Let me start out by saying that I generally try and stay away from political comments. I prefer to stay on topic and discuss the facts, but this time I have no choice but to comment on politics. This latest round of political games has my blood boiling and I can’t hold back any longer.

Congress just passed another $1 billion dollar emergency homeowners relief fund. You can read all about it on MarketWatch, here is the link: www.marketwatch.com.

Were shall I start?

I guess I will start out with the phrase “emergency homeowners relief”. Emergency, really??? The emergency was almost two years ago when they pasted the TARP funds to help, if you remember, homeowners and bail out the banks and financial institutions, but once the TARP funds were approved by congress, they decided it would be better to just buy stocks in the companies they chose to keep solvent. It didn’t seem to be that much of an emergency to congress in 2008, otherwise they would have spent that money on what they told us was the reason in the first place to pass the TARP funds. I think the only reason it is an emergency right now, is because the midterm elections are in 4 months.

So now that we understand the congressional definition of an “Emergency” we can then start to talk about the facts. They are as follows:  More...

In the 11th inning, the House of Representatives finally passed the closing date extension to September 30th for the first time homebuyer’s $8,000 tax credit. This is good news as an expected 180,000 transaction that were successfully signed and finalized by the April 30th deadline that supposed to close by June 30th, didn’t close.

There are many reasons why these transactions are taking so long, but the primary reason is because the most of those transactions are short sales and getting to the closing table with short sales can be a headache to say the least. But now they have an additional 90 days to rap them up and close by September 30th.  More...

You may have heard this term thrown around lately, but what the heck is it? Shadow Inventory is basically inventory that hasn’t made it to the market yet. There are several components to Shadow Inventory.

First of all, the banks are short staffed, so they can’t file NOD (Notice of Defaults) and complete the foreclosure process as fast as new borrowers are falling into default. The average borrower in foreclosure has been delinquent for 438 days before actually being evicted, up from 251 days in January 2008, according to LPS Applied Analytics. That is the first part to “Shadow Inventory”.

Secondly, a lot of lenders that are taking properties back through the foreclosure process are supposedly holding on to them through holding companies and not releasing them to the market. Their reasoning is actually a valid one. They are afraid that if they release too much inventory to soon, housing values could plummet. And I agree with that assumption, but I am one who prefers to rip the band aid off quickly.

I have heard and read, but never confirmed that there is an estimated 3-7 million units in Shadow Inventory just lingering out there. My question is, how long can they hold into all that inventory.

Another component that I think needs to be added to the overall Shadow Inventory count is all the properties out there that the banks are in the midst of negotiating loan modifications. Half of all loan modifications have defaulted so far. If one was to think about it, shouldn’t those properties also be considered Shadow Inventory? I know what some of you are thinking; “But Mike, they are not in foreclosure yet”. While that may be true, I would say that if it wasn’t for the current administration giving the lenders an incentive to work out loan modifications, that they would be, and let’s face it, statistically, half of them will be shortly.

So far all I have mentioned is residential properties, but what about commercial. Office vacancy rate is currently falling as we speak. According to CoStar GROUP there is an additional 420 million sq ft vacant office space that is currently being leased, but not occupied. The reason for this is all the layoffs from large corporations that are still paying on the leases, but laid all the employees off that used to occupy those desks. What will happen when those leases expire?

BofA announced Wednesday that it would reduce mortgage balances by as much as 30% for homeowners who were upside down and got their loan from Countrywide. While BofA may only be doing this to avoid a predatory lending lawsuit from the Massachusetts AG, Martha Coakley, this is what the market has needed. The current, or should I say previous loan modification programs have thus far been a horrid failure with only 4% - 8% of all modification being approved and we are already seeing high default rates on those modifications.

Here are some of the details of the BofA program:

• Invitation only: the bank will contact you if you qualify
• The program is for Countrywide borrowers only
• Loan balance must be at least 120% of the estimated market value
• Borrower must be at least 60 days overdue
• Borrower must demonstrate financial hardship  More...