In Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s world, all he had to do was lower interest rates enough and housing prices would magically re-inflate.  Wrong!  Mortgage rates are at all time lows, home prices are at 2002 levels and owning a home is just as cheap as renting, yet the housing market remains mired in a depression. The folks at the Federal Reserve who created the [...]

LPS Mortgage Monitor has come out with a comprehensive series of charts including the current level of foreclosures, delinquencies by year of origination, length of time homeowners have not made a payment in judicial states, states with largest drops in non-current mortgages and foreclosure rates in judicial vs non judicial states. The states with the biggest declines in non current [...]

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke must be talking to himself by now.  Despite driving interest rates to zero and the expenditure of trillions of dollars to prop up the housing market, home prices declined again in 2011. The most recent data on foreclosure activity makes it clear that the Fed’s efforts to date have accomplished next to nothing. The foreclosure statistics for 2011 from [...]

Welcome to Banking Update, a roundup of articles and news from around the internet.  The Federal Reserve’s political moves threaten its independence, loan modification companies prey on vulnerable homeowners, the big banks refuse to disclose their risk on derivatives, consumers want to be bailed out for foolish financial decisions, loss of confidence in governments grow and [...]

Welcome to Banking Update, a roundup of articles and news from around the Internet.  Banks continue to be sued for selling defective mortgages, the Fed says a housing recovery is essential for economic recovery, Americans still believe owning a home is part of the “American dream”, banks are still engaged in risky behavior, savings rates are negative, European banks [...]

Home prices continue to plunge in value.  According to the latest statistics from S&P/Case-Shiller, prices declined by over 1% in October.  The crash in housing prices has now brought prices back to levels last seen in 2003. Each local housing market is unique with some states such as Florida and Nevada experiencing much  greater price declines than average.  The end result [...]

Welcome to Banking Update, a roundup of articles and news from around the Internet.  The government keeps trying new foreclosure programs despite the failure of previous ones, homeowners past due by more than 60 days are unlikely to recover, home prices continue to drop, mortgage fraud continues and almost half of all home purchases are for cash.  On to the links: Foreclosure [...]

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) painted a gloomy picture for the housing markets with its release of the OCC Mortgage Metrics Report for the third quarter of 2011.  Mortgage delinquencies remain at high levels and foreclosures increased by double digits. The OCC report covers mortgages serviced by federal savings associations and large national banks which include [...]

Three years after the height of the financial crisis, the issue of impaired assets on bank balance sheets remains a major risk to the health of the banking system. Regulators have allowed banks to avoid taking losses on impaired assets by not requiring mark to market accounting.  The extent of overvaluation on bank loans can be seen every time a bank fails and the FDIC has to routinely [...]

Ever since the mortgage crisis started in 2008, there has been a wide divergence in opinions on who was to blame for borrower defaults.  Many blame greedy bankers who abdicated sound underwriting principles for financial gain by approving mortgages for unqualified borrowers.  Others blame the borrowers themselves for being irresponsible and taking on debt that their income could [...]