November 2011 Entries
The S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values in 20 cities
dropped 3.6% in September from the same month in 2010 after
decreasing 3.8% in the year ended August, the group said today in
New York. The median forecast of 32 economists in a Bloomberg
News survey projected a 3% decrease. “We continue to expect
home prices to fall through mid- 2012,” said Anika Khan, an
economist at Wells Fargo Securities LLC in Charlotte, North
Carolina. “We still have an oversupply of existing homes, and
distressed transactions continue to drive down home prices.”
Estimates in the Bloomberg survey for the price change ranged
from declines of 2.7% to 3.9%. The Case-...
If one person's misfortune is another's gain, then there may be a
lot of fortunes to be made in the real estate market in tony
Greenwich, Conn. Home to wealthy individuals in New York City's
finance sector, various properties in the surrounding area may be
taking a hit related to hard times in the banking industry or
other sectors. Goldman Sachs, for example, reported its second
loss ever in the third quarter. In October, 32 percent of
current for-sale listings on Zillow in Greenwich were reduced.
The median price cut was 7.44 percent. However, home values in
Greenwich are up 2.1 percent year-over-year to a Zillow Home
Value Index (ZHVI),...
"It's late, and it's limited, but for borrowers who feel their
homes were wrongly or inappropriately foreclosed upon in 2009 and
2010, there is now recourse. As part of a larger enforcement
action (so-called 'consent orders') taken last April against
fourteen of the nation's largest mortgage banks/servicers
following the so-called 'robo-signing' scandal, the Office of the
Comptroller of the Currency is beginning a 'multi-faceted
independent review of foreclosure actions.' The major banks,
including Bank of America, Chase, Citibank, Wells Fargo, GMAC,
and EMC, will have to fund these independent reviews to evaluate,
'whether borrowers suffered financial injury through errors,
misrepresentations, or other deficiencies in foreclosure
practices.' If they did, those borrowers get...