger and less-leveraged High-Grade Structured Credit Fund lost 91 percent of its value. It was worth about $925 million before taking on losses in March.

Ouch! That's a total loss of 1.4 billion dollars! At this is just at one firm - and a firm that was considered the "pre-eminent Wall Street firm dealing in mortgage-backed securities." And those funds were "High Grade", meaning they was supposed to invest mostly in "highly rated" securities. Wait until the other firms start reporting. Wait until more of these subprime mortgages have their interest rates reset in the next couple of years.

AZ Number 2 In Subprime Mortgages

The Arizona Republic today had a front page article that said Arizona ranks number 2 in the nation for percentage of subprime mortgages, second only to Nevada. But the delinquency rate on those loans in Arizona is 9.26 percent, which is less than the national average of 13.3 percent.

What does this mean? I think it means the worst is still yet to come for the Arizona housing market. I expect foreclosures to continue to increase, especially since the recently announced inflation rate was higher than expect, meaning the Federal Reserve likely won't lower rates for some time and may still raise them.

Of course, one person's bad news is another person's good news. If you are looking to pick up houses for cheap through foreclosure and preforeclosure sales, start amassing your funds now to go on a buying spree.