mortgage applications

Colorado kills foreclosure slowdown bill

Legislators who killed a bill requiring that lenders prove they have the right to foreclose on a home say they did so because they tired of laws reforming Colorado’s foreclosure process.  And some rolled their eyes at the ever-present grassroots group that brought it forth — the Colorado Progressive Coalition — suggesting it might have succeeded with different backing.  HB 1156 died in committee two weeks ago on a mostly partisan 8-5 vote, after five hours of testimony, mostly in its favor. One Democrat sided with a majority of Republicans.  Had it passed, it would have stopped a practice that allows foreclosures on just a lawyer’s say-so.  “They need someone other than those groups pushing this stuff,” said Rep. Spencer Swalm, R-Centennial, the vice chairman of the Economic and Business Development Committee, which killed the bill March 13. “But the bottom line, to me, is the big-government, overt intervention in this market.”  Others on the committee told The Denver Post that, in addition to “the same faces supporting and testifying in support,” they voted against the bill because the state already has passed too many laws addressing the foreclosure crisis.  Others decried adding regulation to what they called an overregulated industry.  “Since 2005, the legislature has run and enacted 15 different bills to affect and change the foreclosure process in Colorado,” said Rep. Chris Holbert, R-Parker, the former president of the Colorado Mortgage Lenders Association. “Now is a good time to leave it alone and stop changing things. The process we have in place works fine. Changing things for the 16th time isn’t the right solution.”

QE3 not needed?

A third round of Treasurys purchase is not necessary unless the US economy deteriorates further, according to James Bullard, president of St Louis Federal Reserve Bank.  Recent economic data have signaled that the US economy is doing better than economists think, Bullard told CNBC Tuesday, and a third round of bond buying by the Fed – in a program known as quantitative easing, or QE – is not needed.  “I think QE3 would require the economy to deteriorate somewhat from where it is right now,” Bullard said. “The basic story on the US economy is that we’ve had good news over the last six months or so, especially compared to the recession scenario that was being painted in the August-September time period of last year.”  Injecting too much liquidity into the system will also have the effect of driving commodity prices higher and reducing real spending power, Bullard said.

Olick – no housing recovery?

“Housing was charging back. Spring sprung early. Sentiment among home builders doubled in six months. Any talk that the fundamentals might not be supporting the sentiment was met with harsh criticism. And then suddenly it wasn’t.  A slew of new housing data last week disappointed the analysts and the stock market, and all of a sudden you started to hear concern that maybe housing wasn’t exactly in a robust recovery.  From home builder sentiment to housing starts, to home builder earnings right through to sales of newly built homes, there was not one hopeful headline in any of it (except perhaps if you invest in rentals, as multi-family housing starts made more gains, but that is a contrary indicator to housing recovery).  And then an email from a Realtor in New Jersey: ‘Just reviewed March buyer clicks, Google’s analytics on all the sites we monitor – March is turning out to be the weakest month since last October re: Buyer interest..’  Now we start another week with another disappointment. Pending home sales, a measure of signed contracts for existing homes, not closings, fell half a percentage point month-to-month.  That may not seem like a big deal, but the analysts were looking for a small gain. No doubt the Realtors will point to the solid 9% gain from a year ago, but so much of that gain is based on a change in the foreclosure pipeline.  Last year the foreclosure process stalled. The ‘robo-signing’ mess brought everything to a standstill, and that left investors with little to buy on the distressed side. Foreclosures began ramping up again in the late fall, and that led to a surge in investor buying. Was that the ‘recovery’ we were seeing?

 Investors are still rushing into the market, with distressed sales making up a near-record 48.7% of sales in February on a three month moving average, according to a new report today from Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance.  Investors are now a full quarter of the market, and they are increasing their activity in short sales (when a lender allows the home to be sold for less than the value of the mortgage).  Don’t get me wrong, investors buying up the distress is necessary to cleanse the market, but it is not real recovery. Mortgage originations are at a 12-year low, despite record low rates. Normal, ‘organic’ home buyers, move-up owner occupants, are not flooding back into this market. Rents are still rising.  Mortgage analyst Mark Hanson runs some disturbing numbers to back up his contention that Q2 will disappoint: ‘Investor sales volume up 37%  year over year for a whopper 69% of all year over year existing home sales gains. First-timers are starting to look weak in Feb. The gains in first-timer and repeat sales can easily be explained by historic rates and weather and can easily reverse in a single month. 

