by Calculated Risk on 8/28/2007 01:22:00 PM

From David Streitfeld at the LA Times: Blight moves in after foreclosures

Houses abandoned to foreclosure are beginning to breed trouble, adding neighbors to the growing ranks of victims.

Stagnant swimming pools spawn mosquitoes ... Empty rooms lure squatters and vandals. And brown lawns and dead vegetation are creating eyesores in well-tended neighborhoods.

We tend to think of REOs as "inventory", but to the neighbors they are a nuisance.

by Calculated Risk on 8/28/2007 12:59:00 PM

For reference, here are a couple of ARM reset charts.

Here is a chart from BofA analyst Robert Lacoursiere via Mathew Padilla at the O.C. Register. Please see Mathew's discussion from June 29th: BofA Analyst: Mortgage correction just 'tip of the iceberg'.

This fits with Tanta's post this morning on Subprime Borrower Refi Options.



Another chart, from March, is from Ivy Zelman at Credit Suisse (Zelman has since left CS). The March Credit Suisse report, Mortgage Liquidity du Jour: Underestimated No More is available at Bill Cara's site (see page 47 for reset chart).

by Calculated Risk on 8/28/2007 10:51:00 AM

From AP: Home Prices: Steepest Drop in 20 Years

U.S. home prices fell 3.2 percent in the second quarter, the steepest rate of decline since Standard & Poor's began its nationwide housing index in 1987, the research group said Tuesday.

The decline in home prices around the nation shows no evidence of a market recovery anytime soon, one of the architects of the index said.

MacroMarkets LLC Chief Economist Robert Shiller said the declining residential real estate market "shows no signs of slowing down."

by Tanta on 8/28/2007 09:50:00 AM

Bank of America's RMBS Desk has a research note out (not publically available) that attempts to estimate the realistic refinance options, if any, for outstanding subprime ARMs that are facing reset in the immediate future.

The analysis looks at both credit standards and current interest rates on alternative loans, and concludes that refinancing into a new subprime loan or, for those borrowers whose credit profile has improved since loan origination, a new Alt-A loan, is essentially not an option. The interest rates on new subprime and Alt-A, given the current environment, are simply too high to offer any improvement in the monthly payment.

Therefore, the report concludes that FHA and Fannie Mae's "Expanded Approval" program (EA, its existing program for "near prime") are the only realistic options, given pricing structures. BoA estimates that approximately 18% of outstanding subprime ARM borrowers could qualify for an FHA refi (on both credit guidelines and rate reduction), and approximately 36% could qualify for Fannie Mae's EA. (That's best understood as 36% qualifying for either FHA or EA, not a total of 54%.) The larger bucket of loans qualifying for EA is mostly a matter of the larger GSE maximum loan amount compared to the FHA maximum, as well as a slice of the highest-credit class for which EA, at least in theory, offers 100% financing in contrast to FHA's 97% maximum.

Still, BoA's analysis is assuming an effective interest rate (including FHA or private mortgage insurance premiums) of around 8.50% for FHA and 8.50%-9.50% for the EA loans. In other words, the refi rate for these borrowers, at best, is enough to keep them at pre-reset payment levels. It isn't enough to bail out anyone who cannot carry the pre-reset payment.

It is always possible to change the eligibility and qualifying rules on either FHA or EA so that more borrowers can be accommodated, and there are certainly demands out there, especially for FHA, to do this. How, exactly, we will price the risk so that these borrowers are in the money is, as far as I can tell, the unmentioned part that probably matters.

by Tanta on 8/28/2007 08:01:00 AM

The official story on Bank of America and Countrywide is, apparently, still in flux. That's always the trouble with mythologizing in real time; events often catch up with one in troublesome ways. Mythic narrative, of course, is only comprehensible in "ageless" terms. A story with a shelf life of a couple of weeks may invoke grand narrative structures and heroic motifs, but that, as we say in literary land, is short-term financing.

David Weidner at Marketwatch struggles with conflicting stories about BoA and its CEO:

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Sentiment is growing that Bank of America Corp.'s Kenneth Lewis may have won a place in the pantheon of great Wall Street titans by using his financial clout to help the country avoid economic ruin.

If you found yourself at this point wondering who the hell else was in that pantheon of great Wall Street titans who saved the country from economic ruin, you'll probably have noticed that we had to go back to 1907 to find one. I'd say, if you're not familiar with the story of J.P. Morgan and the Panic of 1907, you might want to brush up on the details. This may well become mythological motif du jour for some while, so you'd best be prepared.

Me, I just skip to the last paragraph:

Maybe there's a modern-day Morgan out there. We can all pitch in and buy him a railroad.

I suspect we're going to get so worried about pitching in to buy Joe Spendthrift an affordable mortgage that we'll allow ourselves to get suckered into buying some Morgan a railroad, but I undoubtedly read too much.