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(good chart) NAR Revises the Great Housing Decline - by Sold at the Top - ...  you can see that what the NAR is purporting to be the trend now looks substantially weaker and shows that the housing decline was notably more severe than previously reported with seasonally adjusted annualize home sales falling from a peak level of 7.25 million units in 2005 to just over 3.45 million in 2010, a level first seen in the early 1990s. ... - Paper Economy - A US Real Estate Bubble Blog

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(also risk weighted capital and Basel 3) US MORTGAGE MEMO: NY Fed Buys $8.75B Agy MBS; No Dollar Rolls - By Isobel Kennedy - (MNI) - In the week ended December 21, the New York Federal Reserve bought $8.75 billion agency mortgage-backed securities. The largest purchases in the latest week were in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac 30-year (TBA 3.5s) for February delivery. Those buys totalled $3.50 billion. The next largest purchases were $3.20 billion …TBAs with 4.00% coupon for January delivery.... 
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Fannie Mae, FHA Approval More Important Than Ever For Condos - By: Jill Urban - ... Condominiums … realizing that they need to seek Fannie Mae and FHA approval in order to survive in this real estate jungle. “Buildings are finally figuring out that in order for people to be able to buy units and get financing within them that they actually have to be compliant with guidelines that were issued by FHA and Fannie Mae. There is a mad rush …” says Orest Tomaselli, CEO of National Condo Advisors.... - NY1.com

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(rising rate risk) New Bubble May Be Building in 30-Year Mortgages: Edward Pinto - ... This system simultaneously drives down mortgage rates on guaranted loans and permits lenders to back them with minimal capital. This encourages banks and other deposit-taking institutions to hold more mortgage securities than would normally be justifiable, …, these government policies promote a concentration of risk. A single national event, specifically an abrupt increase in interest rates, would adversely affect prices for this entire asset class ... – Bloomberg

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(good list) 10 Trends in U.S. Housing in 2011 and What to Look for in 2012 - By ROLAND LI - International Business Times

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Squatters say foreclosed homes beat homeless shelters - By Tina Susman - They may lack heat and a consistent water supply, but the vacant dwellings aren't as 'depressing,' as one New York mother puts it. Advocates say the number of squatters nationwide is rising. - Los Angeles Times

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(lots here) Fed’s Once-Secret Data Released to Public - By Phil Kuntz and Bob Ivry - Bloomberg News today released spreadsheets showing daily borrowing totals for 407 banks and companies that tapped Federal Reserve emergency programs during the 2007 to 2009 financial crisis. It’s the first time such data have been publicly available in this form. To download a zip file of the spreadsheets, go to http://bit.ly/Bloomberg-Fed-Data. For an explanation of the files, see the one labeled “1a Fed Data Roadmap.” - Bloomberg.com

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Foreclosures by major banks increase 21.1% in third quarter - By Jim Puzzanghera – … came as mortgage servicers lifted holds they instituted as authorities investigated faulty paperwork. Separate research showed homes en route to being seized fell 15.8% in October from a year earlier. - Los Angeles Times

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(gives breakdown)  Details of Mortgage Servicing Settlement Between Banks and AGs Begin to Emerge - By MASSIMO CALABRESI - Time Magazine's Swampland

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Sen. Scott Brown calls for criminal probe of Fannie, Freddie - By Peter Schroeder – … saying recent civil claims filed against former executives do "not go nearly far enough to achieve justice." Brown sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Mary Schapiro on Thursday … "If the investigation uncovers illegal actions, criminal prosecution should be pursued and people should go to jail," he wrote. - The Hill

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Yearly Home Values Decline Nearly $700B, But Rate of Decline Slows - BY: KRISTA FRANKS - As 2011 comes to a close, Zillow anticipates home value declines for the year will total more than $681 billion. The rate of depreciation, however, is slowing. The $681 billion decline this year is 35 percent less than last year’s $1.1 trillion drop in value. - DS News

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Fannie Mae Removes 'Ability to Repay' from HARP 2.0 Guidelines - BY: CARRIE BAY - ... Barclays Capital explains that ability to pay has traditionally been measured using DTI (debt-to-income ratio) but pursuant to HARP guidelines, no DTI calculation or evaluation is required if the borrower’s payment does not increase by more than 20 percent. A 45 DTI cap applies otherwise. Under the revised guidelines, the ‘borrower ability to pay’ clause is no longer an underwriting requirement. ... - DS News

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Increasing borrowing costs will lower house prices - by IrvineRenter - Borrowing costs are likely to increase in 2012 for a variety of loans. The lower conforming limit will push many borrowers to either the FHA or the jumbo market where borrowing costs are higher. The FHA may also raise its borrowing costs again to cover the inevitable losses from the ongoing decline in home prices. … - more - Irvine Housing Blog
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(overlooking appraisals) Foreclosures Remain Huge Problem for Small Banks - By Andy Peters - With the crush of foreclosures, analysts have implored smaller banks to dump bank-owned properties, even if it means taking a big loss. Many bankers agree that's what they should do, but mandatory appraisals have been a sticking point. Accurate values are hard to come by, so potential buyers are often scared off by appraisals that seem too high, or bankers get skittish that they're selling too low. As a result, hundreds of community banks still have huge levels of other real estate owned, or OREO, on their books - National Mortgage News

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Payroll tax cut may hurt housing market - Jim Puzzanghera - Los Angeles Times - To pay for the two-month payroll tax cut, a small fee will be levied for a decade on all mortgages sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That also makes it harder to overhaul the housing finance system. ... "This really complicates what you do with Fannie and Freddie down the road," Ely said. ...
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A Blooper in the SEC's Fannie Mae Lawsuit: The Ticker - By Jonathan Weil - ... If you answered that it was an error to say Mudd was on Fannie's audit committee, give yourself a gold star. Mudd not only wasn't a member, he couldn't have been one, under SEC rules and New York Stock Exchange listing standards. That's because, as Fannie's proxy statement made clear,  he wasn't an independent director. Rather, as CEO, Mudd was part of Fannie's management, which the audit committee was responsible for overseeing. ... - Bloomberg
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(not bad for a $2 billion investment!) Bank Of America Could End Up Paying $53 Billion For Countrywide Mess: Bove - Halah Touryalai – Forbes

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