President-elect Barack Obama’s nominee for housing secretary pledged Tuesday to mount a more aggressive response to the foreclosure crisis as he prepares to take the helm of an agency under fire for being slow to react to the housing bubble.
Shaun Donovan, the 42-year-old commissioner of New York City’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, has received acclaim for his leadership of an effort to add 165,000 reasonably priced homes to New York’s ultra-expensive housing stock by 2013.
He will face more sweeping challenges in taking over the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which lawmakers say has failed to respond effectively to the surge of foreclosures and defaults.
“Housing is at the root of the market crisis we are now experiencing, and HUD must be part of the solution,” Donovan said, according to remarks prepared for delivery at his Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday.
Click here to read the entire article at businessweek.com
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foreclosure, Foreclosure Aid, Obama
Fannie Mae earlier today announced new set of National Real Estate Owned (REO) Rental Policies that that could let those renting foreclosed homes to continue living in them.
“Renters in foreclosed properties have often been a casualty of the foreclosure crisis the country is facing,” said Michael Williams, chief operating officer of Fannie Mae. “This policy will allow qualified renters to remain in Fannie Mae-owned properties should they choose to do so, mitigate the disruption of personal lives that foreclosures can cause, and help bring a measure of stability to communities impacted by high foreclosure rates.”
The new policy applies to renters occupying foreclosed properties at the time Fannie Mae acquires the property. Renters occupying any type of single-family property will be eligible including residents of two- to four-unit properties, condos, co-ops, single-family detached homes and manufactured housing. Eligible renters will be offered a new month-to-month lease with Fannie Mae or financial assistance for their transition to new housing should they choose to vacate the property. The properties must meet state laws and local code requirements for a rental property.
You can read the press release here
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Fannie Mae, REO
An angry mob of investors and taxpayers is assembling, and they want to see some executives’ heads on pikes. The question for the courts will be, Who was just foolish with our money - and who was lying, cheating, and stealing?
It’s not just the Securities and Exchange Commission, New York State attorney general Andrew Cuomo, and hordes of civil plaintiffs lawyers who want to find out. According to understated disclosures in SEC filings or newspaper reports, federal criminal prosecutors in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Newark, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Alexandria, Va., are all poring over e-mails and other records right now trying to answer that question in regard to high-level officers at such formerly blue-chip companies as Lehman Brothers, AIG, Washington Mutual, Countrywide Financial, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac.
To be clear, we’re not talking here about sensational, not conceivably legal, out-and-out Ponzi schemes, like the $50 billion one that former Nasdaq chairman Bernard L. Madoff has been arrested for, or brazen forgery and criminal impersonation, like the $100 million spree that glitzy New York litigator Marc S . Dreier has been accused of. Crimes like those typically have only one of two defenses: (a) “It wasn’t me,” or (b) “Okay, it was me, but I was sleepwalking on Ambien at the time.” This article is, rather, about an entirely different category of accusation. The probes being discussed here concern statements that ultimately proved incorrect, but which reasonable, straight-faced people can, and vigorously do, contend were honest when made.
read the entire article over at money.cnn.com
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Wall Street
A judge on Monday allowed Bernard Madoff to remain confined to his Manhattan penthouse, rejecting a bid to jail the disgraced financier but imposing new restrictions to keep him from mailing any more valuables to family and friends.
In a ruling that provided limited satisfaction to investors wiped out in what may be the largest Ponzi scheme ever, Magistrate Judge Ronald L. Ellis ordered Madoff to take an inventory of the items in his $7 million apartment and submit his outgoing mail to security checks.
Prosecutors said they would ask another judge to jail Madoff while he awaits trial.
“There is a thirst for blood that transcends just those who have been victimized,” said attorney Stephen A. Weiss, who added that some of his several dozen Madoff investors “just want to have this guy’s head.”
Read the entire article here
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Jail, Madoff
He called the stock collapse of 2001 and he was ahead of the housing bubble too. So what does Robert Shiller think the housing market needs now?
Shiller, whose S&P Case/Shiller housing index is widely followed says he’s cautiously optimistic about the future. And he’s hopeful we’ll see some new and more innovative steps to make the financial markets work better.
Click here to watch the video on cnbc.com
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