Wall Street Journal: Culpe a la televisión for la burbuja inmobiliaria

Blame Television for the Bubble

Opinion JANUARY 3 2009

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

By JIM SOLLISC

The real housing villain is on cable.

So now we know what happens when too many people who have too few assets buy too much house with the help of too many risky mortgage products and too little oversight. And while there's plenty of blame to go around -- unethical mortgage brokers, greedy bankers and irresponsible homeowners -- one culprit continues to get off scot-free: HGTV.



That's right. The cable network HGTV is the real villain of the economic meltdown. As the viewership reached a critical mass over the past decade -- HGTV is now broadcast into 91 million homes -- homeowners began experiencing deep angst. Suddenly no one but the most slovenly and unambitious were satisfied with their houses. It didn't matter if you lived in an apartment or a gated community, one episode of "House Hunters" or "What's My House Worth?" and you were convinced you needed more. More square feet. More granite. More stainless steel appliances. More landscaping. More media rooms. More style. You deserved it.


If you had any doubts about your ability to afford such luxuries, all you had to do was look at the 20-something couple in the latest episode choosing between three houses. Should they go for the fixer-upper, priced at $425,000? Or the one with the pool for $550,000? What about the one with room to grow for $675,000?

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Bloomber Businessweek: La Administración Bush y la industria financiera frustaron advertencias de prestamos predatorios

IN DEPTH October 9, 2008, 5:00PM EST

They Warned Us About the Mortgage Crisis.

"It was pure greed, based on exploitation." Frank Jackson, Mayor of Cleveland
Ethan Hill

State whistleblowers tried to curtail greedy lending—and were thwarted by the Bush Administration and the financial industry.

by Robert Berner and Brian Grow

More than five years ago, in April 2003, the attorneys general of two small states traveled to Washington with a stern warning for the nation's top bank regulator. Sitting in the spacious Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, with its panoramic view of the capital, the AGs from North Carolina and Iowa said lenders were pushing increasingly risky mortgages. Their host, John D. Hawke Jr., expressed skepticism.

Roy Cooper of North Carolina and Tom Miller of Iowa headed a committee of state officials concerned about new forms of "predatory" lending. They urged Hawke to give states more latitude to limit exorbitant interest rates and fine-print fees. "People out there are struggling with oppressive loans," Cooper recalls saying.

Roy Cooper, North Carolina AGEthan Hill

Hawke, a veteran banking industry lawyer appointed to head the OCC by President Bill Clinton in 1998, wouldn't budge. He said he would reinforce federal policies that hindered states from reining in lenders. The AGs left the tense hour-long meeting realizing that Washington had become a foe in the nascent fight against reckless real estate finance. The OCC "took 50 sheriffs off the job during the time the mortgage lending industry was becoming the Wild West," Cooper says.

This was but one of many instances of state posses sounding early alarms about the irresponsible lending at the heart of the current financial crisis. Federal officials brushed aside their concerns. The OCC and its sister agency, the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), instead sided with lenders. The beneficiaries ranged from now-defunct subprime factories, such as First Franklin Financial, to a savings and loan owned by Lehman Brothers, the collapsed investment bank.

Washington Post: Eliot Spitzer describe como el gobierno y los bancos son socios criminales

Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime

By Eliot Spitzer
The Washington Post
Thursday, February 14, 2008

Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders. Some were misrepresenting the terms of loans, making loans without regard to consumers' ability to repay, making loans with deceptive "teaser" rates that later ballooned astronomically, packing loans with undisclosed charges and fees, or even paying illegal kickbacks. These and other practices, we noticed, were having a devastating effect on home buyers. In addition, the widespread nature of these practices, if left unchecked, threatened our financial markets.

Even though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect American homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with the banks that were victimizing consumers.

Predatory lending was widely understood to present a looming national crisis. This threat was so clear that as New York attorney general, I joined with colleagues in the other 49 states in attempting to fill the void left by the federal government. Individually, and together, state attorneys general of both parties brought litigation or entered into settlements with many subprime lenders that were engaged in predatory lending practices. Several state legislatures, including New York's, enacted laws aimed at curbing such practices.

Capital One cierra subsidiario GreenPoint Mortgage

Capital One Shuts Down GreenPoint Mortgage Unit

Mortgage meltdown claims another victim

08/21/2007 | Martin H.Bosworth | ConsumerAffairs.com

The mortgage meltdown has claimed yet another casualty, as Capital One announced it is shuttering its GreenPoint Mortgage wholesale lending unit. GreenPoint will close all 31 of its branches in 19 states, and its headquarters in California, Capital One said.

The McLean, Virginia-based lender also announced it was cutting 1,900 jobs across the board in an effort to cut costs. Capital One had already announced its plans to cut 2,000 jobs earlier in the year.

Capital One bought GreenPoint Mortgage for $13.2 billion in 2006, at the tail end of a five-year housing boom that saw record home prices and loans across the country. The closing of the unit will cost Capital One $860 million after taxes, according to the company.

Although Wall Street was expecting better trading today due to positive reports from retailers, the financial markets still showed nervousness in the face of another example of the mortgage meltdown's ripple effect across the global economy.

