Fannie Adds Incentive to Avoid Foreclosure

Beginning in July, Fannie Mae will allow financially troubled home owners to complete a “deed in lieu of foreclosure” or a short sale and be eligible to apply for a new Fannie-backed mortgage in two years.

Currently, borrowers who have completed a deed-in-lieu must wait four years to apply for a loan that Fannie will purchase. Home buyers who go through foreclosure must wait five years.

All these waiting periods can be reduced further, if the potential buyer can show extenuating circumstances. “We are beginning to think about post-recession, how you address borrowers who became unemployed through no fault of their own … and now deserve the right to re-enter the housing-finance system,” said Federal Housing Association Commissioner David Stevens.\

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Good timing could reap double tax credits

Some home buyers in California could get a federal tax credit worth up to $8,000 plus a new state credit worth up to $10,000 if they time their purchase just right over the next three months. But double-dipping will be tricky and won’t come without risks.

One couple who lucked out are Sibel Demirmen and Scott Henry of San Francisco, who are purchasing a home, their first, in San Rafael’s Terra Linda neighborhood.

They were planning to close escrow on April 30, and knew they qualified for an $8,000 federal home-buyer tax credit.

To get the federal credit, buyers must – among other things – close before May 1 or enter into a binding contract before May 1 and close before July 1.

Last weekend, they learned that if they could delay their close until after April 30, they could also qualify for the new California home-buyer tax credit, which was signed into law last week. The state credit is worth up to $10,000, spread over three years.

The seller agreed, and on Monday they signed an addendum to their contract postponing the closing until May 4.

“I was elated. I was ecstatic. I was thrilled,” says Demirmen, a singer, music teacher and mother of two.

Although the prospect of double-dipping will excite many house hunters, “I don’t think a ton of buyers will get both and benefit from both credits,” says Renee Rodda, editor of Spidell’s California Taxletter.

To get both, buyers must meet two sets of strict criteria. Timing it right will be tricky, especially in foreclosure or short sales, which can involve long lead times and many parties.

People who have already locked in a rate on a mortgage could lose the rate, or have to pay an additional fee to keep it, if they postpone their closing.

Matt Duffy is buying a home with his wife in Santa Rosa in a short sale, in which the purchase price is less than the debt on the home.

The seller accepted their offer in January. Last week, they heard that both lenders agreed to the deal as long as it closes by April 26.

“We said, ‘Cool, we can do that.’ We have our mortgage and the federal tax credit,” he says.

After reading my Sunday column on the state credit, Duffy realized he could get that too if he delayed his close.

“As it turns out, we are not going to be able to do that. The second lender is demanding we close by April 26 or somebody has to pay an additional $20,000,” he says.

“I am of course upset we can’t move the date. But we don’t want to lose the house. We will still get the federal credit, which is the better of the two credits.”

The federal credit: The federal credit is 10 percent of the purchase price, up to a maximum credit of $8,000 for first-time home buyers or $6,500 for longtime homeowners who buy a replacement home. Either type of buyer can purchase a new or existing home.

Buyers claim the federal credit when they file their tax return (or amend the prior year’s return). This credit is refundable: The full amount will be paid out, even if you have zero federal tax liability or the credit is bigger than your federal tax.

You cannot get the federal credit if your income is too high or the home was purchased after Nov. 6, 2009, and cost more than $800,000.

The state credit: The California credit is the lesser of 5 percent of the purchase price or $10,000. First-time buyers can purchase a new or existing home but repeat buyers can only purchase a new home that has never been occupied.

The California credit is spread over three years, up to $3,333 per year. It is not refundable: If you owe less than $3,333 in one (or more) of those years, you lose the difference that year. Even if you owed $3,333 before you owned a house, you might owe less after because of all the new tax deductions.

The state credit has no income or purchase-price limits. But here’s the rub: Some buyers who fall below the income limits for the federal credit might not owe enough California tax to get the full benefit of the state credit.

To get the California credit, you must close escrow between May 1 and either Dec. 31 or whenever the money set aside for the program runs out, whichever comes first. The money is likely to run out long before Dec. 31.

Alternatively, you can reserve a state credit for new construction by entering into a binding contract between May 1 and Dec. 31 and closing before Aug. 1, 2011. People who do this won’t get the federal credit because they entered a contract after April 30.

Getting both: Both credits require you to buy the home as your primary residence. Both define a first-time buyer as someone who has not owned a home in the three years prior to purchase.

In short, to get both credits you must be in contract on or before April 30 and close between May 1 and June 30 – and meet all other requirements.

