Comments on: Foreclosures, Auctions, and Banks Obscuring Financial Data. Southern California Shadow Housing Inventory Report – MLS Lists 64,000 Homes but Shadow Inventory over 160,000.

By: Kathryn

Kathryn — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 04:35:14 +0000

Agreed. 3x salary rule depends on interest rates. With them so low, it is rational to pay PITI of 1/3 your gross instead. When interest rates go up, then housing will swoon. Again.

By: jl

jl — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 18:15:38 +0000

wha is a marmaluke ?

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 23:17:53 +0000

If you think we are anywhere near the bottom, you have spent the last 5 to 6 weeks living in a bubble! Everyday the Senate has pushed more and more of the unemployed closer to the precipice, the more homes that will go into the foreclosure pool. By the end of June there will be 1.2 million unemployed without benefits, which means no house payments and people just walking away from their houses. If you conservatively look at only 20% of those losing benefits as homeowners, you are looking at 240,000 homes being added to the foreclosures. If Congress continues to stall the unemployment extensions the 240,000 could easily become 2.4 million! So the same arrogant snobs that bailed out the mortgage lenders and the banks are willing to dump even more uncollectable debts upon the same industries that they just bailed out! I can see the housing market dropping another 25 to 35%.

By: Rob

Rob — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 15:54:26 +0000

LOL! It is sad that people that “Pony up” based on Realtor lies have to post garbage to validate their poor decisions. Prices will come down to the level you want. Do your reearch and know that the Government can’t prop the banks up forever!

By: Kunal

Kunal — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:26:25 +0000

Great Article, as usual.

I don’t see any mentioned in the article though on the ‘WHY’, why are the banks holding on to their inventory?
Here is what I think: Earlier last year the Govt. relaxed the ‘Mark to Market’ rules for banks, which essentially means that the banks can value their inventory at whatever price they see fit and hence still pretend to be appropriately capitalized.

If the banks start marking their inventory to the market value, its quite likely that they will be shut down by the FDIC for being under capitalized.

The FDIC does not want that, the banks don’t want that. Do we want that?

Would appreciate a better understanding from anyone who can shed further light on this information.