The Federal Reserve announced today that it had cut the
Fed funds rate 50 basis points to 3 percent.
http://www.moneynews.com/money/archives/articles/2008/1/30/141841.cfm
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Why a Chapter13-Buyout can lower your monthly payments!
Why a Chapter13-Buyout can lower your monthly payments!
When you filed Chapter 13 Bankruptcy, you agreed to pay your past due mortgage payments and other debts usually over 60 months or 5 years. You also agreed to make your regularly scheduled mortgage payments in a timely fashion to your lender. If you have made these payments on time (never 30 days late) for at least twelve months, you have demonstrated to some lenders that you are a good risk, since you have handled the higher monthly payments.
A new 30, 40 or 50 year first mortgage refinancing your existing mortgage and paying off the Chapter 13 Bankruptcy allows you to stretch your debt payments over 30 to 50 years, and this should lower your monthly payments.
more information visit: http://www.chapter13-buyout.com
Why Do a Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Buyout Now?
Why Do a Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Buyout Now?
Lower monthly debt payments!
Ends stigma of bankruptcy and puts you on the road to better credit! Better credit means lower interest rates on future big ticket purchases such as a new car, furniture or home!
Could put a lump sum of Cash in your bank account!
Opportunity to use monthly savings and lump sum cash to create an emergency reserve fund that grows tax free!
- more information visit http://www.chapter13-buyout.com
Homes in Foreclosure Up 79 Percent in 2007
|
Friday, January 25, 2008
Home Prices Fell in ’07 for First Time in Decades
  |
Home Prices Fell in ’07 for First Time in Decades
It was a notable year for the housing industry, and not in a good way.
In 2007, the median price of an American single-family home fell for the first time in at least four decades, according to the National Association of Realtors, a trade group.
The median price declined 1.8 percent to $217,800, the first annual decline since reliable records began in 1968. “It’s the first price decline in many, many years and possibly going back to the Great Depression,” said the group’s chief economist, Lawrence Yun.
Over all, sales of previously owned single-family homes fell 13 percent in 2007, the biggest drop in a quarter-century. Last month alone, home sales dipped 2.2 percent from November, to a 4.89 million annual rate. (The group’s survey excludes newly constructed homes.)
Inventories of single-family homes and condominiums remain elevated, as the housing industry struggles to climb out of its worst downturn since the early 1990s. Though the backlog of unsold homes ticked down slightly in December, at least one economist attributed the drop to discouraged homeowners “pulling their homes off the market in the face of continued weak demand and falling prices.”
“We still have a long way to go before prices sink to levels necessary to balance supply and demand in the housing market,” the economist, Joshua Shapiro of MFR, a research firm, wrote.
Potential home buyers have stayed on the sidelines as they expect prices to drop further in 2008. Economists predict the housing market will not bottom out until the summer, and even then will remain sluggish.
The median price of a previously owned home was off 6 percent last month from December 2006, and sales of condominiums fell 25 percent.
The steepest decline in sales last month came in the Northeast, where sales fell 4.6 percent from November. Prices in the region were down 8.9 percent from December 2006.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Taxpayers Could Lose $500,000,000 on Countrywide Deal
Taxpayers Could Lose $500,000,000 on Countrywide Deal 
As the deal stands, Bank of America may be able to avoid up to $500 million in federal taxes if its acquisition of Countrywide Financial Corp. proceeds according to plan, according to tax experts.
According to analysis by a long-time tax expert at Lehman Brothers, Robert Willens, the Charlotte-based bank will be able to offset a portion of its own taxable income with losses that Countrywide sustained prior to the acquisition.
Willens estimates that the tax break could total roughly half a billion dollars in just the first five years after the takeover.
Losses to federal revenues could take off even further after that, suggests Willens.
He estimates that Bank of America would be able to deduct $270 million of pre-acquisition losses at Countrywide's every year for the first five years based on the projected $6 billion cost of buying Countrywide.
The projected cost includes $4 billion of stock the bank plans to give Countrywide's common stockholders, in addition to $2 billion of preferred stock it bought from Countrywide last August.
With the long-term tax-exempt rate of 4.49%, Willens says that Bank of America would multiply the $6 billion that figure to determine how much of lender's losses it can deduct annually for five years after the purchase.
With a $270 million annual deduction, Bank of America would save over $100 million a year in federal and state income taxes.
If that figure is multiplied over five years, BoA could save about $500 million of taxes using a total of $1.35 billion of Countrywide's losses to shelter its own income.
Although not even Countrywide knows the extent of its losses from rising defaults and lower demand, the lender would tally both its realized and unrealized losses just before the deal closes.
If the losses exceed $1.35 billion, the bank would be free to deduct the rest of the losses without any limits starting in the sixth year, says Willens.
However, any losses incurred following the closing of the deal would be fully deductible by the bank.
When Bank of America purchase of the collapsed FirstRepublic Bank of Dallas in 1988, the company manipulated the tax codes to save $1 billion in taxes in a manner that shocked both regulators and rival bidders.
Bank of America ultimately lost money with its purchase of $2 million shares of Countrywide in August by underestimating the extent of the problems with the lender’s portfolio.
It remains to be seen whether the massive tax breaks the bank stands to get will be enough to cover the future losses that Countrywide may bring.
Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008
http://www.mortgageledger.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2780&mode=&order=0&thold=0
As the deal stands, Bank of America may be able to avoid up to $500 million in federal taxes if its acquisition of Countrywide Financial Corp. proceeds according to plan, according to tax experts.
According to analysis by a long-time tax expert at Lehman Brothers, Robert Willens, the Charlotte-based bank will be able to offset a portion of its own taxable income with losses that Countrywide sustained prior to the acquisition.
