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(about mortgages long must read) Finally, a Judge Stands up to Wall Street - Matt Taibbi - Federal judge Jed Rakoff, a former prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s office here in New York, is fast becoming a sort of legal hero of our time. He showed that again yesterday when he shat all over the SEC’s latest dirty settlement with serial fraud offender Citigroup, refusing to let the captured regulatory agency sweep yet another case of high-level criminal malfeasance under the rug. - Rolling Stone 
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Risk Rises for Housing Agency - By NICK TIMIRAOS - Concerns are rising that the Federal Housing Administration could run out money if the economy doesn't recover soon, raising the risk the agency would seek a taxpayer bailout for the first time in its 77-year history. ... But, as the FHA prepares to release its annual financial report next week, a forthcoming study by Joseph Gyourko, a real estate and finance professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, estimates that the FHA faces around $50 billion in losses in the coming years. - WSJ Politics
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An FHA Bailout Won't Be Its Death Sentence - DANIEL INDIVIGLIO      - It looks like taxpayers will have to rescue the agency, but that's kind of the point - The Atlantic

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Unfunded Mortgage Applications Come to $1 Trillion - By Mark Fogarty - A lot of mortgage applications went unfunded last year. A whole lot. In fact, a full $1 trillion in apps went unfunded for a variety of reasons. Compared to the $1.6 trillion that did get funded, that's a big turndown rate of 38%. - more details - National Mortgage News

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Fortress Winning Bidder on $50B of BoA MSRs? - By Paul Muolo - Fortress Investment Group appears to be the winning bidder on a $50 billon package of mortgage servicing rights being peddled by Bank of America, according to industry analysts watching the deal.  a variety of reasons. Compared to the $1.6 trillion that did get funded, that's a big turndown rate of 38%. - more details - National Mortgage News
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(Full complaint below.) COMPLAINT: JIM FULLER, CLERK OF THE COURT, DUVAL COUNTY, FLORIDA vs MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC REGISTRATION SYSTEMS, MERS - Submitted by 4closureFraud - Zero Hedge

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(has logic) Get Your MSRs on the Cheap - by Paul Muolo - One man's junk is another's gold, especially when it comes to mortgage servicing rights. Late this past week Ocwen inked a deal to buy roughly $15 billion of MSRs from JPMorgan Chase, which like many mega-servicers (except for maybe Wells Fargo) is downsizing its presence in the receivables market (for a variety of reasons). According to a new report from Sterne Agee, the MSRs cost Ocwen about 55 basis points. Here's the thinking from Sterne: ... - National Mortgage News

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Devastating Analysis of MERS - Yves Smith - ... I’ve read a number of legal analyses of MERS, and this is one of the tidiest I’ve seen of what is so wrong headed about it. I try to avoid long extracts with limited commentary of my own, but I think you’ll see why I’m treating this selection as worthy of your consideration. The full paper, “The MERS Mortgage in Massachusetts” was sent by the author Robert Ludden to 4ClosureFraud, and you can download it there (has full paper by Rockwell P. Ludden, Esq. of LuddenKramerLaw P.C.). ... - Naked Capitalism
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Jumbo mortgages may be next in line to default - By Kenneth R. Harney - Do you have a big mortgage and good credit scores but not much equity — maybe you’re even underwater? Do you see little chance that your home’s market value will improve much during the coming three to seven years? If you answered yes to both questions — and thousands of homeowners across the country could do so — new research suggests that you are in a category that lenders need to worry about most: prime jumbo borrowers who once were thought to be among the safest bets but who now are the most likely to opt for a strategic default and walk away from their homes. - Washington Post

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Update on NAR revisions - by CalculatedRisk - Today NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun provided his annual overly optimistic forecast for next year, but more importantly he provided an update on the coming revisions: NAR presently is benchmarking existing-home sales, and downward revisions are expected for totals in recent years, ...

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James Nelson: You have heard of inflation? How about biflation? - By James Nelson - ... East Carolina University. During periods of biflation, we typically observe deflation in items purchased with credit such as homes, automobiles, furniture, and appliances while we simultaneously see inflation in commodity based items such as food, medical care, and gasoline. Mr. Bernanke is fortunate that, when measuring inflation with the CPI, the deflationary effects from housing, automobiles and alike nicely offset the inflationary effects in commodities resulting in a “very, very low” inflation rate. ... - Daily Advance.com
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Underwater Mortgages and Divorce - MortgageLoan.com - What can you do if you're getting divorced and need to decide who gets the house - which has an underwater mortgage? There are a number of options here, but unfortunately, none of them are particularly easy or attractive. - NASDAQ.com
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Can HARP help Las Vegas? - BY PAUL BELL - Las Vegas Review Journal
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(interesting chart) Average Lifetime Earnings Trajectories by Education - Townhall.com

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