Like it or not Greenspan has a habit of being right… “Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said the U.S. is ‘nowhere near the bottom’ of the housing slump and is ‘right on the brink” of a recession.’

More, from CNBC.com: “… he also warned that ‘Fannie and Freddie are a major accident waiting to happen.’

His comments came in an interview today with CNBC. I’ll look for more quotes on housing from the interview and add them to this post.

Harris Real Estate University Students and future students…here is the summary of the
Housing Bill. (Thanks to the excellent reporting from Realtor.com for much of this content)

* GSE Reform – including a strong independent regulator, and permanent conforming loan limits up to the greater of $417,000 or 115% local area median home price, capped at $625,500. The effective date for reforms is immediate upon enactment, but the loan limits will not go into effect until the expiration of the Economic Stimulus limits (December 31, 2008).

* FHA Reform – including permanent FHA loan limits at the greater of $271,050 or 115% of local area median home price, capped at $625,500; streamlined processing for FHA condos; reforms to the HECM program, and reforms to the FHA manufactured housing program. The downpayment requirement on FHA loans will go up to 3.5% (from 3%). The effective date for reforms is immediate upon enactment, but the loan limits will not go into effect until the expiration of the Economic Stimulus limits (December 31, 2008).

* Homebuyer Tax Credit - a $7500 tax credit that would be would be available for any qualified purchase between April 8, 2008 and June 30, 2009. The credit is repayable over 15 years (making it, in effect, an interest free loan).

* FHA foreclosure rescue – development of a refinance program for homebuyers with problematic subprime loans. Lenders would write down qualified mortgages to 85% of the current appraised value and qualified borrowers would get a new FHA 30-year fixed mortgage at 90% of appraised value. Borrowers would have to share 50% of all future appreciation with FHA. The loan limit for this program is $550,440 nationwide. Program is effective on October 1, 2008.

* Seller-funded downpayment assistance programs – codifies existing FHA proposal to prohibit the use of downpayment assistance programs funded by those who have a financial interest in the sale; does not prohibit other assistance programs provided by nonprofits funded by other sources, churches, employers, or family members. This prohibition does not go into effect until October 1, 2008.

* VA loan limits – temporarily increases the VA home loan guarantee loan limits to the same level as the Economic Stimulus limits through December 31, 2008.

* Risk-based pricing – puts a moratorium on FHA using risk-based pricing for one year. This provision is effective from October 1, 2008 through September 30, 2009.

* GSE Stabilization – includes language proposed by the Treasury Department to authorize Treasury to make loans to and buy stock from the GSEs to make sure that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae could not fail.

* Mortgage Revenue Bond Authority – authorizes $10 billion in mortgage revenue bonds for refinancing subprime mortgages.

* National Affordable Housing Trust Fund – Develops a Trust Fund funded by a percentage of profits from the GSEs. In its first years, the Trust Fund would cover costs of any defaulted loans in FHA foreclosure program. In out years, the Trust Fund would be used for the development of affordable housing.

* CDBG Funding – Provides $4 billion in neighborhood revitalization funds for communities to purchase foreclosed homes.

* LIHTC – Modernizes the Low Income Housing Tax Credit program to make it more efficient.

* Loan Originator Requirements – Strengthens the existing state-run nationwide mortgage originator licensing and registration system (and requires a parallel HUD system for states that fail to participate). Federal bank regulators will establish a parallel registration system for FDIC-insured banks. The purpose is to prevent fraud and require minimum licensing and education requirements. The bill exempts those who only perform real estate brokerage activities and are licensed or registered by a state, unless they are compensated by a lender, mortgage broker, or other loan originator.

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California led the U.S. into the worst housing recession since the 1930s. Now the most populous state may be the first to find the bottom.

In Stockton, the U.S. metro area with the highest foreclosure rate, home sales more than doubled in the second quarter after prices fell by an average 37 percent. Across the state, sales rose for three consecutive months starting in April after 30 straight months of declines, the California Association of Realtors said. About 40 percent of those transactions were foreclosure sales, DataQuick Information Systems reported.

Discounts of as much as 50 percent will extend into 2010, helping clear a glut of foreclosures and leading to a more balanced housing market.

“Half off in a decent neighborhood is close to the bottom,” said Bill Gross, co-chief investment officer of Newport Beach, California-based Pacific Investment Management Co., manager of the world’s biggest bond fund. Property markdowns of 30 percent to 40 percent give the market “price illumination if not sunshine,” he said. (Bloomberg.com)

`Beginning to Happen’

California led the U.S. in default notices and bank seizures for the 18th straight month in June and had seven of the 10 metro areas with the highest foreclosure rates, according to Irvine, California-based RealtyTrac Inc., which sells default data. That drove down prices and led to “discounted distressed sales,” with two-thirds of transactions under $500,000, compared with 40 percent a year earlier, the California Association of Realtors said.