Buyers who are already in contract and want to postpone their closing need to get the seller and lender to agree.

“Sellers might be flexible because it’s still a buyer’s market, but they may want something in return,” says Richard Redmond, a mortgage broker in Larkspur.

“If you have a loan locked in with a close date in April and you want to extend it, you may have to pay a fee or get a higher interest rate,” Redmond adds.

Buyers should consult a well-informed tax person and make sure they understand both credits.

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Foreclosure sales nearly double from prior year

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Foreclosure sales increased 92.3 percent in March 2010 compared with March 2009 and 24.2 percent compared with February according to ForeclosureRadar’s March foreclosure report.  Nearly 80 percent of foreclosure sales in February were for properties returning to lenders; the remaining properties were sold to third parties, primarily investors.

Notices of Default declined significantly in March compared with the prior year, when filings reached record levels as lenders caught up on a backlog of filings.  Third-party purchases of foreclosure sales set a new record in March, surpassing 4,000 properties for the first time. Save your credit and try to short sale your property for more info visit www.california-shortsale.com

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Troubled Banks Double in 2010

More than twice as many federally insured banks have failed this year — 42 — compared to 21 that went belly up by this time last year, according to MortgageDaily.com.

Mortgage-related closings totalled 55 from Jan. 1 through April 9, including non-bank lenders, banks, and credit unions. At the same time last year, 50 closings had been tracked.

Notable intitutions include Florida Community Bank, with losses projected at $353 million; Appalachian Community Bank, which the FDIC expects will lose $419 million; and Horizon Bank, projected to lose $539 million.

“We saw regulatory actions against U.S. financial institutions nearly double between the first-quarter 2009 and this year, suggesting the acceleration in bank failures is unlikely to abate,” said MortgageDaily.com publisher Sam Garcia. “However, a thawing of the market for mortgage-related assets could help move some institutions out of the ‘troubled’ category.”

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Fed-up homeowners who can pay the mortgage, don’t

Wynn Bloch has always dutifully paid her bills and socked away money for retirement. But in December she defaulted on the mortgage on her Palm Desert home, even though she could afford the payments.

Bloch paid $385,000 for the two-bedroom in 2006 when prices were still surging. Comparable homes are now selling in the low $200,000s. At 66, the retired psychologist doubted she’d see her investment rebound in her lifetime. Plus, she said, she was duped into an expensive loan.

The way she sees it, big banks that helped fuel the mess all got bailouts while small fries like her are left holding the bag. No more.

“There was not a chance that house was ever going to be worth anywhere near what my mortgage was,” said Bloch, who is now renting a few miles away after defaulting on the $310,000 loan. “I haven’t cheated or stolen.”

Time was when Americans would do almost anything to hang on to their homes. But that commitment appears to be fraying as more people fall behind on their loans, while watching the banks and lenders that helped trigger the financial crisis return to prosperity.

Nearly one-quarter of U.S. mortgages, or about 11 million home loans, are “underwater,” with buyers’ houses worth less than their loans. While home values are regaining ground, they remain far below their 2007 peak.

Feeling betrayed

Stuck with properties whose negative equity won’t recover for years and feeling betrayed by financial institutions that bankrolled the frenzy, some homeowners are concluding that it’s smarter to walk away than to stick it out.

“There is a growing sense of anger, a growing recognition that there is a double standard if it’s OK for financial institutions to look after themselves, but not OK for homeowners,” said Brent White, a law professor at the University of Arizona who wrote a paper on the subject.

Just how many are walking away isn’t clear. But some researchers are convinced that the numbers are growing. So-called “strategic defaults” accounted for about 35 percent of defaults by U.S. homeowners in December 2009, up from 23 percent in March 2009, according to Luigi Zingales, a professor at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.

He and colleagues at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management reached that conclusion by surveying homeowners about their attitudes and experience with loan defaults.

They found that borrowers were more willing to walk away if someone they knew had done it, and that the greater a homeowner’s negative equity the more likely they were to default, even if they had could make the monthly payment.

Similarly, an analysis released last year by credit bureau Experian and consulting firm Oliver Wyman estimated that walkaways accounted for nearly one in five homeowners who were seriously delinquent on their mortgages in the last three months of 2008.

“The fact that people are strategically defaulting — there is no question,” Zingales said. “The risk that the number of people doing this might explode is significant.”

A flood of walkaways could damage the nation’s fledgling housing recovery by swamping the market with foreclosed properties. Still, some experts are dubious that millions of underwater home- owners will pull the plug like Bloch did. Homeownership remains the cornerstone of the American dream. Moving is a hassle. And the stigma associated with a foreclosure is likely to keep many hanging on for a recovery.