That may be why the home builders, who had been on a streak of gains in confidence, suddenly stopped moving this month. KB Home, which builds lower-priced homes, also came in with wildly disappointing earnings and an 8% drop in new orders. Sales of new homes also disappointed, which one analyst called, ‘puzzling.’  ‘If new homes are not selling, then why are builder confidence and single-family housing permits moving up, and why is the S.& P. home builder index up 80% since last October?’ asks Patrick Newport at IHS Global Insight. ‘Time will tell if builders and investors have gone out on a limb.’  Several other analysts started to question the strength of the recovery as well, with some just hoping that perhaps a warm winter had pulled some demand forward from spring. Despite a miss on existing home sales in February, the headline pointed to, again, big gains from a year ago.  Yes, we are ahead of where we were, but as we’ve noted so many times here on this page, rising foreclosures will put added pressure on this market, and we may not be out of the woods yet.  ‘Despite an extraordinarily mild winter, home sales just plod along at a pace last seen during the mid-1990s,’ notes Mark Zandi in his monthly report from Moody’s Analytics. ‘Thus, the underlying pace of home sales may not yet be strong enough to support a long-lasting upturn by home prices.’  Tomorrow we get the monthly reading on the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index. This index hasn’t been improving nearly as much as home sales, but the ever-hopeful housing lobby keeps blaming that on the fact that prices always lag sales, which is historically true, but what in today’s market has followed history?  Home prices are still falling not because of some lag, but because this housing market is running on sales of distressed properties at the very low end. The rest of the market is still stalled.”

Should we ditch Obamacare?

As the US Supreme Court hears arguments over President Barack Obama’s health care law, the biggest issue is over whether the individual insurance requirement is constitutional.  The court is in the midst of three days of arguments on the Affordable Care Act after 26 states challenged the law. In addition to the question of whether Congress had the authority to enact the individual mandate, the justices must also determine if the rest of the law can stay in place if the insurance mandate is struck down.  Tom Daschle, a Democrat who represented South Dakota during his time in the Senate, wrote in an op-ed in Politico Monday, “Congress was well within its authority in passing the individual mandate to regulate the interstate effects of an industry that is almost 20% of our nation’s economy—more than $2.5 trillion each year.”  Sen. Tom Coburn, M.D. (R) Okla., disagrees with Daschle. He said that Medicare is a perfect example of why the government shouldn’t be in the health care business.  “The problem with health care in America it costs too much and this bill doesn’t do anything to help the costs,” he said. “What it does is it actually makes it much worse.”  He blamed government regulations and lack of “smart state government” for the high cost.  “What we have is a system that ignores market reality, will not use markets to allocate resources and put it back on the individual to make the best choice for their life,” Coburn said.

NAR – pending sales down

Pending home sales were down slightly in February but remain notably above the pattern in the first half of last year, according to the National Association of Realtors.  The Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI), a forward-looking indicator based on contract signings, eased 0.5% to 96.5 in February from 97.0 in January but is 9.2% above February 2011 when it was 88.4. The data reflects contracts but not closings.  The PHSI in the Northeast slipped 0.6% to 77.7 in February but is 18.4% above a year ago. In the Midwest the index jumped 6.5% to 93.8 and is 19.0% higher than February 2011. Pending home sales in the South fell 3.0% to an index of 105.8 in February but are 7.8% above a year ago. In the West the index declined 2.6% in February to 99.3 and is 1.8% below February 2011.  Existing-home sales for March will be reported April 19 and the next Pending Home Sales Index will be released April 26. The Investment and Vacation Home Buyers Survey, covering transactions in 2011, is scheduled for March 29.