The amount of time it would take to deplete the supply of homes decreased to 7.7 months from 10.2 months a year earlier, and the median price fell 38 percent to $368,250 last month.

Foreclosure sales accounted for 75 percent of June’s total in Merced County, home to the Merced metro area with the country’s second-highest foreclosure rate; 72 percent in Stanislaus County, home to the Modesto metro area with the third-highest foreclosure rate; and 66 percent in San Joaquin County, home to Stockton, data from DataQuick in La Jolla, California, and RealtyTrac show.

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Sales of foreclosed properties equaled 63 percent of the total in Sacramento County, 62 percent in Riverside County, 58 percent in Solano County, 57 percent in San Bernardino County and 49 percent in Contra Costa County. Prices dropped as much 37 percent in those counties, DataQuick reported.

`Seen the Light’

About 1 million U.S. homes will be in some stage of foreclosure by the end of the year, and properties seized by banks will eventually sell at an average discount of 30 percent to 33 percent, said Rick Sharga, executive vice president for marketing at RealtyTrac.

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Discounts will be higher in areas such as Stockton, about 80 miles east of San Francisco in California’s agricultural Central Valley, and Riverside, 50 miles east of Los Angeles, that experienced above-average levels of new construction at the peak of the housing boom and where lenders made a disproportionate number of subprime loans, Sharga said.

PMZ, the Stockton-based brokerage, closed 1,707 home transactions in the second quarter, about 80 percent of them foreclosure sales, said Michael Zagaris, the company’s president. Foreclosed homes are now getting multiple bids and the supply of homes for sale in San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties shrank to 4.9 months in June from 18.2 months a year earlier, he said.

“We’ve found the bottom,” Zagaris said. “The financial institutions have seen the light and are allowing the market to find its own level.”

Housing Bill

Banks will foreclose on about 700,000 properties with subprime mortgages this year, more than double the number a year ago.

Executives from Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co. in San Francisco told Congress last week that they’ve accelerated the pace of loan modifications and added personnel to help homeowners avoid foreclosure. Wells Fargo, which services one in eight U.S. mortgages, expanded its staff to more than 1,000 from 200 in 2005.

The housing bill signed by President George W. Bush yesterday is intended to stem foreclosures and includes a program backed by the Federal Housing Administration to insure as much as $300 billion in refinanced mortgages, including many subprime loans.

Don’t forget about the HREU.tv video channel. We have created and posted dozens of videos for you.

Here is one of the newest videos. Watch this great video that explains how you can create wealth from real estate.

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Home prices in 20 U.S. metropolitan areas fell at a faster pace in May, and consumer confidence stayed this month near the lowest level since 1992, posing a threat to household spending.

The S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index dropped 15.8 percent from a year earlier, the biggest decline since records began in 2001, after falling 15.2 percent in April. The Conference Board’s confidence index rose to 51.9, from 51 in June.

Home prices have fallen every month since January last year, eroding household wealth at a time when consumers are trying to cope with record fuel costs and the credit crunch.

Sales Headwinds

Stricter loan rules, rising mortgage rates and an increase in foreclosures are making it more difficult for prospective buyers to get financing, hurting home sales. The prolonged real- estate slump, along with higher fuel prices and a shrinking job market, is weighing on consumers and the economy.

Home prices decreased 0.9 percent in May from the prior month after declining 1 percent in April, the report showed. The figures aren’t adjusted for seasonal effects so economists prefer to focus on year-over-year changes instead of month to month.

The index was forecast to fall 16 percent from a year earlier, after a previously reported 15.3 percent drop in the 12 months ended in April, according to the median forecast of 25 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Estimates ranged from declines of 14.8 percent to 17 percent.

Year-End Forecast

“We’re going to see continued declines in house prices, much more so in problem areas,” said Mickey Levy, chief economist at Bank of America Corp. in an interview with Bloomberg Television in New York. “By year-end, the inventories will be low enough, particularly in new homes, that we’ll begin to see light at the end of the tunnel.”

“Regional patterns stand out,” David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P, said in a statement. The areas that once boomed, such as Miami and Las Vegas, are now showing the biggest declines, he said. Areas in the Midwest, including Detroit and Cleveland, are showing signs of economic stress, according to Blitzer.

Price Measures

The pickup in the pace of house-price decreases from last year contrasts with other private and government measures that indicated values were declining at a slower pace.

The median price of existing houses fell 6.1 percent in June from the same month last year, compared with an 8.5 percent decrease registered in the 12 months ended in April, according a report from the National Association of Realtors last week.

