Or filter by symbol:
cfish's Comments Stream Stats
- 31 Comments, 9
, 1 
- Total Comment Stream rating - = 8
- Free E-Newsletters
- About Seeking Alpha
- About Us
- Contact Us
- What's New
- Readers Feedback
- Advertise With Us
- Contributors
- Contribute an Article
- Feature Your Book
- Our Contributors
- Anonymous Contributions
- Dispute an Article?
- Legal
- Terms of Use
- Privacy
- Copyright
Signs That Foreclosures May Be Peaking
The reason that banks will try to work them out (probably in vain) is that foreclosure process cost a lot more. The lawyer fee, cleanup, realtor/listing fee, property taxes for the duration. Typically it takes 9 months for a house to get re-listed after foreclosure. right now we have about 10 months of supply on the market. Add that together means 17months of no cash flow on top of all these costs.
If it ends up a short sale, they might very well lose over half of the money they invested. It'd be better off to work it out and take a 20% loss instead.
Roubini Now Says House Prices to Fall 30%
I do think people will walk once it becomes the norm. I would, if I had a house.
Ten Comments on Housing
haha.
Closer Look At The ARMs Reset Problem
It takes 90 days to go through a typical foreclosure process for a home to be REO. After that, typically, banks hire someone to "clean it up" and list it with a Realtor - which then will sit on a market of over 10 months of supply to move. Most banks probably have too many foreclosures to go through all these stages. What will they do? They have many options, and I believe whatever they might do will end up making the house listed cheaper on the market.
Then the snowball starts rolling for real. More mortgages will be underwater, making more people walk away.
Closer Look At The ARMs Reset Problem
How Far Will House Prices Fall? Implications From the Latest WSJ Survey
Housing Bust Puts the Squeeze On Retirement Plans
When times get tough, speculators like to disguise themselves as poor little guys. These two apparently have jobs they hate. (Mrs Greenspan is a part time realtor!) and they will slave away forever on the account of thier stupidity and greed.
When Quants Fail
Having met some of the fixed income quant people at Citi, I can't say I feel bad for the bunch.
WaMu Alt-A Pool Revisited
How Will the Housing Crisis End?
I like the sentiment idea that somebody mentioned before: when nobody wants to buy real estate because "all it does it lose money" we are near a bottom. Right now, we are still in the "there are a lot of great deals out there" stage - not quite there yet.
No 'Golden Parachutes' For Bear Executives
More Questions Than Answers on Bear
Don't Expect a Housing Bottom Until Late 2009
1. The worse year for reckless lending happened at around spring 2006. But prices already went soft the begining of 2006.
2. Let's say a speculator buys a house in 1Q 2006. A common teaser term is 2 years. Hence the mortgage payment resets 1Q 2008. The borrower misses payment.
3. Legally, the bank will give the borrower 3 months to catchup on the payments. Then the loan goes into default.
4. The bank has to setup auction with a third party trust and advertise it. That takes another 2-3 months. Here we are at 3Q 2008.
5. The property becomes REO, and the bank hires an agent, board up the house and sell it as-is. Currently, housing inventory is 11 months. which brings us to 3Q 2009.
So basically, my estimate is that holders of the worst loans(the Motivated Sellers) will finally buck by winter 2009 and drop prices. By then, there will be plenty to choose from.
And it might be like TraderMark describes here: No body wants a piece of real estate because "all it does it lose money." and young professionals like me will finally be able to get a home of our own.
Apple Limits iPhone Sales to Two Per Customer
The Existing Home Sales Report Beats Expectations