this is a very serious point. Do you realize how the standard of living in this country was crushed. dems in state legislatures like Ca spent and spent. They got bailed out by cap gains taxes from tech profits. When the tech gains revenues turned off many state and local govt were were facing a crises. Greenspan said lets save them by lowering rates. Low rates would cause a real estate values to go up. Porperty tax revenues are now obscene in many states like florida and Ca. 20 thousand a year for family homes. This is a classic recipe for the conspiracy theorists. Will the banks simply own all the houses mortgaged in the last 10 years and turn many into serfs tied to their rental houses. Or will some leader get the country to vote for some socialist policies and stronger ties to world govt. Anyway you slice it - it could get very ugly.
Anecdotal, but salient. Sister in law works for a large firm that represents Home Owners Associations in Northern CA. HOA's are sticking Banks with HOA fees. Banks refuse to pay on their foreclosed properties, and the HOA's are resorting to debt collection agencies in an effort to get their fees paid. This could get interesting. I wonder if a state district court action has been filed yet? Cities in Michigan are now citing banks that own foreclosed homes for snow removal. I don't see how banks can prosper, and, in some cases, even survive, with these money problems.
Umm...I don't believe you. Yet another made up.... she heard, you heard....I heard so I made up story Unpaid HOA fees means the HOA puts a caveat on your Title. Banks wouldn't be able to sell that house because they'll have to get rid of the caveat before the Title will transfer.
Well, I don't know about made up threads, but I can tell you this......I have firsthand knowledge of "extremely conservative" financial institutions holding sh*# paper generated in this mess.....ABS CP, etc......each institution with large unrealized losses, because there's no bid for the paper.....and its legion. Perhaps the ARM intervention is partially just a way to divert everyone's attention away from the big picture - and the fact that America's major financial institutions of banks, IBs/BDs, insurance companies, etc are booking major writedowns that will have a severe negative impact on these firms for the next few years. The media is glossing over this like its nothing, "oh by the way, Morgan just wrote down blahblah billion, now let's hear from Analyst Dumbf#$& who says there is absolutely NO sign of an impending recession or an economic slowdown" SIV, SuperSIV, Mother-of-All SIVs, eventually someone has to take the hit and book the losses that now exist in the aftermath of the POP goes the real estate weasle.
"Umm...I don't believe you. Yet another made up.... she heard, you heard....I heard so I made up story Unpaid HOA fees means the HOA puts a caveat on your Title. Banks wouldn't be able to sell that house because they'll have to get rid of the caveat before the Title will transfer." Doesn't matter if you believe me or not. If this is the only recourse left to HOA's, then the Banks will still have to "cure" the lein on the title to effect sale, and will be forced to do so with real money. Furthermore, in far too many cases, the foreclosed houses won't be worth the amount of the original loan, putting the banks' solvency at more risk.
Ok I did get carried away. But can you see how a cynical person might say that when you give money away with stated income loans and 100 percent ltv you are going to force even some reasonable people to pay too much for a necessity. Then when you require people to have 20% down and require the loan payments to be only 28 percent of their income, you have now forced the price of homes to collapse. In the old days the anti fed guys said the bankers had plans to make everyone poor by devaluing their currency. This real estate rigging could have been even more effective.
Inside just about every conservative financial institution holding that shit paper -- I suspect you will find a crook who got paid off by a bond salesman. Did you see the article in Fortune magazine. Goldman made up for its losses in subprime because it was short the subprime market via derivatives. Those billions they made this year should be held in trust - eventually the lawyers are going to take them down if they don't get protected by congress. Shakespeare was correct if you wish to fleece a country the first thing you have to do is kill all the lawyers.