Recently in Housing Bubble Category

The New York Times

Wall Street may have panned the broad outlines of the Obama administration's plan to fix the financial system when the proposal was sketched out six weeks ago, but on Monday, investors seemed like they were warming up to its finer points.

Stock markets in New York were heading for a higher opening, and most markets in Europe were higher as the Treasury Department began to release details of a public-private partnership to purchase troubled assets from banks. Shares in Asia also closed higher.

The government hopes that the plan will loosen credit markets and restore normal lending conditions by allowing banks to deleverage billions of dollars in mortgage-related debt sitting on their balance sheets.

Washington Post

Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. today called for abolishing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and replacing them with highly-regulated utilities that would play a more narrow role in supporting the U.S. housing finance system.

CNN Money

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The home price plunge stayed on a record pace this summer, according to a widely watched gauge of national real estate markets released Tuesday.

CNN

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Bush administration officials have had talks with the nation's automakers about providing possible federal help for the cash-starved companies, a White House spokeswoman said Monday.

Spokeswoman Dana Perino, responding to questions at her daily press briefing, said a decision had not been made yet about whether federal help will be offered to General Motors (GM, Fortune 500), Ford Motor (F, Fortune 500) and Chrysler LLC.

CNN

He said many of the evictions involve renters who are paying their rent on time but are being thrown out because the landlord has fallen behind on mortgage payments.

Mortgage companies are supposed to identify a building's occupants before asking for an eviction, but sheriff's deputies routinely find that the mortgage companies have not done so, he said.

"These mortgage companies only see pieces of paper, not people, and don't care who's in the building," Dart said. "They simply want their money and don't care who gets hurt along the way.

"On top of it all, they want taxpayers to fund their investigative work for them. We're not going to do their jobs for them anymore. We're just not going to evict innocent tenants. It stops today."

The Illinois Bankers Association opposed the plan, saying that Dart "was elected to uphold the law and to fulfill the legal duties of his office, which include serving eviction notices." The association said Dart could be found in contempt of court for ignoring court eviction orders.

"The reality is that by ignoring the law and his legal responsibilities, he is carrying out 'vigilantism' at the highest level of an elected official," it said. "The Illinois banking industry is working hard to help troubled homeowners in many ways, but Sheriff Dart's declaration of 'marshal law' should not be tolerated."

Raw Story

A senior Bush official told Allen the Administration had no desire to herald the Democrats who shepherded the bill through their congressional committees, Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA).

The Independent

As he prepared to fly out from Japan, he told his fellow leaders: "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter."
President Bush made the private joke in the summit's closing session, senior sources said yesterday. His remarks were taken as a two-fingered salute from the President from Texas who is wedded to the oil industry. He had given some ground at the summit by saying he would "seriously consider" a 50 per cent cut in carbon emissions by 2050.

Wikipedia
Austin to demand clemency for Karla Faye Tucker. "Did you meet with any of them?" I ask. Bush whips around and stares at me. "No, I didn't meet with any of them", he snaps, as though I've just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. "I didn't meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with Tucker, though. He asked her real difficult questions like, 'What would you say to Governor Bush?'" "What was her answer?" I wonder. "'Please,'" Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, "'don't kill me.'" I must look shocked -- ridiculing the pleas of a condemned prisoner who has since been executed seems odd and cruel -- because he immediately stops smirking.

New York Times

In short, in a nation that holds itself up as a citadel of free enterprise, the government has morphed from lender of last resort into effectively the only lender for millions of Americans engaged in the largest transactions of their lives.

Washington Post

A year ago, the Mortgage Bankers Association was thrilled to sign a contract to buy a fancy new headquarters building in downtown Washington. Interest rates were low, the group's revenues were steady and the prospects for quickly renting out part of the structure were strong.

But since then, the association has fallen on tough times as many of the subprime mortgages dispensed by some of its members proved dicey. Borrowers discovered the loans were more costly than they had anticipated. Foreclosures soared, and cheap, inexpensive credit dried up, slowing the economy.

BBC

A surge in the number of Americans at risk of losing their homes means 1% of all households are in some stage of the foreclosure process, a report says. There were 2.2m foreclosure filings in the US last year, up 75%, according to the market research firm, RealtyTrac.

McClatchy

WASHINGTON — A coalition of major banks with exposure to problem subprime mortgages is finalizing a plan to freeze hundreds of thousands of adjustable-rate home loans at low introductory rates. That would prevent the loans from adjusting to much higher rates, which could trigger mass defaults and foreclosures. Should subprime ARMs reset, many homeowners could be forced into costly foreclosure proceedings that could prevent a rebound of slumping local housing markets and spread to other industries, potentially even tipping the economy into recession.