Lenders who specialized in "creative" and "nonconforming" loans with higher interest rates and steep payment increases have been downsizing or declaring bankruptcy in droves, leading to a global "credit crunch" as the markets pull back from lending and consumers stop borrowing.

Bloguero culpa a HGTV por la burbuja inmobiliaria

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

I Blame HGTV

I've just finished doing the research and substantive edit of a book designed to help newlyweds through the process of buying a home. The author, a fan of sub-prime mortgages in SOME cases, does ask readers to do some major work before jumping in: make a budget and then stick to it for a few months, instead of just assuming that you will; don't have a mortgage bigger than what you are already paying in rent (providing you're meeting your rent payments without a problem); remember that happiness is not dependent on glass-tiled bathrooms withsoaker tubs, etc. Basically, reminding people to stay sane.


Sanity has been hard to come by in real estate for the last few years. The early adapters to bubble housing prices and the rise of HGTV made a fortune. Soon, everyone felt that they should be in on it. If you weren't buying, upgrading, or flipping you were an idiot, doomed to a life as a wage slave. Turn on any one of half a dozen TV channels and you could watch 22 year old waiters and 40 something housewives leverage the finances to buy a wreck and then, a few setbacks and many visits to Home Depot later, reveal the newly gleaming home and their expected profit margin--usually about as much as most people make in a year or two.


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Cierra GreenPoint Mortgage, compañia de préstamos hipotecarios

Greenpoint Mortgage Closed

Colin Robertson August 20, 2007 Comments Off

Greenpoint Mortgage was shut down today by parent Capital One Financial Corp., who said weak demand for residential home loans forced the company to shut the ailing mortgage lender. Capital One announced that it would cease loan origination operations at Greenpoint Mortgage immediately, and according to initial reports, cut roughly 1,900 jobs.

Loans that are already in the pipeline and locked will continue to be processed and should ultimately fund as scheduled.

The news followed similar statements made by the VP of investor relations for Capital One last week, who sparked employee concerns that the company was gearing up to close Greenpoint Mortgage. Greenpoint Mortgage headquarters in Novato, California will be closed, along with 31 other branches in 19 states throughout the United States.

Greenpoint Mortgage specialized in Alt-A loans, offering programs for borrowers with credit scores down to 620, as well as option-arms, second mortgages, jumbo loans, and other high-risk products. But earlier this year Greenpoint narrowed their product offerings significantly, effectively sinking loan volume and forcing the closure of 13 branches and 440 layoffs.

Capital One Closes GreenPoint Mortgage, Idling 1,900

By Joseph N. DiStefano - August 20, 2007 20:22 EDT

Aug. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Capital One Financial Corp. shut its GreenPoint Mortgage unit, eliminating 1,900 jobs, and lowered its earnings forecast as the worst U.S. housing slump in 16 years erodes demand for home loans.

Capital One bought GreenPoint less than a year ago in a $13.2 billion deal that was the biggest acquisition to date for Chief Executive Officer Richard Fairbank. Today, the McLean, Virginia-based bank cut its 2007 earnings forecast to $5 a share from $7.15, triggering charges of about $860 million, or $2.15 per share, mostly during this year.

"They said, 'Let's just cut our losses now and get out," said Thomas Brown, chief executive officer at Second Curve Capital LLC in New York, which owned 1 million shares of Capital One on June 30. "The company had been getting a lot of questions about that business."

Capital One acquired GreenPoint's parent, North Fork Bancorp, at the tail end of a five-year boom in home sales. The real estate market nationwide has contracted and investors have shunned mortgage-backed securities since defaults on loans to home buyers with poor credit rose to a record earlier this year. More than 90 mortgage companies have closed operations or sought buyers since the start of 2006, according to Bloomberg data.

NYT: Juego Limpio: Préstamos Hipotecarios, una pesadilla que crece

April 8, 2007

FAIR GAME; Home Loans: A Nightmare Grows Darker

By GRETCHEN MORGENSON

SNAZZY and newfangled mortgage loans, like those with low initial rates of interest or extended terms of 40 or 50 years, helped to drive homeownership rates in the United States from around 64 percent two decades ago to a peak of almost 70 percent in recent years. Called ''affordability loans,'' these new kinds of mortgages have gone mostly to first-time home buyers and borrowers with tarnished credit or spotty employment histories.

Now, however, with home foreclosures and mortgage delinquencies soaring, it is becoming clear that the innovative loans that lenders championed -- in what the industry called the ''democratization of credit'' -- are turning the American dream of homeownership into a nightmare for many borrowers.
Even though these subprime mortgages account for only one-eighth of total mortgages outstanding, they represent 60 percent of foreclosures, according to the Center for Responsible Lending, a nonprofit and nonpartisan research organization in Durham, N.C. This is not surprising, since the features common to subprime mortgages actually increase the risk of foreclosure, mortgage experts say.

''The subprime market should be an additional and welcome opening of the credit markets for borrowers who have previously been shut out,'' said Michael D. Calhoun, president of the center. ''But it has been allowed and even encouraged to develop in a way that we think will result in a net loss of homeownership.''

