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(thoughtful - on negative equity) The Sweep-It-Under-the-Rug Housing Plan - posted by Adam Levitin - Credit Slips

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Rush to Drill for Natural Gas Creates Conflicts With Mortgages - By IAN URBINA - ... But bankers and real estate executives, especially in New York, are starting to pay closer attention to the fine print and are raising provocative questions, such as: What happens if they lend money for a piece of land that ends up storing the equivalent of an Olympic-size swimming pool filled with toxic wastewater from drilling? ... - NY Times
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Congressman Hinchey Wants Gas Drilling Mortgage Rules Examined - (Source: Fox 40 Staff) - Congressman Maurice Hinchey is calling on Federal Regulators to examine mortgage rules governing gas drilling. ... Hinchey warned that homeowners who have signed leases may find themselves in technical default of their mortgages. ...

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Bank of America Setback: $8.5 Billion Mortgage Settlement Successfully Removed to Federal Court (Updated) - Yves Smith - Naked Capitalism
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(here to help jumbo securitization) Clayton Holdings Launches New RMBS Group - BY MORTGAGEORB.COM - Shelton, Conn.-based Clayton Holdings LLC has formed a new unit that the company says will provide consulting and review services to the non-agency residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) market. content.10021
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Equifax Launches Tool For Whole-Loan Analysis - BY MORTGAGEORB.COM - Equifax Inc. says it has developed a new whole-loan solution that provides lenders and investors with current borrower credit scores and data across all accounts for non-securitized mortgage and home equity loans. ... The whole-loan suite contains three products: Credit Risk Insight Pre-Bid, Credit Risk Insight Post-Bid and Credit Risk Insight Surveillance. ...

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Some homeowners regain properties after foreclosure - By Paul Owers, Sun Sentinel  - The housing bust has put thousands of South Florida residents on the sidewalk, but when a mortgage is foreclosed there is hope — sometimes even after a lender has repossessed the home. In some cases, foreclosures are set aside, and the homeowners regain their properties because of errors by courts or lenders. In at least one instance, a bank reversed its foreclosure and sold the home back to the former owner at a deep discount, apparently for no other reason than the deal made financial sense for the lender.

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Fraudclosure Errors Destroying Americans’ Property Rights - By Barry Ritholtz - Over the past 2 years, I have warned repeatedly about the dangers to American property rights caused by massive bank fraud, A deadly combination of MERS, robo-signing, and illegal shortcuts have created a horrific situation. A bedrock of our society — the ability for the owner of a piece of real estate to confidently convey that property, along with all associated property rights — is now in danger. - Big Picture Blog
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Next Generation of Homeowners Are Freaked Out - By Michael S. Derby - The younger you are, the more freaked out you are likely to be by the housing market crash. A new paper by Federal Reserve Bank of Boston economists used consumer sentiment data collected in the Michigan Survey of Consumers over the summer to try to find out how the housing market’s terrible state of affairs was affecting the willingness to buy a new home. Age mattered, which suggests a new generation may be coming along that will cast a wary eye at home ownership for a long time to come. The finding also suggests a new headwind to future growth levels, given that it’s hard for the economy to achieve a better rate of growth when the housing sector remains moribund. -  WSJ Blogs
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(Federal worker salaries) Beltway Earnings Make U.S. Capital Richer Than Silicon Valley - By Frank Bass and Timothy R. Homan - Federal employees whose compensation averages more than $126,000 and the nation’s greatest concentration of lawyers helped Washington edge out San Jose as the wealthiest U.S. metropolitan area, government data show. ... The figures demonstrate how the nation’s political and financial classes are prospering as the economy struggles with unemployment above 9 percent and thousands of Americans protest in the streets against income disparity, said Kevin Zeese, director of Prosperity Agenda, a Baltimore-based advocacy group trying to narrow the divide between rich and poor. ... - Bloomberg

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(USA Visas for sale?) Foreigners' Sweetener: Buy House, Get a Visa - By NICK TIMIRAOS - The reeling housing market has come to this: To shore it up, two Senators are preparing to introduce a bipartisan bill Thursday that would give residence visas to foreigners who spend at least $500,000 to buy houses in the U.S. The provision is part of a larger package of immigration measures, co-authored by Sens. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Mike Lee (R., Utah), designed to spur more foreign investment in the U.S. - Wall Street Journal 
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U.S. Bancorp Chief ‘Frustrated’ That Regulator Vacancies Slowing Recovery - By Charles Mead - U.S. Bancorp Chief Executive Officer Richard Davis said he’s “frustrated” that Congress hasn’t confirmed regulators to lead agencies in charge of new banking rules because the vacancies are hindering his industry. “I’d like to have a better sense of where the endpoint is so we can all start marching toward that,” Davis, head of the nation’s fifth-largest commercial bank - Bloomberg

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How much would mass refinancing do for the economy? - Posted by Ezra Klein - Washington Post

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Wells Fargo Sees ‘Huge Opportunity’ as BofA Cuts Home Lending - By Dakin Campbell - Bloomberg

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REOs: Where Are They Now? - CARRIE BAY - ... CoreLogic delved into the stats to find out. The company’s analysts took a closer look at the post-foreclosure outcomes of properties since 2006. ... Nearly 10 percent (23,200) of the properties added to the REO inventory in 2006 remained in REO as of mid-2010, according to CoreLogic’s analysis. Similarly, of 2007’s REOs, 10 percent have never left the banks’ books. CoreLogic says investors have shifted from buying properties at foreclosure auction to buying properties at the REO sale, increasing the burden of losses on banks holding REO properties. ... - DS News

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