New York/Long Island foreclosures up One year after Hurricane Sandy made landfall on the US eastern seaboard, RealtyTrac today reported that foreclosure activity in the first nine months of 2013 is up 33% compared to the first nine months of 2012 in the 7-county region including the five boroughs of New York and Long Island. The places that were hurt the worst by Sandy have seen an extraordinarily slow comeback, said Emmett Laffey, president of Laffey Fine Homes covering the five boroughs and Long Island. The problem is getting the insurance money. The homes have been razed and today they are just a sandlot. Some people have gotten insurance money, some people still cant get the money. Its a big mish-mash. Nothing is uniform. Those areas that were hardest hit are still reeling. Besides that, metro New York and Long Island are doing fairly well, Laffey added. The economy is pretty good. Business is pretty good. People there are still hurting, but things are pretty good all around. Queens County reported the highest level of foreclosure activity through September 2013, up 61% from the same time period last year. Default notices in particular were up 71%, while auction notices increased 24% and bank-owned (REO) properties increased 26% from the previous year. Foreclosure activity also increased in Richmond County (Staten Island), up 40% during the first nine months of 2013, with bank-owned properties rising 170% from the same period last year. Default notices were up 43% in the county although scheduled auctions fell 15%. Nassau and Suffolk counties (Long Island) likewise have seen overall increases in foreclosure activity so far this year, up 24% in Nassau County up 28% in Suffolk County. Bank-owned properties rose substantially during the period, up 45% and 50% respectively. The level of default notices also rose noticeably during the period, up 24% and 28% respectively. Activity levels were also up in Bronx County (39%) and Kings County (28%) through September. The only county showing a significant decrease in foreclosure activity during the same time period was New York County (Manhattan) where although the hurricane did make landfall and caused significant flooding, foreclosures were down 21% with the number of bank-owned properties dropping 82% and scheduled auctions falling 53%. Median home prices rose in all seven counties year-over-year for September despite the impact of Sandy. Median home prices rose by double digits in both Queens and Kings counties (up 16% and 12% respectively) from September 2012. The median price rose 7% in New York County from last year. The lowest rises in home prices were in three of the counties most affected by Hurricane Sandy -- Suffolk County (up 5%), Richmond County (up 3%) and Nassau County (up 1%). Obama lied about insurance cancellations? President Obama repeatedly assured Americans that after the Affordable Care Act became law, people who liked their health insurance would be able to keep it. But millions of Americans are getting or are about to get cancellation letters for their health insurance under Obamacare, say experts, and the Obama administration has known that for at least three years. Four sources deeply involved in the Affordable Care Act tell NBC News that 50 to 75% of the 14 million consumers who buy their insurance individually can expect to receive a cancellation letter or the equivalent over the next year because their existing policies dont meet the standards mandated by the new health care law. One expert predicts that number could reach as high as 80%. And all say that many of those forced to buy pricier new policies will experience sticker shock. None of this should come as a shock to the Obama administration. The law states that policies in effect as of March 23, 2010 will be grandfathered, meaning consumers can keep those policies even though they dont meet requirements of the new health care law. But the Department of Health and Human Services then wrote regulations that narrowed that provision, by saying that if any part of a policy was significantly changed since that date the deductible, co-pay, or benefits, for example the policy would not be grandfathered. Buried in Obamacare regulations from July 2010 is an estimate that because of normal turnover in the individual insurance market, 40 to 67% of customers will not be able to keep their policy. And because many policies will have been changed since the key date, the percentage of individual market policies losing grandfather status in a given year exceeds the 40 to 67% range. That means the administration knew that more than 40 to 67% of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans, even if they liked them. Yet President Obama, who had promised in 2009, if you like your health plan, you will be able to keep your health plan, was still saying in 2012, If [you] already have health insurance, you will keep your health insurance. This says that when they made the promise, they knew half the people in this market outright couldnt keep what they had and then they wrote the rules so that others couldnt make it either, said Robert Laszewski, of Health Policy and Strategy Associates, a consultant who works for health industry firms. Laszewski estimates that 80% of those in the individual market will not be able to keep their current policies and will have to buy insurance that meets requirements of the new law. Other experts said that most consumers in the individual market will not be able to keep their policies. Nancy Thompson, senior vice president of CBIZ Benefits, which helps companies manage their employee benefits, says numbers in this market are hard to pin down, but that data from states and carriers suggests anywhere from 50 to 75% of individual policy holders will get cancellation letters. Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger, who chairs the health committee of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, says that estimate is probably about right. She added that a few states are asking insurance companies to cancel and replace policies, rather than just amend them, to avoid confusion. A spokesman for Americas Health Plans says there are no precise numbers on how many will receive cancellations letters or get notices that their current policies dont meet ACA standards. In both cases, consumers will not be able to keep their current coverage. Milwaukee tries new foreclosure tactic Milwaukee is trying a new tactic to put foreclosed homes back in use. Hundreds sit boarded up or abandoned after their owners failed to pay property taxes. The eyesores attract crime and destabilize neighborhoods, so the city is fixing some of the houses and offering to sell them for a dollar. But first, the buyers must lease the property and prove they’d be responsible owners. City officials say they know of about 40 people so far who want to take part in the new rent-to-own program. Many, like McQuay, were tenants in the homes before foreclosure. But the program is still quite small considering the scope of the crisis. In his recent budget address, Mayor Tom Barrett said the number of city-owned foreclosures tops 1000. “That’s more than 13 times the number before the financial meltdown. It has presented challenges for departments and our resources. More importantly, it’s a burden for many of our neighborhoods,” Barrett says. City taxpayers foot the bill. The mayor says the foreclosure problem is the main reason he’s asking for a tax increase in the 2014 budget. Olick - rental bonds carry no risk The man often referred to as the godfather of the mortgage-backed security said a new breed of bonds backed by investor-owned rental properties carry no risk. The statement came just after Lewis Ranieri expressed regret that the mortgage-backed securities market imploded the way it did, bringing the US economy along with it. According to Ranieri, the rental bonds are different because its almost done like the European covered bonds, because theres enough cash flow and they can replace cash flow to pay the bonds, he said in an interview. The chairman and founding partner of New York-based Ranieri Partners was an early advocate of the so-called REO-to-Rent (Real Estate Owned-to-Rent) play. Over the last three years, institutional investors have poured as much as $20 billion into purchasing foreclosed properties, which they have turned around as single-family rental homes. Blackstone, the largest player in the group, is about to offer a new security backed by these homes. Through its Invitation Homes program, Blackstone owns nearly 40,000 properties, according to recent statements from its chairman, Steve Schwarzman. Securitizing the rental stream of these homes is the next step for the new asset class. It obviously works. Its one more version of taking the cash flows off of a series of hard assets and securitizing them. It works, and so I think theyre good securities and youll see more of them, said Ranieri, who believes there will be plenty of demand for the bonds. He did admit that the private label mortgage-backed securities market needs resuscitation. One of his firms, Shellpoint Partners, was set to offer a major jumbo mortgage securitization deal last month. It first delayed the deal, cutting its size, and then cancelled it altogether. Ranieri said investor demand just isnt there. The RMBS (residential mortgage-backed security) market is still very fragile, he said. The damage that was done to it [has] not anywhere near been repaired. In fact, theres only a handful of buyers for the Triple-A tranches, where there used to be literally hundreds and hundreds. Its not dead, but its certainly on oxygen. Mortgage credit remains extremely tight, as bankers are facing new mortgage regulations and lingering litigation left over from the mortgage crash. Federal regulators continue to implement new restrictions designed to protect borrowers, but bankers say the pendulum has swung too far. Enough is enough, said David Stevens, CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association, to an audience of more than 1,000 at the MBAs 100th annual convention in Washington, DC. The overcorrection and conflicting policies that continue to come out of Washington are threatening not just this market, but they are threatening the recovery. See you at the top! Chris McLaughlin ************** Copyright Loss Mitigation Institute LLC 2011. All Rights Reserved.
Posted on: Tue, 29 Oct 2013 17:51:00 +0000
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