For years, the homeownership rate in the United States ranged from 60 to 65 percent of the total population. But in 1995, President Bill Clinton directed Henry G. Cisneros, then the secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, to work with the housing industry, nonprofit groups and other government officials to develop the National Homeownership Strategy, ''an unprecedented public-private partnership to increase homeownership to a record-high level over the next six years,'' as described in an Urban Policy Brief in August of that year.

BusinessWeek: Tiburones en la piscina del mercado inmobiliario

SEPTEMBER 5, 2005NEWS: ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY 

Sharks In The Housing Pool

Deed thieves, property flippers, equity strippers -- these con artists are duping banks and homeowners

By most measures, Matthew B. Cox would appear to be a mortgage lender's dream customer. The 36-year-old former Tampa resident had once worked in the mortgage business, so he understood intimately what it took to qualify for a loan. And Cox threw plenty of business at mortgage lenders in Florida, and then Georgia: An aspiring real estate investor, Cox took out $3.7 million in mortgages to finance his apparently ever-growing stable of houses.

But in reality, Cox was the industry's worst nightmare. Federal law enforcement officials say that Cox -- a.k.a. Michael Shanahan, David Freeman, and Gerald Cugno -- along with his girlfriend, Rebecca M. Hauck, masterminded a massive mortgage fraud that ensnared at least 10 different lenders, including Bank of America Corp. and SunTrust Banks Inc.


Using nearly a dozen stolen identities, the pair forged "deeds of satisfaction" to convince banks that they had paid off loans for -- and thus owned -- homes that, in fact, they were renting from the true owners.

With these fake documents, Cox then persuaded banks to lend him millions beginning in 2002 and into 2004 -- millions he and his girlfriend subsequently absconded with. So brazen was Cox that he left some of the mortgage brokers who closed his loans in Florida a copy of his novel-in-progress, titled The Associates -- little more than a barely fictionalized account of his escapades. Cox and his girlfriend are now on the lam, their faces plastered on wanted posters distributed to bankers, mortgage brokers, and real estate agents. "We want to catch him so we can put him on trial," says David E. Nahmius, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia.

Businessweek: Cuando los pobres con casa propia son un problema

BUSINESSWEEK

NOVEMBER 1, 2004 

ECONOMICS/Commentary

When Home Buying By The Poor Backfires

By: Peter Coy

For many families, a house can be a bad investment

Mildred Wilkins calls it "falling out the back door." It's what happens when low-income families who have bought their first houses are forced out because they can't keep up the mortgage payments. Says Wilkins, an Indianapolis consumer advocate who once worked for Fannie Mae (FNM ) selling foreclosed properties: "I don't care if you put five families in the front door if three families fall out the back door. It breaks my heart to see it. It absolutely breaks my heart

In Washington, making it easier for the poor to buy homes is as uncontroversial as Mom's apple pie. Measures to increase the rate of low-income homeownership have historically been strongly supported by both Democrats and Republicans, as well as homebuilders and banks. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (FRE ), the giant mortgage-finance institutions, have justified their existence by their promotion of homeownership among the poor. More recently, boosting low-income home buying has been an important part of what President George W. Bush calls the "ownership society."

Unlike many government initiatives, the homeownership campaign is succeeding: The nation's homeownership rate reached a record 69.2% in the second quarter, up from 67.2% four years earlier. Among families in the bottom half of incomes, the rate rose to 53.1% from 50.8% over the same stretch. Advocates say ownership builds wealth while promoting responsibility.

Forbes: posiciona a Countrywide entre las 25 grandes compañias de USA de mayor crecimiento en el 2004

Fastest-Growing Big Companies
 
Countrywide Branches Out Beyond Mortgages 

Ari Weinberg, 04.16.04, 3:00 PM ET 

NEW YORK - The company is no longer known as Countrywide Credit Industries but the mortgage company founded in 1969 by Angelo Mozilo and the late David Loeb has been pumping out home loans with factory-like efficiency over the past few years.


On the back of historically low interest rates, the company now known as Countrywide Financial churned out $434 billion in new loans in 2003, compared with $252 billion in 2002, making it the largest independent mortgage lender, slightly ahead of $384 billion in home lending for Washington Mutual and just behind the $470 billion of production by Wells Fargo. 

But Calabasas, Calif.-based Countrywide earned its place on our list of America's 25 Fastest-Growing Big Companies for its 33% annual revenue growth over the last five years as the fastest-growing company among U.S. financial services firms on the Global 2000. Countrywide's earnings per share--at $8.31 per share in 2003 versus $3.25 per share in 2002--and stock price, up nearly 180% since the end of 2001 to just under $56, have shown that the company has been able to translate that revenue surge into earnings. 

At an investor meeting in late March, Chairman and Chief Executive Mozilo rolled out a five-year strategic plan for Countrywide to augment its position in the mortgage banking sector and reduce its sensitivity to interest rate changes. The company plans to grow out capital markets, banking and insurance such that those divisions contribute 50% of earnings by 2008. Additionally, the company is aiming for a more sustainable 15% cumulative annual earnings growth over that period in what it calls a "normal" market.