#stopforeclosures

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Mortgage applications decreased 2.6% from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending December 16, 2011. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased 2.6% on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 2.8% compared with the previous week. The Refinance Index decreased 1.6% from the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 4.9% from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index decreased 7.5% compared with the previous week and was 6.9% lower than the same week one year ago. The four week moving average for the seasonally adjusted Market Index is up 0.26%. The four week moving average is down 1.53% for the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index, while this average is up 1.32% for the Refinance Index. “Continued anxiety surrounding the fragile economic situation in Europe led interest rates lower last week. However, refinance applications fell slightly, and purchase applications dropped further as we head into the end of the year,” said Michael Fratantoni, MBA’s Vice President of Research and Economics. “Remarkably low rates are not enough, as many homeowners continue to hold back due to lack of equity in their properties, poor credit and a weak job market.” The refinance share of mortgage activity reached a high this year of 80.7% of total applications from 79.7% the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity decreased to a low this year of 5.1% from 5.6% of total applications from the previous week. The average loan size of all loans for home purchase in the US was $217,774 in November 2011, up from $213,430 in October 2011. The average loan size for a refinance increased from $217,153 in October to $220,523 in November. The average government purchase loan size declined from October to November, from $186,263 to $170,742. The largest purchase loans were made in the Pacific region at $308,307. The largest refinance loans were also made in the Pacific region at $304,509. Chinese hackers hit US business According to the Wall Street Journal, hackers in China broke through the computer defenses of the US Chamber of Commerce last year and were able to access information about its operations and its 3 million members. The Journal, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter, reported the operation against the top American business lobbying group involved at least 300 internet addresses and was discovered and shut down in May 2010. The newspaper reported it was not known how much information was seen by the hackers, or who may have had access to the network for more than a year before being discovered. The group behind the breach is suspected by the United States of having ties to the Chinese government, one of the sources told the newspaper. The FBI informed the Chamber of Commerce that servers in China were pilfering its information, the source said. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin dismissed the report. "There's nothing to be said about the baseless whipping up of so-called hacking and it won't come to anything," he told a daily news briefing in Beijing. "Chinese law bans hacking." The Chamber of Commerce employs 450 people and represents business interests in Congress, including most of the largest US corporations. Almost half of all sales were short sales and REOs A whopping 46% of homes sold in November were either short sales or REOs -- as homes foreclosed on and repossessed by lenders are called, according to a survey by Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance released yesterday. "The huge glut of distressed properties coming to market is why there will be no home price rebound this coming year and maybe into 2013," said Guy Cecala of Inside Mortgage Finance, a publisher of mortgage information and news. Distressed homes sell for a lot less than homes sold by conventional sellers. The average price for a short sale (when borrowers owe the bank more than their homes are worth) was $209,000 in November. For a regular sale, the average is about $259,000. The numbers are even worse for REOs, which averaged about $190,000 for properties in move-in condition. "Distressed properties have the lowest prices for any category of home sold," said Cecala. "To a large extent, that's why we've seen continuous home price drops over the past three years and why those drops are likely to go on." There is no shortage of distressed properties: More than 6 million borrowers are delinquent 30 or more days, according to LPS Applied Analytics. Two million are already in the foreclosure process, and most of these homes will be repossessed or sold as short sales. House hunters have gotten accustomed to shopping for homes in foreclosure and any stigma that may have attached to REOs or short sales in the past has diminished. But many of these properties have been damaged, making them hard to sell and depressing their prices. Indeed, the average price for a damaged REO was just $99,000 in November -- 62% less than conventional sales, the survey found. Corporate borrowing way up Consumers may be cutting debt and banks may be tightening up their balance sheets, but borrowing by US corporations is in full swing. At a time when the popular narrative centers on how tight-fisted banks are getting with their lending, end-of-year data for syndicated loans tell a different story. Corporations use syndicated loans for longer-term financing. The loans usually are provided by a group of deep-pocketed lenders who can distribute liability among them and thus decrease their risk. Big Wall Street investment banks are usually the source of such loans. So