Smart Real Estate News & Commentary by Chris McLaughlin March 21, 2012

Forward this e-mail to your friends!
Then they can subscribe directly at the following link:

http://www.smartrealestatenews.com/

*** Join Chris’ Facebook Fan Page–>

http://www.mclaughlinchris.com

*** Follow Chris on Twitter–>

http://www.twitter.com/mclaughlinchris

************************************************************

Fed to fine banks

The Federal Reserve says that it plans to fine eight additional US bank holding companies for improperly foreclosing on homeowners. The financial firms — EverBank, Goldman Sachs Group, HSBC Holdings PLC, PNC Financial Services Group, MetLife, OneWest Bank, SunTrust Banks and US Bancorp — were not part of last month’s settlement over alleged foreclosure abuses. Suzanne G. Killian, a senior associate director at the Federal Reserve, called the fines “appropriate” during a congressional hearing in Brooklyn, New York. Killian offered few details about the size of the fines or when they will be levied. The nation’s five biggest lenders — Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Ally Financial — last month agreed to a $25 billion settlement with state and federal government agencies last month after a 16-month probe. As part of that settlement, the five banks agreed to reduce mortgages for about 1 million homeowners. They also will pay into a fund that will send $2,000 to 750,000 homeowners who were improperly foreclosed upon. Separately, government regulators last April ordered 14 mortgage lenders and servicers to reimburse homeowners who were improperly foreclosed upon. Since then, letters have been sent to 4.3 million borrowers who were at risk of foreclosure during 2009 and 2010. The deadline for borrowers to seek money under the orders is July 31. So far, nearly 122,000 homeowners have asked for an auditor to review their foreclosures.

North America the next middle east for oil?

Increased production of energy from a number of sources including deepwater drilling, natural gas exploration and Canada’s oil sands could make North America the next Middle East, according to a new report from Citigroup. The bank estimates that total North American energy production will rise from 15.4 million barrels per day in 2011 to almost 26.6 million barrels per day by 2020, boosting gross domestic product (GDP) and creating ripple effects throughout the economy. Citigroup analysts say the US will see large gains in oil production from deepwater drilling, while Mexico will begin to reverse recent declines in output. Production of shale gas liquids will increase by 3.8 million barrels per day by 2020. The report says this new production would amount to about 7% of additional global production, “a higher growth rate than OPEC can sustain.” That increase in energy supply will also be accompanied with a decline in demand. US consumption of oil products has fallen by 2 million barrels per day since its peak in 2005, and the Citi report says demand will fall by another 2 million barrels per day over the next decade.

Citgroup expects the shift in energy supply and demand to increase real GDP by between 2 and 3.3%. It also estimates that some 550,000 new jobs will be created directly in the oil and gas extraction sector by 2020. An additional 2.2 to 2.3 million new jobs will be created from the resulting economic stimulus effects of new production by 2020. In its analysis, Citigroup acknowledges infrastructure bottlenecks and legislation that blocks exports of crude oil of US origin. It also points out that new environmental regulations could prevent the scenario from playing out. But the analysts point out the surge in energy production could be game-changing. “It would not only improve incomes and create jobs, but also improve national energy security and reverse perennial current account deficits.”

MBA – mortgage applications down

Mortgage applications decreased 7.4% from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending March 16, 2012. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased 7.4% on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 7.1% compared with the previous week. The Refinance Index decreased 9.3% from the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 1.0% from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index decreased 0.6% compared with the previous week and was 1.9% lower than the same week one year ago. The four week moving average for the seasonally adjusted Market Index is down 2.79%. The four week moving average is up 3.25% for the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index, while this average is down 4.31% for the Refinance Index.

The refinance share of mortgage activity decreased to 73.4% of total applications, the lowest since July 2011, from 75.1% the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity decreased to 5.6% from 5.8% of total applications from the previous week. “With the rate increase last week, refinances are obviously slowing, and the refinance share at 73% is down to its lowest level since last July. With rate/term refinances falling as we go forward, HARP will be a bigger percentage of refinances but will be more concentrated in certain states,” said Jay Brinkmann, MBA’s Senior Vice President of Research and Education. Brinkmann continued, “Some of the largest institutions are reporting that the HARP share of their refinances remained at about 30% last week, but HARP volume is not equal across the country. The states that I started referring to years ago as the sand states that had the worst delinquencies we now should start calling the HARP states for mortgage refinances. We saw big state-level differences in refinance applications for February over January: Florida was up 49%, Arizona was up 61%, and Nevada was up 71%. Refinances in the rest of the country were generally flat or even down. For example, Texas had no change, Colorado was down 3%, Connecticut was up only 2%, and Virginia was up 1%. HARP clearly is a driving force in those states that saw the most defaults and the biggest drops in home equity.”

