REAL ESTATE: OBAMA STRIKES AGAIN

Dodd Frank Real Estate Basics, What It Is and How To Protect Yourself

Published July 10, 2014 | By ListedBY

Chris Dodd and Barney Frank have long since retired, but the namesake legislation they crafted four  years ago is about to unleash sweeping changes in the mortgage and real estate markets.
 

According to real estate attorney Shari Olefson, who also wrote the book Financial Fresh Start, the changes took effect January 1st and few people even know about them.
 

“It’s not a bad idea to have less risky loans,” she says in the attached video. “The problem is folks are just not really ready for this. Banks have been preparing for this for a while, but folks on the street are just not aware of it.”

What she’s talking about is the coming dawn of the qualified or ‘’safe harbor’’ mortgage era. 

“Here’s the problem. In order for banks to benefit from a ‘safe harbor’ against lawsuits by borrowers, the loans they issue now under Dodd Frank have to be considered qualified mortgages,” Olefson says.

Specifically, she says that means debt-to-income ratio cannot exceed 43%, points and costs cannot exceed 3% and banks must independently verify that a borrower “has the ability to repay” via eight different criteria.

While the all sounds logical and well intentioned, Olefson foresees some problems.

“Here’s the catch, about 20% of people who have mortgages right now, will not be able to get qualified mortgages.  So what’s going to happen to those people is they’re going to have to go elsewhere for the new mortgage loans, or banks will have to price them more expensively because they don’t have these protections against lawsuits.”

What that means, she says, is that “it’s starting to sound like we may be seeing what used to be sub-prime loans again,” as well as the reality that more people will be pushed into the rental market.

Again, while this may be news to Mom and Pop, institutional money has been pouring into residential, single-family homes for years, and Wall Street is now poised to collect rent-checks until the real estate market rebounds enough for a suitable return on investment. As she frames it, private industry is stepping in exactly as Uncle Sam is easing out of the mortgage business.

Olefson also points out that all of this comes at a time when homeownership levels are already falling, from a peak of 69% to just 63% today. It’s a trend she fears could carry huge societal ramifications given the fact that 75% of American wealth has historically come from home ownership, or as she calls it, “essentially a forced savings account.”

Mess with that safety net, and it’s easy to see why she says the ripple effects of unintended consequences could easily outweigh the benefits of a four year old law.

http://blog.listedby.com/knowledge-centre/dodd-frank-real-estate-basics-what-it-is-and-how-to-protect-yourself/

QE3 – Pay Attention If You Are in the Real Estate Market

The Daily Bell:

The Fed is now where mortgages go to die. Thousands of mortgages on homes that do not exist or on homes that have more than one "first" mortgage are now going to the Fed to disappear. Thousands of multifamily and commercial mortgages will be bought up as well. As this happens, trillions of dollars that have been amassed offshore will be free to come back into the US to buy up and reposition land, farmland, residential and commercial real estate and other tangibles.

With documents shredded, criminal liabilities extinguished and financial institutions made whole, funds can return without fear of seizure.

QE3 proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that the extent of the fraud was as bad as I said it was. You can count up the bailouts and QE1, QE2, QE3 the numbers speak for themselves. The fraud was indeed in the many trillions of dollars. It was intentional. It was a plan. [Emphasis mine.]

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The Daily Bell is pleased to introduce our readers to editorials from Catherine Austin Fitts. Catherine is the publisher of The Solari Report, and managing member of Solari Investment Advisory Services, LLC and Sea Lane Advisory, LLC. Catherine served as managing director and member of the board of directors of the Wall Street investment bank Dillon, Read & Co. Inc., as Assistant Secretary of Housing and Federal Housing Commissioner at the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development in the first Bush Administration and was the president of Hamilton Securities Group, Inc. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania (BA), the Wharton School (MBA) and studied Mandarin Chinese at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

HAT TIP: Before It's News

OMG: DOUBLE COUNTING!!!

Data on sales of previously owned U.S. homes from 2007 through October this year will be revised down next week because of double counting, indicating a much weaker housing market than previously thought.

Realtors: We Overcounted Home Sales for Five Years

Gosh, wonder how that happened? Maybe we should ask Jon Corzine.

Tax fraud suspected in Obama land deal

The "buffer zone" parcel at the Obama family mansion in Chicago's upscale Kenwood neighborhood purchased by the wife of convicted felon Tony Rezko was transferred to Barack and Michelle Obama without ever being assessed or taxed, in apparent violation of Illinois law, according to a debt-collection expert.

"The Cook County Assessor's Office told me that there is no record of any tax assessment having been done on this transfer of the buffer zone property into a Northern Trust Co. Deed in Trust," Albert Hendershot told WND.

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Debt collector accidentally discovers Obama real estate fraud (1.32 million dollars in 2005)

Received via email from former CA Highway Patrol Officer yesterday:

Although I am not a Rick Wiles fan--and after my first and only appearance on his show (discovering he is a profound anti-Semite) I have refused further appearance requests)--if this is true it SHOULD be a career-ender for Obama and place him in prison. But, as we know, the Luciferian tyrant is protected by very dark forces...