Prices of new homes, as reported by the Commerce Department, dropped 2 percent last month from June 2007. In the year ended in March, the decrease was 13 percent, the biggest in almost four decades.

Residential construction companies are struggling to stay profitable. Pulte Homes Inc., the third-largest U.S. homebuilder, reported a second-quarter loss of $158.4 million last week.

“We see no immediate signs of this housing downturn relenting,” Pulte Chief Executive Officer Richard Dugas said in a conference call with analysts.

****This is the Short Sale Call For New Student Enrollments..If you are an existing student feel free to join us but, this is not your weekly coaching call. Be sure to check www.HarrisRealEstateUniversity.com for this weeks schedule****

Hello,

Remember, this Wednesday July 30th at 12:00nn PST, 3:00pm EST……
You are registered for the F -R -E -E Agent Short Sale Secrets teleconference.

The teleconference is completely full. 100% of the spots have been
taken.

But, your ’seat’ has been reserved.

Now, click here for all the call in info:
http://instantteleseminar.com/?eventid=3559719 ?——Go Here Now.

If you’re market is anything like mine nearly every home for sale
is a ‘Short Sale’ listing. Now, you will learn exactly how to:

1)    Plug and Play marketing ideas to easily list short sales.
2)    Exactly what to put in the ‘package’ that must be submitted.
3)    Communicate with the lenders and get them to call you back.
4)    Step-by-Step how to do short sales, how to get started now.
5)    Plus, many more secrets revealed.

You will love the ideas and energy you will get from this call.
Expect to take pages of great notes.

One more thing..I know this sounds crazy. Please don’t share the
info about this call with other agents. This call is completely full.

Before its too late……

Click here NOW for all the call in info:
http://instantteleseminar.com/?eventid=3559719 ?——-Important Link.

Speak with you soon,
Tim and Julie Harris

P.S. This is not a ‘fluff call’. We respect your time and will be
giving you the information you must have to cash in on the Short
Sale listings explosion that is taking place now.

P.P.S. This call is taking place at 12:00 pm PST, 1:00 pm MTN, 2:00
pm CTR, 3 pm EST.

Realtor coaching. Real estate training. Tim and Julie Harris. Harris Real Estate University. Realtor. BPO. How to get REO listings. Agent Short Sale Secrets. Realtor Short Sale.

The International Monetary Fund said there’s no end in sight to the U.S. housing recession and warned that deteriorating credit conditions for consumers and banks may prolong a period of slow economic growth.

“At the moment, a bottom for the housing market is not visible,” the IMF said in its Global Financial Stability Report, released today in Washington. “Stemming the decline in the U.S. housing market is necessary for market stabilization as this would help both households and financial institutions to recover.”

The IMF, which a year ago failed to foresee the depth of the subprime mortgage collapse, stood by its April forecast for about $1 trillion in losses stemming from the U.S. mortgage crisis. While U.S. policy makers have helped contain the financial losses, “credit risks remain elevated” and banks need to raise more capital.

Worldwide asset writedowns and losses have totaled $469 billion in the past year and $345 billion has been raised.

The Washington-based lender in the report said the Federal Reserve’s decisions to expand lending to Wall Street firms “have succeeded in containing systemic risks.” Still, weakness in housing threatens to extend the slump.

“The growing concern is that, with delinquencies and foreclosures in the U.S. housing market rising sharply, and house prices continuing to fall, loan deterioration is becoming more widespread,” the IMF said.

`Few Signs’

Jaime Caruana, head of the IMF’s capital market division, speaking to the press in Washington today, said housing data in the U.S. showed few signs of improvement. “Some indicators continue to go south,” he said. Improving affordability, he said, should at some point help the market recover.

Falling share prices are making it harder for banks to raise capital, increasing the risk of a downward spiral in the global economy, the IMF said. The outlook for banks may make investors reluctant to provide fresh funds needed to restore the strength of financial institutions, the fund said.

“As economic growth slows, banks will face continued headwinds in maintaining earnings due to falling credit quality, declining fee income, high funding costs, and exposures to monoline and mortgage insurers,” Jaime Caruana, director of the IMF’s monetary and capital markets unit, said in a statement.

Fannie, Freddie

The fund warned that the frailty of the financial system would be increased by the failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two largest sources of U.S. mortgage financing. Shares of both companies are down more than 80 percent in the past year.

The U.S. Congress two days ago passed legislation to stem foreclosures for 400,000 homeowners and aid Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, its most sweeping effort to halt the biggest housing slump since the Depression. President George W. Bush may sign the bill into law this week.

IMF economists said that the global holdings of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debt meant that “there would have been systemic consequences had confidence in the debt come into question.”