The biggest surprise is that so many underwater homeowners continue to pay, according to White, the Arizona law professor.

He’s convinced that personal shame, as well as moral suasion by the government and financial institutions, has kept many homeowners from walking away, even when they’d be better off financially to dump their homes.

Taboos ending

But real estate veterans said old taboos are eroding fast.

Jon Maddux, a former real estate investor who founded You Walk Away, a for-profit company that guides homeowners through the process of default in 2007, said his earliest customers struggled with emotional ties to their homes as well as remorse about reneging on an obligation.

That’s changed as more homeowners have concluded that the housing market isn’t going to rebound quickly and they’d be better off cutting their losses.

“Now, it’s more of a business decision — it’s people who could afford their house, but it’s an inconvenience,” Maddux said.

He and other experts said average Americans are fed up with hearing how they’re supposed to honor their debts while businesses operate by another set of rules.

Case in point: Maguire Properties, one of the largest commercial landlords in California, walked away from seven prime office buildings in Los Angeles and Orange counties last year, defaulting on loans worth more than $1 billion.

Consumers typically begin to think about walking away once the value of the property is 25 percent lower than the value of the debt, according to research conducted by Sam Khater, senior economist at real estate research firm First American CoreLogic.

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For Some Markets, Bubble-Era Prices Decades Away

Here’s another indicator that bubble-era housing prices were outrageously overblown. Home prices in some areas won’t return to those peak levels for a long, long time–decades in some extreme cases, according to a report out Tuesday from Fiserv, Inc.

In Orlando, where prices peaked in mid-2006, prices aren’t expected to return there until after 2039. The city is, in fact, still waiting for bottom: That’s expected in the second quarter of 2011. Sacramento, which peaked in late 2005, also won’t see a return for some three decades.

Long waits aren’t just expected in the boom-to-bust markets where overbuilding ushered in an era of plummeting prices and rampant foreclosures. High-levels of unemployment and a decline in manufacturing gigs has stung demand and prices in the industrial Midwest, including Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. These markets won’t return to peak levels for at least five years–and potentially more than a decade, according to Fiserv’s report.

Still, the “picture is not uniformly grim,” said David Stiff, Fiserv’s chief economist. “Some markets are poised for a relatively fast recovery, including some areas that never experienced large declines in prices.”

Markets that could see prices bounce back within the next few years include Pittsburgh, Columbia, S.C., and several metro areas in Washington, as well as Texas and upstate New York.

San Antonio looks to be a lucky market: Those prices should trough later this year, with previous peaks returning in late 2012.

Fiserv came to its conclusions using the closely-watched Case-Shiller home price indexes and data from the Federal Housing Finance Agency and Moody’s Economy.com.

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Interest Rates Have Nowhere to Go but Up

Even as prospects for the American economy brighten, consumers are about to face a new financial burden: a sustained period of rising interest rates.

That, economists say, is the inevitable outcome of the nation’s ballooning debt and the renewed prospect of inflation as the economy recovers from the depths of the recent recession.

The shift is sure to come as a shock to consumers whose spending habits were shaped by a historic 30-year decline in the cost of borrowing.

“Americans have assumed the roller coaster goes one way,” said Bill Gross, whose investment firm, Pimco, has taken part in a broad sell-off of government debt, which has pushed up interest rates. “It’s been a great thrill as rates descended, but now we face an extended climb.”

The impact of higher rates is likely to be felt first in the housing market, which has only recently begun to rebound from a deep slump. The rate for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage has risen half a point since December, hitting 5.31 last week, the highest level since last summer.

Along with the sell-off in bonds, the Federal Reserve has halted its emergency $1.25 trillion program to buy mortgage debt, placing even more upward pressure on rates.

“Mortgage rates are unlikely to go lower than they are now, and if they go higher, we’re likely to see a reversal of the gains in the housing market,” said Christopher J. Mayer, a professor of finance and economics at Columbia Business School. “It’s a really big risk.”

Each increase of 1 percentage point in rates adds as much as 19 percent to the total cost of a home, according to Mr. Mayer.

The Mortgage Bankers Association expects the rise to continue, with the 30-year mortgage rate going to 5.5 percent by late summer and as high as 6 percent by the end of the year.

Another area in which higher rates are likely to affect consumers is credit card use. And last week, the Federal Reserve reported that the average interest rate on credit cards reached 14.26 percent in February, the highest since 2001. That is up from 12.03 percent when rates bottomed in the fourth quarter of 2008 — a jump that amounts to about $200 a year in additional interest payments for the typical American household.