The average loan size of all loans for home purchase in the US was $225,463 in February 2012, up from $216,888 in January. The average loan size for a refinance was $222,048, down from $227,563 in January. The largest purchase loans were made in the Pacific region at $ 324,606. The largest refinance loans were also made in the Pacific region at $ 305,949.

US exempts EU from sanctions

The United States on Tuesday exempted Japan and 10 EU nations from financial sanctions because they have significantly cut purchases of Iranian crude oil, but left Iran’s top customers China and India exposed to the possibility of such steps. The decision is a victory for the 11 countries, whose banks have been given a six-month reprieve from the threat of being cut off from the US financial system under new sanctions designed to pressure Iran over its nuclear program. The list did not, however, include China and India, Iran’s top two crude oil importers, nor US allies South Korea and Turkey, which are among the top-10 consumers of Iranian oil. A US official held up Japan’s estimated 15-22% cut in oil purchases from Iran in the second half of last year as an example for other nations, saying it did so after the “tragedy” of the earthquake that caused the Fukushima nuclear disaster. “Japan was a model,” State Department Special Envoy and Coordinator for International Energy Affairs Carlos Pascual told lawmakers. “If Japan was able to do what it did … that should be an example to others that they could potentially do more.”

Olick – rising rates may not hurt housing

“It was barely a few weeks ago that mortgage rates were sitting at record lows. The idea of rates over 4% on the 30-year fixed seemed a distant memory. And here they are now at 4.05% on the Bankrate.com overnight, thanks to the recent rise in Treasury yields. The housing market, it seems, just can’t catch a break. Or can it? As the economy improves, the job market improves, and that is a key driver for housing. But on the flip side, as the economy improves, investors finally crawl out of the Treasury bunkers, driving yields higher, and mortgage rates generally follow the 10-year Treasury. ‘We will definitely see a freeze up in refi’s immediately but the decision on a purchase still won’t be impacted until rates get at least to 4.5% I believe,’ says Peter Boockvar at Miller Tabak. ‘Assuming a $200k mortgage, going from 4 to 4.5% in mortgage rate adds about $60 per month to one’s payments, and while an extra $700 per year matters, I’m not sure if it’s a deal breaker.’

While rates have moved a good quarter of a% in the past few weeks, most analysts don’t think they’ll go much higher. ‘Mortgage rates were too high anyway, relative to the 10-year Treasury, so I don’t think you will see a parallel shift,’ says FBR’s Paul Miller, who spoke to several bankers today. They told him mortgage volume is good, which helps keep rates competitive. ‘But it does take time for this stuff to flow through the markets,’ he adds. And then there could be one other phenomenon, as described by Freddie Mac’s chief economist Frank Nothaft: ‘When rates tick up, you may see some potential home buyers who have been sitting on the sidelines, suddenly they may get up, as they are concerned that maybe this is the beginning of a trend, and they don’t want to miss out on these 60-year low mortgage rates. In the near term it can encourage buyers.’”

Oil up to $107 per barrel

Oil prices rose to near $107 a barrel Wednesday after a report showed US crude supplies fell unexpectedly, a sign demand may be improving in the world’s largest economy. By early afternoon in Europe, benchmark oil for May delivery was up 49 cents to $106.56 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell $2.49 to settle at $106.07 per barrel in New York on Tuesday after Saudi Arabia said it could pump more oil to cover any shortages. In London, Brent crude for May delivery was up 27 cents at $124.39 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange. The American Petroleum Institute said late Tuesday that crude inventories fell 1.4 million barrels last week, breaking a two-month trend of growing supplies. Analysts surveyed by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos., had predicted an increase of 2.1 million barrels. Inventories of gasoline fell 1.4 million barrels last week while distillates rose 600,000 barrels, the API said.

LPS – first look report
Lender Processing Services, Inc. (NYSE: LPS), a leading provider of integrated technology, data and analytics to the mortgage and real estate industries, reports the following “first look” at February 2012 month-end mortgage performance statistics derived from its loan-level database of nearly 40 million mortgage loans.