Begins with "Skip Tracing" [03:15] and Michelle Obama pops up - hang on to your hats!

In liberty,

"The Constitution matters. The truth matters" — Terry Lakin

VIDEO

03:15 starts "discovery"
14:00 starts real estate discussion
33:19 ends the "discovery" part of this video

How a convicted felon helped Obama buy home

WND: Tony Rezko's ties threatened to block path to the White House...

...and now he's in jail.

And Obama will soon be in jail, too.

Big Government: "Some of us who don’t even own homes are paying to support others and their home ownership..."

For American taxpayers, now on the hook for some $145 billion in housing losses connected to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans, that amount could be just the tip of the iceberg.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the losses could balloon to $400 billion. And if housing prices fall further, some experts caution, the cost to the taxpayer could hit as much as $1 trillion.

Fannie-Freddie Bailout Could Cost Taxpayers $1 Trillion

...substantial American economic collapse coming to us in 2011

Government spending has already hugely increased, and so has the size and scope of government, but next year there will also be substantial tax increases for a great many Americans. The first reason will be the expiration of the Bush tax cuts . The top personal income tax rate will rise next Jan. 1 to 39.6% from 35%, a hike of nearly one-eighth. The dividend tax rate will rise to 39.6%, more than 2½ times the current 15%. And the capital gains tax rate will rise by a third, to 20% from 15%. If the House health care bill had passed, all three of these rates would have risen to 45%.

The estate tax, which fell to zero this year under the Bush tax cuts, will return in 2011--or sooner, if Congress acts to restore it. Another likely tax increase will be on the income of private equity and hedge-fund managers, from the capital gains rate of 15% to the new higher income tax rates. It has already been passed by the House and is supported by the Obama administration, as is an additional 10-year, $90 billion tax on banks aimed at "rolling back bonuses for top earners." It would affect some 50 banks, insurance companies, and large broker-dealers.

Meanwhile a number of last year's tax deductions have disappeared due to the failure of Congress to extend them into this year. The tax deduction for state and local sales taxes is one; the deduction for college tuition and fees is another; and the 50% write-off for small businesses for capital purchases--equipment, machinery or building a new plant--has disappeared as well, which will have a negative effect upon the construction of new business operation facilities.

Add on to all of these increases the biggest government deficits and spending increases (to 26.5% of gross domestic product from 21%) in half a century, the protectionism of free trade downsizing through the "buy American" requirements, China import restrictions, and the administration limitations of Columbia, South Korea, and Panama free trade agreements, and we have a very different, and not very prosperous, America ahead of us.

Or as economist Arthur Laffer wrote in his January Economic Outlook, we "cannot have a prosperous economy when government is overspending, raising tax rates, printing too much money, over-regulating and restricting the free flow of goods and services across national boundaries." We are, in his words, simply "moving in the wrong direction."

***

But what Mr. Laffer sees as most important is a substantial American economic collapse coming to us in 2011...

Read the whole thing

American Economic Association: chances are slim for U.S. growth

U.S. growth prospects deemed bleak in new decade
Pedro Nicolaci da Costa
ATLANTA

Sun Jan 3, 2010 6:55pm ESTATLANTA (Reuters) - A dismal job market, a crippled real estate sector and hobbled banks will keep a lid on U.S. economic growth over the coming decade, some of the nation's leading economists said on Sunday.

U.S.

Speaking at American Economic Association's mammoth yearly gathering, experts from a range of political leanings were in surprising agreement when it came to the chances for a robust and sustained expansion:

They are slim.

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See Obama helping the real estate markets to recover...

National Association of Realtors

Dear Fellow REALTOR,

You may have seen news reports about President Obama’s budget proposal that was released today at 11:30 AM Eastern Time. A small section of the sweeping budget plan has the potential to become a major impediment to a recovery in real estate markets across the nation. NAR is 100% opposed to the provision that modifies the Mortgage Interest Deduction and is prepared to use its formidable array of resources against its enactment.

As currently drafted, the plan changes the Mortgage Interest Deduction by reducing the amount of mortgage deductibility on families earning over $250,000. This proposed change in the Mortgage Interest Deduction will result in further erosion of home prices and home values. If this proposal is enacted it will lead to a new round of price depreciation, will cause greater distress on the balance sheets of banks as the collateral value of mortgage backed securities declines. A second credit crisis could emerge before the first one is resolved.

As you read this NAR is launching a multiphase plan of action to eliminate this provision from the budget plan. In the next 24 hours, NAR will be expressing our concerns directly to President Obama, to all members of the United States House of Representatives and the Senate, placing advertisements in the publications read by Washington, DC decision makers. Additionally, NAR will be forming a coalition with other groups affected by this proposal.

This communication is the first part of our response, we will continue to update you as the situation and events warrant.

Sincerely,
Charles McMillan, CIPS, GRI
2009 NAR President