With losses from credit card defaults rising and with capital to back credit cards harder to come by, issuers are likely to increase rates to 16 or 17 percent by the fall, according to Dennis Moroney, a research director at the TowerGroup, a financial research company.

“The banks don’t have a lot of pricing options,” Mr. Moroney said. “They’re targeting people who carry a balance from month to month.”

Similarly, many car loans have already become significantly more expensive, with rates at auto finance companies rising to 4.72 percent in February from 3.26 percent in December, according to the Federal Reserve.

Washington, too, is expecting to have to pay more to borrow the money it needs for programs. The Office of Management and Budget expects the rate on the benchmark 10-year United States Treasury note to remain close to 3.9 percent for the rest of the year, but then rise to 4.5 percent in 2011 and 5 percent in 2012.

The run-up in rates is quickening as investors steer more of their money away from bonds and as Washington unplugs the economic life support programs that kept rates low through the financial crisis. Mortgage rates and car loans are linked to the yield on long-term bonds.

Besides the inflation fears set off by the strengthening economy, Mr. Gross said he was also wary of Treasury bonds because he feared the burgeoning supply of new debt issued to finance the government’s huge budget deficits would overwhelm demand, driving interest rates higher.

Nine months ago, United States government debt accounted for half of the assets in Mr. Gross’s flagship fund, Pimco Total Return. That has shrunk to 30 percent now — the lowest ever in the fund’s 23-year history — as Mr. Gross has sold American bonds in favor of debt from Europe, particularly Germany, as well as from developing countries like Brazil.

Last week, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note briefly crossed the psychologically important threshold of 4 percent, as the Treasury auctioned off $82 billion in new debt. That is nearly twice as much as the government paid in the fall of 2008, when investors sought out ultrasafe assets like Treasury securities after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the beginning of the credit crisis.

Though still very low by historical standards, the rise of bond yields since then is reversing a decline that began in 1981, when 10-year note yields reached nearly 16 percent.

From that peak, steadily dropping interest rates have fed a three-decade lending boom, during which American consumers borrowed more and more but managed to hold down the portion of their income devoted to paying off loans.

Indeed, total household debt is now nine times what it was in 1981 — rising twice as fast as disposable income over the same period — yet the portion of disposable income that goes toward covering that debt has budged only slightly, increasing to 12.6 percent from 10.7 percent.

Household debt has been dropping for the last two years as recession-battered consumers cut back on borrowing, but at $13.5 trillion, it still exceeds disposable income by $2.5 trillion.

The long decline in rates also helped prop up the stock market; lower rates for investments like bonds make stocks more attractive.

That tailwind, which prevented even worse economic pain during the recession, has ceased, according to interviews with economists, analysts and money managers.

“We’ve had almost a 30-year rally,” said David Wyss, chief economist for Standard & Poor’s. “That’s come to an end.”

Just as significant as the bottom-line impact will be the psychological fallout from not being able to buy more while paying less — an unusual state of affairs that made consumer spending the most important measure of economic health.

“We’ve gotten spoiled by the idea that interest rates will stay in the low single-digits forever,” said Jim Caron, an interest rate strategist with Morgan Stanley. “We’ve also had a generation of consumers and investors get used to low rates.”

For young home buyers today considering 30-year mortgages with a rate of just over 5 percent, it might be hard to conceive of a time like October 1981, when mortgage rates peaked at 18.2 percent. That meant monthly payments of $1,523 then compared with $556 now for a $100,000 loan.

No one expects rates to return to anything resembling 1981 levels. Still, for much of Wall Street, the question is not whether rates will go up, but rather by how much.

Some firms, like Morgan Stanley, are predicting that rates could rise by a percentage point and a half by the end of the year. Others, like JPMorgan Chase are forecasting a more modest half-point jump.

 

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California won’t tax forgiven home debt

Tax relief is on the way for thousands of fearful California mortgage borrowers. Most no longer face a double whammy of losing their homes – and then paying a big state tax bill on the forgiven debt.

State lawmakers Thursday passed SB 401, a bill by Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, to exempt borrowers who lost homes to foreclosure or short sales in 2009 from state taxes that can run into thousands of dollars. The same is true for certain types of loan modifications.

State tax officials say 100,000 people statewide will be spared paying tax they otherwise would owe.

A spokesman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he will sign the bill.

Here’s what it does:

SB 401 aligns much of California’s tax code with that used by the Internal Revenue Service nationally. The U.S. government has banned the IRS from taxing forgiven mortgage debt as extra household income from 2007 through the end of 2012. California did the same for the 2007 and 2008 tax years.

