by Calculated Risk on 7/12/2010 04:08:00 PM

The Sacramento Association of REALTORS® has been breaking out short sales for over a year now. They report monthly resales by equity sales (conventional resales), and distressed sales (Short sales and REO sales), and I'm following this series as an example to see mix changes in a distressed area.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

Here is the June data.

Total June sales were up from May, and up from June 2009. Of course June was the scheduled closing deadline to qualify for the Federal homebuyer tax credit (closing date since extended), and also the California tax credit played a role. Sales should collapse in July.

The year-over-year (YoY) increase in June sales break a 12 month streak of declining YoY sales. But that was because of the tax credit, and sales will be off YoY in July.

Short sales were up 66% YoY (Year of the Short Sale!), and REO sales were down by 30%.

Note: This data is not seasonally adjusted.

The second graph shows the percent of REO, short sales and conventional sales. The percent of short sales is now at a high for this brief series.

In June, 62.4% of all resales (single family homes and condos) were distressed sales.

The percent of REOs has been generally declining (seasonally there are a larger percentage of REOs in the winter). Also there appears to be a higher percentage of conventional sales associated with the tax credit.

On financing, 54.6% percent were either all cash (21.3%) or FHA loans (33.3%), suggesting most of the activity in distressed former bubble areas like Sacramento is first time home buyers using government-insured FHA loans, and investors paying cash.

With the tax credit (mostly) over, I expect total sales to decline and the percent of distressed sales (Short and REO) to increase.

by Calculated Risk on 7/12/2010 02:15:00 PM

From the Federal Housing Finance Agency: FHFA Issues Subpoenas for PLS Documents

FHFA, as Conservator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Enterprises), has issued 64 subpoenas to various entities, seeking documents related to private-label mortgage-backed securities (PLS) in which the two Enterprises invested. The documents will enable the FHFA to determine whether PLS issuers and others are liable to the Enterprises for certain losses they have suffered on PLS. If so, the Conservator expects to recoup funds, which would be used to offset payments made to the Enterprises by the U.S. Treasury.
...
Before and during conservatorship, the Enterprises sought to assess and enforce their rights as investors in PLS, in an effort to recoup losses suffered in connection with their portfolios. Specifically, the Enterprises have attempted to determine whether misrepresentations, breaches of warranties or other acts or omissions by PLS counterparties would require repurchase of loans underlying the PLS by the counterparties and whether other remedies might be appropriate. However, difficulty in obtaining the loan documents has presented a challenge to the Enterprises’ efforts. FHFA has therefore issued these subpoenas for various loan files and transaction documents pertaining to loans securing the PLS to trustees and servicers controlling or holding that documentation.

Many of the originators of the PLS mortgages are no longer in business (New Century, etc.), however most of the PLS issuers still exist.

by Calculated Risk on 7/12/2010 11:12:00 AM

From Catherine Curan writing at the NY Post: Liening on banks

Underwater homeowners are jumping onto an unexpected financial life raft that lets them escape crippling second mortgage debts and keep their homes -- Chapter 13 bankruptcy.
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How it works is this: If the home is appraised at less than the value of the first mortgage, the owner can apply for permission in bankruptcy court to reclassify the second mortgage debt. That changes it from a secured debt, which must be repaid, into an unsecured debt, which does not have to be paid in full. The homeowner can then focus on paying off the first mortgage.

"This is the only time where you see such a huge percentage of houses worth less than the first loan, allowing us to basically get rid of the second loan," says [New York City bankruptcy attorney David Shaev of Shaev & Fleischman], who estimates that 20 percent of his Chapter 13 clients who own homes qualify for this type of workout. "We're at a unique place in history."

For many borrowers, this makes a Chapter 13 bankruptcy a better choice than a foreclosure. With a foreclosure, the borrower loses the house - and the 2nd lien holder might still pursue the borrower (unless they release the lien for some compensation, like under HAFA).

With a bankruptcy - under certain circumstances - the borrower keeps the house, and the 2nd lien is converted to unsecured debt and does not have to be paid in full. This is probably part of the reason for sharp increase in bankruptcy filings.

by Calculated Risk on 7/12/2010 08:50:00 AM

CR Note: This series is from reader "some investor guy".

There are a number of ways of looking at chances of default and/or expected losses, including: bond yields vs a low or no default bond in the same currency, credit default swap prices, bond ratings, and analysis of underlying financial factors.

Bond ratings move more slowly than bond yields or CDS prices. Ratings often are lowered only after a major problem has been realized and is already incorporated into yields or CDS prices. While bond prices can be useful, there are an assortment of problems of trying to extract default probabilities. One is the yield curve, and that for many sovereigns there aren’t all that many maturities outstanding. Trying to get a 5 year probability of default from a dataset including only a 2 year and 20 year maturity presents some analytic problems. Bond prices also have a surprising amount of differences due solely to liquidity. For example see Longstaff.

