This didn’t take long to return.

Mortgage fraud takes many forms, but a well-organized scam frequently involves a limited liability company (LLC) or a “straw buyer.” In this scheme, fraudsters use a fake identity or that of someone else who allows them to use their credit status in return for a fee. The seller pockets the money the buyer borrows from a lender to pay for the home. The buyer never makes a mortgage payment and the property goes into foreclosure.

e property appraisal — compiled by an appraiser who Scott believes never visited the area — showed four nearby comparable properties of around the same age (100 plus years) sold recently for around $360,000. The trick to this kind of scheme is engineering the sale of the first few fraudulently overvalued properties to get “comps” — comparable values — to fool appraisers and underwriters alike.

“Miraculously, all of these properties were all within a very narrow price range,” Scott said with weary sarcasm. “This is a perfect appraisal for an underwriter. If you are an underwriter sitting in Kansas or California it all looks fairly straightforward so you can just hit the button and approve it.”

Commercial real estate loans are being extended as the financial industry refuses to accept reality.
When banks are allowed to mark to imaginary, this is what ensues in a repeat of Japan’s debacle.

A big push by banks in recent months to modify such loans—by stretching out maturities or allowing below-market interest rates—has slowed a spike in defaults. It also has helped preserve banks’ capital, by keeping some dicey loans classified as “performing” and thus minimizing the amount of cash banks must set aside in reserves for future losses.

Restructurings of nonresidential loans stood at $23.9 billion at the end of the first quarter, more than three times the level a year earlier and seven times the level two years earlier. While not all were for commercial real estate, the total makes clear that large numbers of commercial-property borrowers got some leeway.

The PACE “Green home” program is dealt a fatal blow. It’s interesting to note the Inland Empire municipalities in So Cal have been leading the nation in driving this program.

PACE lets homeowners use special property-tax assessments to pay off, over 15 to 20 years, the cost of new improvements. Local governments sell municipal bonds to fund it.

In May, Fannie and Freddie said the liens violated the terms of their contracts to purchase loans from lenders and said they would require borrowers to pay off the liens before refinancing or selling their properties. The announcements, which raised concerns that borrowers would have to pay off their mortgages early, led most municipalities to suspend their PACE programs.

June 30 ends the TALF emergency program (Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan). The training wheels come off one by one.

[i] Federal Reserve: January 27, 2010
Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in December suggests that economic activity has continued to strengthen and that the deterioration in the labor market is abating. Household spending is expanding at a moderate rate but remains constrained by a weak labor market, modest income growth, lower housing wealth, and tight credit. Business spending on equipment and software appears to be picking up, but investment in structures is still contracting and employers remain reluctant to add to payrolls. Firms have brought inventory stocks into better alignment with sales. While bank lending continues to contract, financial market conditions remain supportive of economic growth. Although the pace of economic recovery is likely to be moderate for a time, the Committee anticipates a gradual return to higher levels of resource utilization in a context of price stability.

With substantial resource slack continuing to restrain cost pressures and with longer-term inflation expectations stable, inflation is likely to be subdued for some time.

The Committee will maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent and continues to anticipate that economic conditions, including low rates of resource utilization, subdued inflation trends, and stable inflation expectations, are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period. To provide support to mortgage lending and housing markets and to improve overall conditions in private credit markets, the Federal Reserve is in the process of purchasing $1.25 trillion of agency mortgage-backed securities and about $175 billion of agency debt. In order to promote a smooth transition in markets, the Committee is gradually slowing the pace of these purchases, and it anticipates that these transactions will be executed by the end of the first quarter. The Committee will continue to evaluate its purchases of securities in light of the evolving economic outlook and conditions in financial markets.

In light of improved functioning of financial markets, the Federal Reserve will be closing the Asset-Backed Commercial Paper Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility, the Commercial Paper Funding Facility, the Primary Dealer Credit Facility, and the Term Securities Lending Facility on February 1, as previously announced. In addition, the temporary liquidity swap arrangements between the Federal Reserve and other central banks will expire on February 1. The Federal Reserve is in the process of winding down its Term Auction Facility: $50 billion in 28-day credit will be offered on February 8 and $25 billion in 28-day credit will be offered at the final auction on March 8. The anticipated expiration dates for the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility remain set at June 30 for loans backed by new-issue commercial mortgage-backed securities and March 31 for loans backed by all other types of collateral. The Federal Reserve is prepared to modify these plans if necessary to support financial stability and economic growth.
[/i]

In these tough times, one would have expected Congress to allow hardship withdrawals from IRA’s without penalty for living expenses but that’s not the case.