The report said oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was too weak. “Part of the problem stems from the current regulatory framework, which has allowed their balance sheets to expand to their current systemic significance,” the fund said.

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Realtor coaching. Real estate training. Agent Short Sale Secrets. Agent REO Secrets. Tim and Julie Harris. Harris Real Estate University. How to get REOs. BPO. REI. Realtors. Real Estate Training.

Its Sunday…

Every Sunday Julie and I create a list of the priority projects for the week ahead. We keep the list to maybe 10 different items. For something to make it onto our ‘2-Do’ list it must meet these 3 critical requirements:

1) Will this ‘2-Do’ Benefit our students?

2) Does this ‘2-Do’ really need to be done this week…is it truly critical?

3) Do it, Delegate It or Ditch it. In other words, does this ‘2-Do’ need to be done by us personally or can it be delegated to our on site staff…(or virtual staff whom we employ all over the world.)

One of the first items on this weeks ‘2-Do’ list is to remind you about our online

TV Station… www.HREU.TV

Make sure you are visiting that site often. We are posting a new educational, motivatonal video every week or so. You will want to subscribe to the video channel so that the newest videos are automatically sent to you.

Here is the newest video. Watch now as HREU adjunct coach Linda McKissack explains how she built financial freedom through real estate.

Foreclosure Scamers Alive and Well .. Do you know what they look like ?

You’ve seen headlines that say:

We can save your credit!
We’ll pay cash for your house!
Let us buy your house and rent it back to you!
We help people just like you!
We’ll save your house from the banks by selling it or even paying you for it!

When they really should say:
We buy people’s houses! Sell your house below market value and we’ll make a killing!!

These advertisers are absolute scavengers and real bottom-feeders. Their goal is to profit from the calamity of others. If they were truly compassionate, they would provide their services free of charge or at least something comparable to that. While capitalism and free enterprise are the cream of our economical crop, to prey on others’ hardships is inexcusable. Let’s take a gander at some of the examples listed above.

1) We can save your credit (for a small fee, of course).
This proclamation is heavily loaded. If your credit is in need of saving, it’s probably pretty far gone. What they’re actually promising to do is to take your money and your house. You pay them to buy your house and they assure you that you’re sparing yourselves from the horrors of foreclosure and the hits to your credit. Possibly, yes. If you’re not already tangled up in the process of foreclosure, you will be avoiding it; nevertheless, that’s not necessarily the point here. They will only buy your house if you have equity because with equity, they cash out and you’re left with nothing. At the end of the day, you paid them to take your house away from you.

2) We’ll pay cash for your house (if you sign that sucker over to us).
This has the same outcome as number 1, except this time, they pay you. Keep in mind here that you’re still losing out on your equity and they’re not. For a few thousand dollars in cash, I’ve seen an elderly woman sell her house because she was frightened into thinking that she would end up a homeless old lady. With the equity she had in her house, she could have purchased a smaller, older one for cash.

3) Let us buy your house and rent it back to you.
Wow- sounds great, doesn’t it? They buy your house for pennies on the dollar and all you have to do is sign a lease to make monthly payments on it. The real story here is that these guys purchase your home and finance it. Your monthly payments are then made on the financing of your own house. Typically, these guys will flip the house knowing they have a guaranteed renter-you, the former homeowner.

4) We help people just like you.
What they’re really saying is that “We con people just like you everyday.” They know what they’re doing. The best advice in these situations is don’t trust anyone who contacts you first. Build trust with those who approach. Be wary of e-mails, phone calls, mail and door-to-door solicitors. Remember, why would they seek you out? They are vultures and you’re the prey.

5) We’ll save your house from the banks by selling it or even paying for it.
This one is a real gem. As real estate agents, these scavengers are real pros. At their behest, you sign a contract which lists your house for a period of time. The agent then turns around and buys your house at a discounted price. The key here is that they never really attempt to sell the house and they use the intentional lack of interest in your property as proof that it can’t go for the asking price. The only option is to sell your house to your agent at a discounted price. With a buyer already lined up, they flip the house. Remember to always use a local and trusted real estate agent, preferably someone whom you’re referred to.

Look after yourselves and protect what is best for you, not someone interested in your house!

Give me a call I charge no up front fees, I am a licenced Real Estate Broker in the State of Georgia, and there for Goverened by the State of Georgia.  I am here to help if I can..

Eric Reid, Managing Broker Renaissance Realty Group Inc. Home Loss Prevention Expert Short Sale Certified REO Certified Graduate Harris Real Estate University Office: 404-921-2067 x 102 Fax: 770-513-4443 Search All Georgia Homes for Sale at www.GeorgiaOnlineHomes.com