It is always wise to pay attention to one of the greatest investment minds of all time.  In the most recent letter to shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway, legendary investor Warren Buffet makes the case for a recovery of both the housing market and shares of Bank of America. Warren Buffet has shown time and again that he is a master of market values and has a propensity to buy when [...]

A $25 billion foreclosure settlement reached between the government and the big banks has many wondering who will win and who will lose among the different parties involved.  Although the settlement is complicated and will take years to work out, the basic framework will please some and annoy others. Here are some basic questions and answers about the settlement, which according [...]

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 [...]

According to Micheal Olenick, founder of FindtheFraud, the worst of the housing crash and banking crisis still lies ahead of us.  Mr. Olenick’s excellent in depth analysis discusses the multiple factors that are prolonging the foreclosure crisis and explains how banks and servicers are trying to delay taking losses that could eventually reach a staggering $1 trillion. Mr. [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Those looking for a rebound in either real estate prices or the wealth of the American consumer were sorely disappointed after the release of the Federal Reserve’s Flow of Funds Accounts for the third quarter 2011. The net worth of Americans plunged by $2.4 trillion in the third quarter.  Keep in mind that the entire gross domestic product of the United States is about $15 [...]