The Great Debate

It has been nearly six years since U.S. home prices peaked and then plunged, and still the nation’s mortgage markets remain mired in slump. Despite occasional signs of improvement in some localities, the S&P Case Shiller Index shows home prices down 9 percent from their previous post-bubble high – itself very low in relation to trend. Meanwhile a backlog of some 400,000 homes awaited liquidation at the end of 2011, and an additional 2.86 million mortgages were 12 or more months delinquent. That’s a “shadow inventory” of 3.25 million homes already foreclosed or now facing foreclosure – an inventory that weighs on home prices, families and neighborhoods alike.

It also weighs on our economy, at the city, state and national levels. As a recent Federal Reserve Board white paper and other sources abundantly demonstrate, foreclosure and slump in the housing markets feed back into the broader economy by diminishing wealth and consumer spending. That lowers growth and employment – bad enough in themselves, but also sweeping more mortgages into the wave of defaults. Hence the familiar downward-spiraling “feedback loop” of high foreclosure rates, causing low growth and employment, causing yet more foreclosure, and so on.

Easily the worst source of drag is the large class of “underwater” mortgages – loans on which more is owed than the underlying post-bubble housing collateral is now worth. It isn’t hard to see why. Wrought by the rise in housing prices until 2006, the so-called wealth effect supported consumer spending even when wages and salaries stagnated. But it runs in both directions: Homeowners with “negative equity” cut their spending the most. Even tax cuts, rather than flowing toward employment-supporting consumer expenditures, go toward trimming back overhung mortgage debt. That’s why the 2009 stimulus did so little.

In light of these truths it is now widely appreciated that principal writedowns will be required for a broad swath of underwater mortgages. Even many creditors – the prospective bearers of writedown-wrought losses – understand and embrace this. For they are better than defaults, which underwater mortgages do at high rates. Indeed for most underwater mortgage debt, principal writedowns maximize expected value.

So writedowns will have to be done. The question is how. Unfortunately, a host of what lawyers and economists know as “collective action problems” stand in the way of the win-win solution here. For one thing, the securitization agreements pursuant to which many modern mortgage loans are pooled and then sold often require unanimity or supermajority votes among mortgage-backed securities (MBS) holders before loans can be modified. And today’s fragmented owners of MBS cannot even find one another, much less reach agreement on what’s best for them. For another thing, these same agreements likewise typically prohibit loan servicers, who act on behalf of the loan holders, from modifying as well.

Last week, I spotlighted three ominous trends in consumer banking. The last one spotlighted a brewing war “between the private bank sector and the government over who exactly controls the allocation of consumer credit in this country.”

By far, the most important front in this battle is over the future of housing finance. Today, the government is underwriting or assuming 100 percent of the credit risk on practically every new mortgage that’s originated. With regard to outstanding mortgages, the government is responsible for 100 percent of the default risk on about $6 trillion of the roughly $10 trillion market.

Thankfully, there is some real hope that a somewhat clandestine reform effort is about to commence that would start to shift a portion of this credit risk back to the private sector. The leader of this effort is the much-maligned regulator of the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. After Fannie and Freddie were bailed out and then taken over by the government in 2008, Edward DeMarco was named acting head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and conservator of the GSEs. He was tasked with a nearly impossible balancing act or mission:

-James Saft is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own-

A dilemma at the heart of the response to the financial crisis is that the antidote to so many ills actually causes the symptoms to worsen.

Take for examples bank capital levels and the chaos surrounding home mortgage foreclosures.

Both issues are the fruit of the same tree: the desire to do things quickly, cheaply and with minimal safeguards.
And both, if you want to fix them, are probably going to slow the economy and lower asset prices in the short term.

By Julian Fisher

Bank of America shares have been rocked by news that a consortium of mortgage bond investors is demanding it repurchase billions in soured mortgages, amplifying the effects of the recent “robo-signing” debacle.

Industry proponents are downplaying the risk that these so-called “putbacks” will impact more than a small number of financial institutions, but the evidence increasingly points to substantial and widespread breakdowns in controls along the mortgage origination and securitization chain.

What’s more, the impetus for putbacks appears to be shifting from lapses in documentation to ones involving possible fraud and misrepresentation.

-James Saft is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own-

As we say goodbye to a decade so abysmal it never even earned a nickname, it is time to take bets on how the coming 10 years will shape up in economics and financial markets.

Welcome, then, to the Teenies, a word that will describe the decade as well as the small returns in financial markets and the shrinking financial sector it will bring.

So, let’s run through some themes for the 2010s:

Banking – The decade will end with meaningful reform of banking in place, but what is not clear is if this happens soon or only after a new banking crisis brought on by an unwillingness to take tough steps now. The likelihood is that regulation limits leverage and causes the share of the economy captured by financial services to shrink. It will be a lousy decade to be a shareholder, but given the government backing, perhaps not a bad one to be a bondholder.

Even in weak employment markets, the United States has typically had a trump card to play. The nation's workers are legendary for their willingness to travel across the country for new opportunities.

The result has been a speedier recovery of job growth than in Europe and possibly a higher productivity rate, since skilled workers are better matched to openings.

With the August employment report on Friday expected to show little improvement in the job market, America has never needed this flexibility more. Yet, at the risk of adding to the gloom, this advantage appears to be fading fast. The good news is that the United States still boasts one of the most dynamic labor markets of any rich nation. OECD rankings of its 30 wealthy member nations put the U.S. far
ahead of other large countries. (It comes second only to Denmark, which has unmatched programs to help the unemployed back to work.)

(James Saft is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own)

Things in the U.S. economy are moving in the right direction, but the pace will be slow, frustrating and very likely to disappoint investors betting on a rip roaring old-fashioned recovery.

News that the Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller 20 City house price index rose for the first time in almost three years in the three months to May was greeted with much rejoicing.
The Case-Shiller data is important and encouraging but not nearly as positive as it looks at first glance.

For one thing, house prices are supposed to rise in the spring; when looked at on a more meaningful seasonally adjusted basis prices are still falling, though at a slower rate than before.

– James Saft is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own –

Deep breath. Ok, here goes: For the first time in a very long time U.S. housing might actually be a reasonable buy on a five-year view.

As a long-time housing bear and someone who believes there is still considerable pain to come in the U.S. economy and banking system that is quite a hard thing to say.

– Elena Panaritis is an institutional economist. She spearheaded property rights reform while working at the World Bank, and lectures at Insead, The Wharton School and Johns Hopkins University-SAIS. A social entrepreneur, she now heads the investment advisory firm Panel Group. Her recent book is “Prosperity Unbound: Building Property Markets with Trust”. The views expressed are her own. —

In his speech to Congress, President Obama spoke of how the proper response to the economic crisis is not just a matter of immediate fixes, but also an opportunity to make investments that will serve the nation’s long-term interests. The same idea should govern the housing recovery plan. Otherwise, we get nothing more than a crutch when we need a cure.

As much as short-term help is needed to keep more people from foreclosure, there is a big opportunity to get to the end of the crisis by starting at the beginning of the problem. The conventional wisdom is that subprime mortgages represent the beginning. In fact, the beginning goes back much further. The current crisis stems from the absence of a system that provides stability to the value of properties in the United States.

– James Saft is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own –

The U.S. government should just get out of the way and allow the crash in U.S. housing; the market is too big, has too far to fall and Americans’ finances are too strained.

President Barack Obama’s measures, unveiled on Wednesday, are part of a $275 billion plan to try and stabilize the housing market and prevent foreclosures. It aims to encourage lenders and their agents to cut repayments for homeowners in difficulties to lower, more affordable levels as well as other steps.