The bill extends the state ban from 2009 through the end of 2012. It also bans state taxes on federal stimulus grants for renewable energy projects.

“It will be great for everybody in my situation. This is a big, big relief,” said Sara Palasch, who sold her Bakersfield house through a short sale last year and now lives in Georgia. Weeks ago, she got a state tax bill for $10,500.

Also relieved is Debbie Wong of Sacramento, who received a state tax bill for $7,500. She sold her Elk Grove condo last year through a short sale. The forgiven debt gave her a state taxable income of $108,000 when her salary was $13,000, she said.

“I don’t have the $7,500,” she said Thursday.

Who is affected:

Primarily, the bill affects people who had debt forgiven as they lost homes in foreclosures, short sales and deeds in lieu of foreclosure last year – and through 2012 now. Also affected: those who got loan modifications that cut the amount they owe the bank.

In short sales, a bank might accept a sales price of $250,000 when it is still owed $350,000 on the home. In deeds in lieu of foreclosure, the bank simply takes back the house and may forgive what’s still owed. The difference is the forgiven debt. Borrowers can avoid state taxes on up to $500,000 in forgiven debt.

The Franchise Tax Board says the tax forgiveness measure mostly applies to people who refinanced their homes to get better interest rates or extract equity, and then had a short sale or foreclosure where debt was forgiven.

But the tax board also warned that refinanced dollars taken out as cash and spent on items other than home improvements may be taxable.

Who is not affected:

Those who bought houses and never refinanced before doing a short sale, loan modification or foreclosure are unaffected. In most cases the banks just take back the houses. There is no forgiven debt, and no tax bill, said the tax board.

Investors are also unaffected. They still must pay state taxes on forgiven debt. The bill affects only people who live in their home.

What people should do now when filing their taxes:

The Franchise Tax Board says: “Once the governor signs this into law, California taxpayers will not have to do anything. If they qualify for federal relief on the mortgage debt forgiven, then they will also qualify for state income tax purposes. California Form 540 starts with federal adjusted gross income so there will be no adjustment necessary to properly reflect the state adjusted gross income amount for this issue.”

What this will cost the state:

The tax board estimates it will collect about $34 million less in taxes as a result of the bill in this and coming years. The bill will grant relief to about 100,000 taxpayers statewide from now through 2012, agency spokeswoman Brenda Voet said Thursday. The tax board couldn’t estimate Thursday how many of those would be in the Sacramento region.

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Distressed Sales Gain Greater Market Share

First American CoreLogic reports that distressed properties accounted for 29 percent of all U.S. home sales in January. Also, real estate-owned sales rose to 22 percent of homes sales from 19 percent in December, and short sales rose to 8 percent from 7 percent.

Average sale prices in January were $161,600 for distressed homes, compared to the average nondistressed sale price of $247,700, $141,900 for REO properties, and $215,300 for short sales.

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Hold Your Breath: Borrowers Could Stay ‘Underwater’ For Years

So-called “underwater” homeowners who owe more than their homes are worth could be holding their breath for much of the next decade.

A new study by First American CoreLogic finds that it could take until late 2015 or early 2016 for the typical underwater borrower to have positive home equity, and that homeowners in some of the nation’s hardest hit markets, such as Detroit, could be underwater until as late as 2020.

Of the 10 markets examined in the report, Atlanta, Dallas and Washington, D.C., are the first markets to return underwater homeowners back to positive equity in 2015, followed by Boston and California’s Inland Empire one year later. Pittsburgh, Las Vegas, Fort Myers, Fla., and Lancaster, Pa., aren’t projected to return to positive equity until 2019.

The study notes that even markets where fewer borrowers have negative equity could take a long time to recover “because the few borrowers that are upside down are deeply in negative equity and these are typically not high appreciation markets.”

The research, of course, makes certain assumptions about long-term home prices and how quickly borrowers will pay off their loans. As a baseline, the research uses market-specific forecasts for short-term growth, an annual 3% increase in long-term prices, and average loan balances that decrease through amortization at an annual rate of 3.3%.

Under best-case and worst-case scenarios, which use annual home-price appreciation of 5% and 1.5%, respectively, positive equity begins to return in 2013 and 2017.

The findings show just how paralyzing the negative equity problem could become for the economy over the next few years, as more homeowners are trapped in homes that they can’t sell or refinance. Certainly, delinquencies should slow down once jobs begin to return, and once home prices stabilize, fewer borrowers will be incented to walk away from homes when they can still afford to pay. But the long after-effects of negative equity is one reason that some housing analysts are worried about housing markets taking many years to return to normal.

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