far in 2011, syndicated loan volume has increased a whopping 56% compared to 2010, according to Dealogic. The total of $1.76 trillion is the highest single-year sum since the pre-financial crisis days of 2007. This came even though fourth-quarter activity saw a pretty big tail – the $354.5 billion total was the lowest in more than a year, since the $246.6 billion in the third quarter of 2010, Dealogic said. Moreover, the US was the biggest player in the space, with 47% of the total global loan volume, up 9 percentage points over 2010. The bulk of the loans went to the most credit-worthy. Investment grade volume increased to $1.03 trillion, also the highest since 2007, representing a 68% year-over-year gain. Globally, syndicated loan volume grew 27% to $3.74 trillion – again, the highest since 2007, Dealogic said. NAR - existing home sales up Existing-home sales rose again in November and remain above a year ago, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Also released today were periodic benchmark revisions with downward adjustments to sales and inventory data since 2007, led by a decline in for-sale-by-owners. Although rebenchmarking resulted in lower adjustments to several years of home sales data, the month-to-month characterization of market conditions did not change. There are no changes to home prices or month’s supply. The latest monthly data shows total existing-home sales, which are completed transactions that include single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, increased 4.0% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.42 million in November from 4.25 million in October, and are 12.2% above the 3.94 million-unit pace in November 2010. Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said more people are taking advantage of the buyer’s market. “Sales reached the highest mark in 10 months and are 34% above the cyclical low point in mid-2010 – a genuine sustained sales recovery appears to be developing,” he said. “We’ve seen healthy gains in contract activity, so it looks like more people are realizing the great opportunity that exists in today’s market for buyers with long-term plans.” MF Global "not missing money" - just can't find it James Giddens, the court-appointed trustee liquidating the brokerage, told a teleconference with MF Global clients that he was trying to recover $70 million in cash and $630 million in T-Bills from MF Global UK, according to John Roe, co-founder of the Chicago-based Commodity Customer Coalition, which represents more than 8,000 MF Global customer accounts. A spokesman for Giddens later clarified that the U.K. funds were separate from the $1.2 billion that he estimates are missing from US customer accounts. Typically brokers account for US and foreign exchange collateral separately, with US funds more closely regulated. "It's not the missing money. This doesn't change the $1.2 billion at all," Kent Jarrell told Reuters. "We've known this was tied up with the UK administrator. This is not suddenly found money. This is money that we knew would be hard to get." Regulators have been seeking the lost money since MF Global executives said it was missing, hours before the once leading brokerage filed for bankruptcy on October 31. Jarrell said the trustee was in discussion with UK trustee KPMG over recovering the funds. "We are going to claim that those are the assets of our customers but we don't have control over that money. We'll pursue them vigorously but it's been our experience that we may not get that money back. The recovery of those assets may take some time and we may not get that back. Any money that we don't get back would translate into a shortfall for our customers." The Commodity Futures Trading Commission's Jill Sommers last week told Reuters in an interview that the CFTC's investigation was "far enough along the trail" to be able to determine where customer money went. MF Global filed for bankruptcy on October 31 after it was forced to reveal that it had made a $6.3 billion bet on European sovereign debt, spooking investors and customers. Florida ends mandatory foreclosure mediation Florida is giving up on a program designed to help keep struggling homeowners in their homes and out of foreclosure. When the state created the foreclosure mediation program two years ago, it was heralded as a creative way to try to address the crush of foreclosures moving into courts and causing huge backlogs in the judicial system. The idea was to get lenders and borrowers together with a mediator, who would help find a solution to keep cases out of court. But it didn't work. Only about three percent of the cases resulted in revised mortgage agreements. Plus, Anthony DiMarco of the Florida Bankers Association says lenders were already working to resolve mortgage problems before taking homeowners to foreclosure. "It's very duplicative since we were trying to do it ahead of time and throughout the process. If someone came to us with a meaningful loan modification through the process, I think we would sit down and work with them and figure out a way to keep them in the home." DiMarco says lenders paid for all the mediation costs so they were motivated to make it work. "There was no cost to the homeowner to take part in it and we spent tens of millions of dollars and I think if you look at the program results, they don't bear out that it worked." DiMarco says the program was also fatally flawed because lenders had a terrible time trying to locate struggling borrowers. Nearly 60% of the homeowners eligible for mediation could never be found or contacted. But while the mediation program is ending, cases already under way will be settled. See you at the top!