“We find a large liquidity premium in Treasury bonds, which can be more than fifteen percent of the value of some Treasury bonds. This liquidity premium is related to changes in consumer confidence, the amount of Treasury debt available to investors, and flows into equity and money market mutual funds. This suggests that the popularity of Treasury bonds directly affects their value.”

Yes, that’s 15 percent between different US Treasuries and a series of bonds explicitly guaranteed by the US govt, the 1990s Resolution Trust. Even on the run and off the run US treasuries have different yields due to liquidity.

Because it provides daily information for almost all large sovereigns, and calculates cumulative probabilities of default (CPD), we use data from CMAVision to estimate sovereign default probabilities.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

This chart shows outstanding debt with the (CPD) for each country. Despite it having a moderate 8.3% probability of default, Japan’s huge outstanding bond portfolio makes it the largest contributor to expected sovereign losses. However, it’s unlikely that any country would only have a default on a small group of bonds. If Japan defaulted, it is likely that most or all of its outstanding debt would be restructured (e.g., different interest rate, extended payment, a haircut on principal).

CPDs from 3/31/10 and 6/30/10 are shown in the next chart. The red bars are Q2, the orange bars are from Q1. Obviously, some credit default swap prices moved substantially in those three months, like Greece, Portugal, Spain and Belgium.

As of June 30, 2010, the weighted average expected default rate is 7.4%. When weighted by value of debt outstanding, CDS pricing worldwide points to 7.4% of it defaulting within 5 years. If the outstanding sovereign debt was still $34 trillion as reported at 12/31/09, that’s $2.5 trillion of defaulted debt. If the trend of increased borrowing has continued to $36 trillion at 6/30/10, it’s about $2.7 trillion of defaulted debt.

Before you run out and start shorting sovereigns or panic over your retirement, remember that bondholders seldom lose all of their money on defaulted bonds. Sometimes recovery rates are quite good. Others, not so much.

CR Note: This is from "Some investor guy". Over the next week or so, some investor guy will address several questions: What are total estimated losses on sovereign bonds due to default? What happens if things go really badly and what are the indirect effects of default?

Later this week: Part 4. What are Total Estimated of Losses on Sovereign Bonds Due to Default?

Series:
• Part 1: How Large is the Outstanding Value of Sovereign Bonds?

• Part 2. How Often Have Sovereign Countries Defaulted in the Past?

• Part 2B: More on Historic Sovereign Default Research

• Part 3. What are the Market Estimates of the Probabilities of Default?

• Part 4. What are Total Estimated Losses on Sovereign Bonds Due to Default?

• Part 5A. What Happens If Things Go Really Badly? $15 Trillion of Sovereign Debt in Default

• Part 5B. Part 5B. What Happens If Things Go Really Badly? More Things Can Go Badly: Credit Default Swaps, Interest Swaps and Options, Foreign Exchange

• Part 5C. Some Policy Options, Good and Bad

• Part 5D. European Banks, What if Things Go Really Badly?

by Calculated Risk on 7/11/2010 11:59:00 PM

From Paul Krugman: Trending Toward Deflation

Inflation has been falling, but how close are we to deflation? I found myself wondering that after observing John Makin’s combusting coiffure, his prediction that we might see deflation this year.
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What I take from this is that deflation isn’t some distant possibility — it’s already here by some measures, not far off by others. And of course there isn’t some magic boundary effect when you cross zero; falling inflation is raising real interest rates and making debt problems worse as we speak.

And in the NY Times: The Feckless Fed

Back in 2002, a professor turned Federal Reserve official by the name of Ben Bernanke gave a widely quoted speech titled “Deflation: Making Sure ‘It’ Doesn’t Happen Here.” Like other economists, myself included, Mr. Bernanke was deeply disturbed by Japan’s stubborn, seemingly incurable deflation, which in turn was “associated with years of painfully slow growth, rising joblessness, and apparently intractable financial problems.” This sort of thing wasn’t supposed to happen to an advanced nation with sophisticated policy makers. Could something similar happen to the United States?

And an interesting point from Mike Bryan, vice president and senior economist at the Atlanta Fed: How close to deflation are we? Perhaps just a little closer than you thought

CPI will be released on Friday, and expectations are for another slight decline in the headline number. Persistent deflation (like in Japan) would be a serious problem. Perhaps if rents are increasing slightly, as recent reports suggests, the U.S. might avoid deflation without further Fed action (I'm not confident that rents have bottomed given the high vacancy and unemployment rate - especially if I'm correct about growth slowing in the 2nd half of 2010).

Note: Last week I asked "What might the Fed do?" and I excerpted from Bernanke's 2002 speech. If the trend towards deflation continues, I think the FOMC - based on Bernanke's speech - might set "explicit ceilings for yields on longer-maturity Treasury debt".