Total US loan delinquency rate:7.57%
Month-over-month change in delinquency rate: -5.0%
Year-over-year change in delinquency rate: -14.0%
Total U.S foreclosure pre-sale inventory rate: 4.13%
Month-over-month change in foreclosure presale inventory rate: -0.5%
Year-over-year change in foreclosure presale inventory rate: -0.3%
Number of properties that are 30 or more days past due, but not in foreclosure: (A) 3,781,000
Number of properties that are 90 or more days delinquent, but not in foreclosure:1,722,000
Number of properties in foreclosure pre-sale inventory: (B) 2,065,000
Number of properties that are 30 or more days delinquent or in foreclosure: (A+B) 5,846,000
States with highest percentage of non-current* loans: FL, MS, NV, NJ, IL
States with the lowest percentage of non-current* loans: MT, AK, WY, SD, ND

*Non-current totals combine foreclosures and delinquencies as a% of active loans in that state.
Notes:
(1) Totals are extrapolated based on LPS Applied Analytics’ loan-level database of mortgage assets
(2) All whole numbers are rounded to the nearest thousand
The company will provide a more in-depth review of this data in its monthly Mortgage Monitor report, which includes an analysis of data supplemented by in-depth charts and graphs that reflect trend and point-in-time observations.

Money printing going out of style

The era of quantitative easing—a process by which central banks buy assets such as government bonds to inject funds in the markets—may be coming to an end, according to a survey of fund managers. According to a March survey by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, investors are more upbeat about the future and the prospects for growth and they no longer expect further quantitative easing measures to be taken by the Federal Reserve or the European Central Bank. In the survey, 28% of fund managers said they expected the global economy to strengthen in the next 12 months, up from 11% in February. This was the highest reading since March last year. But the report did find that fund managers still see sovereign debt as the biggest tail risk to the global recovery. Investors do foresee higher inflation, with a net 13% expecting it to rise in the coming year.

WSJ – housing mixed

US home building fell in February, but permits for new construction reached their highest levels in nearly 3½ years, reflecting housing’s uneven and protracted recovery. Home construction decreased 1.1% from January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 698,000, the Commerce Department said yesterday. Construction of single-family homes, which makes up more than 70% of housing starts, fell by 9.9% – the largest drop in a year. Meanwhile, multifamily homes with at least two units, a volatile part of the market, posted a 21.1% gain. Still, January’s figures were raised to 706,000 starts overall, a 3.7% improvement from December and the highest level since October 2008.

In a positive sign for future construction, the February data showed new building permits rose by 5.1% from a month earlier to an annual rate of 717,000 – also the highest level since October 2008. The housing sector has been healing slowly after prices collapsed more than five years ago. A National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) report on Monday showed that US home builders’ confidence in the market held steady in March at the highest level since 2007. “The level of activity still remains far short of the pace implied by the NAHB index so we look for further gains over the next few months in both sales and starts,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief US economist at High Frequency Economics. “Housing will add to growth all year, and beyond.”

But Joshua Shapiro, chief US economist at MFR Inc., said that so far, the home builders association’s level of confidence hasn’t been matched by actual construction. “Our view remains that single-family housing starts are in a long-term bottoming process but that an enormous overhang of existing single-family home supply will prevent sharp gains in single-family starts in the near to medium term,” Mr. Shapiro said. NAHB said Monday that its members continue to face obstacles, including tight credit for both builders and buyers and a large inventory of inexpensive, foreclosed homes in many markets. The Commerce Department data showed that housing starts were mixed across four US regions. The Northeast posted a 12.3% decline, while starts in the West dropped 5.9% last month. Starts rose 3% in the Midwest and 1.5% in the South. Actual housing starts, calculated without seasonal adjustments, grew to 48,100 in February from 46,500 in January. Lumber and commodities markets watch those numbers closely to gauge demand.
See you at the top!
Chris McLaughlin

**************

Copyright Loss Mitigation Institute LLC 2011.
All Rights Reserved.

http://www.shortsalesriches.com

http://www.shortsalescoach.com

http://www.sixfigurebpo.com

http://www.reomillionaireclub.com

http://www.youtube.com/shortsalesriches

http://www.smartrealestatenews.com

(subscribe to this newsletter)

*************************************************

About the author:
Chris McLaughlin is widely known as America’s top
Real Estate Attorney and Investment Consultant.