Willens estimates that the tax break could total roughly half a billion dollars in just the first five years after the takeover.
Losses to federal revenues could take off even further after that, suggests Willens.
He estimates that Bank of America would be able to deduct $270 million of pre-acquisition losses at Countrywide's every year for the first five years based on the projected $6 billion cost of buying Countrywide.
The projected cost includes $4 billion of stock the bank plans to give Countrywide's common stockholders, in addition to $2 billion of preferred stock it bought from Countrywide last August.
With the long-term tax-exempt rate of 4.49%, Willens says that Bank of America would multiply the $6 billion that figure to determine how much of lender's losses it can deduct annually for five years after the purchase.
With a $270 million annual deduction, Bank of America would save over $100 million a year in federal and state income taxes.
If that figure is multiplied over five years, BoA could save about $500 million of taxes using a total of $1.35 billion of Countrywide's losses to shelter its own income.
Although not even Countrywide knows the extent of its losses from rising defaults and lower demand, the lender would tally both its realized and unrealized losses just before the deal closes.
If the losses exceed $1.35 billion, the bank would be free to deduct the rest of the losses without any limits starting in the sixth year, says Willens.
However, any losses incurred following the closing of the deal would be fully deductible by the bank.
When Bank of America purchase of the collapsed FirstRepublic Bank of Dallas in 1988, the company manipulated the tax codes to save $1 billion in taxes in a manner that shocked both regulators and rival bidders.
Bank of America ultimately lost money with its purchase of $2 million shares of Countrywide in August by underestimating the extent of the problems with the lender’s portfolio.
It remains to be seen whether the massive tax breaks the bank stands to get will be enough to cover the future losses that Countrywide may bring.
Posted on Tuesday, January 22, 2008
http://www.mortgageledger.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2780&mode=&order=0&thold=0
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Fed Cuts Interest Rate 3/4 of a Point
| Tuesday, January 22, 2008 8:47 AM | Article Font Size   |
WASHINGTON -- The Federal Reserve, confronted with a global stock sell-off fanned by increased fears of a recession, cut a key interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point on Tuesday, the biggest one-day move by the central bank in recent memory.
The Fed said it was cutting the federal funds rate, the interest that banks charge each other on overnight loans, to 3.5 percent, down by three-fourths of a percentage point from 4.25 percent.
The Fed action was the most dramatic signal it can send that it is concerned about a potential recession in the United States. It marked the biggest one-day move by the central bank in recent memory.
The Fed decision was taken during an emergency telephone conference with Fed officials on Monday night. Those discussions occurred after global financial markets had plunged Monday as investors grew more concerned about the possibility that the United States, the world's largest economy, could be headed into a recession.
In a brief statement, the Fed said it had decided to cut the federal funds rate "in view of a weakening of the economic outlook and increasing downside risks to growth."
The central bank said that the strains in short-term funding markets have eased a bit, but "broader financial market conditions have continued to deteriorate and credit has tightened further for some businesses and households. Moreover, incoming information indicates a deepening of the housing contraction as well as some softening in labor markets."
The move caught financial markets by surprise. Many had expected the central bank would wait until its meeting next week to make any move in interest rates. The Fed made the move before markets had opened in the United States, hoping that the bold move would limit the decline in U.S. stocks.
Before Tuesday's move, the Fed had cut interest rates three times, beginning in September, the month after a severe credit crunch had roiled Wall Street and global financial markets. The Fed cut the funds rate by a half-point in September and then by smaller quarter-point moves in October and December.
In its statement, the Fed said, that "appreciable downside risks to growth remain" and held out the prospect of further rate cuts.
"The committee will continue to assess the effects of financial and other developments on economic prospects and will act in a timely manner as needed to address those risk," the Fed statement said.
The Fed's action was approved on an 8-1 vote with William Poole, president the Fed's regional bank, dissenting. The statement said that Poole objected because he did not believe current conditions justified a rate move before the Fed's meeting next week.
© 2008 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/Fed_Cuts_Interest_Rate_3//2008/01/22/66325.htmlSaturday, January 19, 2008
Home Construction Slows to 27-Year Low
MoneyNews
Thursday, Jan. 17, 2008 WASHINGTON -- The prolonged slump in housing pushed construction of new homes in 2007 down by the largest amount in 27 years with the expectation that the downturn has further to go.
Thursday, Jan. 17, 2008 WASHINGTON -- The prolonged slump in housing pushed construction of new homes in 2007 down by the largest amount in 27 years with the expectation that the downturn has further to go.
The Commerce Department reported Thursday that construction was started on 1.353 million new homes and apartments last year, down 24.8 percent from 2006. It was the second biggest annual decline on record, exceeded only by a 26 percent plunge in 1980, a period when the Federal Reserve was pushing interest rates to post-World War II records in an effort to combat an entrenched inflation problem.
Many economists believe that the current slump in housing will rival the dive in the late 1970s and early 1980s when housing construction fell for four straight years before beginning to recover after the severe 1981-82 recession. For December, construction fell by a bigger-than-expected 14.2 percent.
In other economic news, the Labor Department said the number of newly laid off workers filing applications for unemployment benefits dropped by 21,000 last week to 301,000. That marked the third consecutive weekly decline and occurred even though the government reported that the unemployment rate increased sharply in December.
Some economists believe the current housing troubles will push the country into another recession as consumers are staggered by the steep drop in housing — which has pushed home values down in many parts of the country. Consumers also have been faced with rising mortgage defaults and a severe credit crunch which has made loans harder to obtain.
Story Continues Below
http://moneynews.newsmax.com/money/archives/articles/2008/1/17/095331.cfm?s=al&promo_code=434C-1
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