Hardship distributions are includible in gross income unless they consist of designated Roth contributions. In addition, they may be subject to an additional tax on early distributions of elective contributions. Unlike loans, hardship distributions are not repaid to the plan.
For a distribution from a 401(k) plan to be on account of hardship, it must be made on account of an immediate and heavy financial need of the employee and the amount must be necessary to satisfy the financial need. The need of the employee includes the need of the employee’s spouse or dependent. (Reg. §1.401(k)-1(d)(3)(i))
Under the provisions of the Pension Protection Act of 2006, the need of the employee also may include the need of the employee’s non-spouse, non-dependent beneficiary.

Of course, the penalty for early “hardship withdrawals” is waived if the “hardship” is buying a home or sending a child to college.

Though you may take money out of your 401(k) to use as a down payment, expect to pay a 10 percent penalty.
However, take the money from your IRA, and it’s penalty-free. The penalty-free withdrawal is not limited to first-timers either. Homebuyers must not have owned a home in the previous two years, though. Further you can take more than one penalty-free withdrawal to buy a home, but there is a $10,000 limit.
“Beginning January 1, 1998, a taxpayer may make withdrawals from an individual retirement account (IRA) to pay the qualified higher education expenses for the taxpayer, the taxpayer’s spouse, or the child or grandchild of the taxpayer or taxpayer’s spouse at an eligible educational institution. The taxpayer will owe federal income tax on the amount withdrawn, but will not be subject to the 10 percent early withdrawal tax that applies when amounts are withdrawn from an individual retirement account before the account holder reaches age 59 1/2.”

Will this amount to nothing but an empty threat ?

Fannie Mae (FNM/NYSE) announced today policy changes designed to encourage borrowers to work with their servicers and pursue alternatives to foreclosure. Defaulting borrowers who walk-away and had the capacity to pay or did not complete a workout alternative in good faith will be ineligible for a new Fannie Mae-backed mortgage loan for a period of seven years from the date of foreclosure. Borrowers who have extenuating circumstances may be eligible for new loan in a shorter timeframe.

Fannie Mae will also take legal action to recoup the outstanding mortgage debt from borrowers who strategically default on their loans in jurisdictions that allow for deficiency judgments. In an announcement next month, the company will be instructing its servicers to monitor delinquent loans facing foreclosure and put forth recommendations for cases that warrant the pursuit of deficiency judgments.

Amazing

The composition of the $5.5 trillion of loans guaranteed by Fannie and Freddie suggests that the surge in delinquencies may continue. About $1.98 trillion of the loans were made in states with the nation’s highest foreclosure rates — California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona — and $1.13 trillion were issued in 2006 and 2007, when real estate values peaked. Mortgages on which borrowers owe more than 90 percent of a property’s value total $402 billion.

…

The Treasury program is budgeted to cost Fannie and Freddie $20 billion. The companies have already modified about 600,000 delinquent loans and refinanced almost 300,000 more, in some cases for an amount greater than the houses are worth.

Here’s a quote from an insider confirming this. When banks are backed by the government, they can take their time winding down the bad assets, thus lengthening the recovery process.

“They sell very quickly when they hit the market because the banks are doing a very good job; they’re withholding lots of them (so as not to flood the market) and strategically planning their REO (real estate owned by banks) sales,” said Diane DeFaria, a broker with D&F Properties in San Jose.

….

Realtors don’t always list homes as short sales,

In other news, the role of government in the economy continues growing.

Private wages. A record-low 41.9% of the nation’s personal income came from private wages and salaries in the first quarter, down from 44.6% when the recession began in December 2007.

Government benefits. Individuals got 17.9% of their income from government programs in the first quarter, up from 14.2% when the recession started. Programs for the elderly, the poor and the unemployed all grew in cost and importance. An additional 9.8% of personal income was paid as wages to government employees.

Taxes bite homeowners who thought they were in the clear after foreclosures or walking away. Taxes are due on non-purchase debt which is forgiven.

Federal and state tax laws have long viewed canceled debt as income because consumers who borrow money to buy a house—or who pull money out of their house to buy cars and such—and then don’t pay it back “wind up ahead of where they were,” says an IRS spokesman.