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this is telling:

From a contact in Texas:

When I went to the bankruptcy / foreclosure auctions here a few weeks ago I found out that the whole thing is a charade. Bank of America (for instance) auctions off houses that have gone into foreclosure for the amount owed plus any carrying costs which usually makes the auction price higher than what was owed. A pre-bid was submitted by Bank of America Home Loan Servicing (the rename for Countrywide) in the exact amount of the auction minimum (mortgage owed plus carrying costs). No one else bids so the house is “sold” by Bank of America to Bank of America Home Loan Servicing. In essence, the property is simply transferred from one division to another so that clear title is established. But this is counted as an existing home sale which artificially inflates existing home sales numbers. This is what was happening for most of the 102 BAC mortgages and the 130 Wells Fargo mortgages. For the house I “rent” where the original mortgage was with Countrywide (and then transferred to B of A when B of A bought the property) this is simply a process for getting the house off of B of A’s books and back on Countrywide’s books (now BAC Home Loan Servicing). As I said, it is all charade or smoke-and-mirrors or a shell game.

Later Bank of America Home Loan Servicing will contact a realtor who will eventually put the house on the market for sale. Let’s say that the auction price was $200,000 but the house is now worth only $150,000. The house hopefully gets sold for $150,000 so that the “loss” is reduced from $200,000 to only $50,000 and the property is disposed of. Of course when this house is sold by the realtor it is again counted as an existing home sale.

Staggering 22 % of The State Of Florida are in Some Stage Of Forclosure

A staggering 22 percent of all mortgages in the state of Florida are non-current, according to a new report from Lender Processing Services.

By non-current, they mean loans that are either delinquent or in some stage of foreclosure; perhaps more troubling is the fact that 10.4 percent of home loans in Florida are in foreclosure.

The LPS October Mortgage Monitor also revealed that the nation’s foreclosure rate was 3.12 percent as of September 30, up 2.6 percent from a month earlier and 88.9 percent year-over-year.

And remember that’s with all the government intervention, foreclosure moratoria, loan modifications, and the like; the national mortgagedelinquency rate was 9.37 percent as of September 30.

The report also highlights the large shadow inventory of foreclosed properties that could wreak havoc on home prices and a possible housing recovery.

“The number of loans deteriorating further into delinquent status is now more than twice the number of foreclosure starts, indicating another major wave of troubled loans in an already clogged loan pipeline,” the company said.

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