* As the top Florida foreclosure and pre-
foreclosure expert, he oversees more than
100 short sale & REO closings each month

* Long-time authority on real estate investing
and rapid reselling of distressed homes. Owns
portfolio of nearly 150 high-value, high-profit
properties

* Owner of one of Florida’s largest Real Estate firms,
running 4 different offices, supporting over
420 agents, uniquely positioning him to help
thousands of investors make money in the
biggest market opportunity ever!

* In 2011, Chris’ 4 Central Florida real estate offices
closed 3,336 sides for a closed sales volume of
$430,902,643!

* Highly sought-after speaker, consultant, and
seminar leader for current trends and hot topics
in Real Estate Investing, Entrepreneurship, and
Wealth Building

* Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/mclaughlinchris

* Join my Facebook Fan Page: http://www.mclaughlinchris.com

Smart Real Estate News & Commentary by Chris McLaughlin March 13, 2012

Forward this e-mail to your friends!

Then they can subscribe directly at the following link:

http://www.smartrealestatenews.com/

*** Join Chris’ Facebook Fan Page–>

http://www.mclaughlinchris.com

*** Follow Chris on Twitter–>

http://www.twitter.com/mclaughlinchris

************************************************************

Settlement to boost short sales

The government’s $25 billion settlement with the nation’s five biggest mortgage servicers over so-called “robo-signing” practices could boost short sales, as loan servicers will receive credit when they approve sales that include forgiveness of a portion of underwater homeowners’ debt.  Although the settlement is only expected to help a fraction of homeowners who owe more their properties are worth — perhaps one in 20, according to one estimate — it will also help bring certainty back to housing markets by removing some of the obstacles that have been keeping homes stuck in the foreclosure pipeline.  Announced last month, detailed terms of the agreement between mortgage servicers and a coalition of state attorneys general and federal agencies were filed today.

Broadly, the settlement calls for mortgage servicers to pay $5 billion in fines and commit to a minimum of $17 billion in homeowner relief, including principal reductions. Another $3 billion is earmarked for helping underwater borrowers refinance. “We will see an increase in short sales, because lenders and loan servicers will get the same credit for doing a short sale, as if they did a loan modification or principal reduction,” said Rick Sharga, executive vice president of Carrington Mortgage Holdings LLC.  Allowing debt forgiveness on approved short sales to count against the required $17 billion in principal reductions helped secure a settlement that will reach more borrowers, the paper said. Loan servicers will also get partial credit even when it’s investors, rather than the banks themselves, taking the loss.

Also, if the remaining six to 14 loan servicers sign on to the settlement, it would grow to about $30 billion with more than $45 billion in benefit to homeowners, HUD said.  Cade Holleman, executive director of the Irvine, Calif.-based National Association of Women REO Brokerages, said the day is fast approaching when brokers and agents who have concentrated heavily in real-estate owned properties will have to diversify.  Short sales, refinancings, and loan modifications are each “pulling REO inventory out of the game,” he said.  “You’ve got to keep your eye on that process,” Holleman said.  “You can no longer be 80% REO,” but must diversify into short sales and property management.

Retail sales up

Total retail sales increased 1.1%, the Commerce Department said, after an upwardly revised 0.6% rise in January.  Economists polled by Reuters had forecast retail sales rising 1% after a previously reported 0.4% gain in January.  Sales last month were buoyed by a 1.6% rise in sales of motor vehicles, reflecting pent-up demand by households and growing confidence in the economy as job creation speeds up.  Excluding autos, retail sales advanced 0.9% last month, adding to January’s upwardly revised 1.1% gain.  Gas prices rose 20 cents last month, according to government data.  Sales at gasoline stations surged 3.3%, the biggest gain since March last year, after rising 1.9% in January. Excluding autos and gasoline, sales rose 0.6% in February after increasing 1% the prior month. Gasoline accounted for 11.5% of retail sales in February.

Outside autos and gas stations, details of the report were fairly upbeat, suggesting recent solid gains in employment were supporting consumer spending.  Last month, clothing store receipts jumped 1.8%, the largest increase since November 2010, while sales at building materials and garden equipment suppliers advanced 1.4%.  So-called core retail sales, which exclude autos, gasoline and building materials, were up 0.5% after advancing 1.0% in January.  Core sales correspond most closely with the consumer spending component of the government’s gross domestic product report.   Sales at restaurants and bars rose 0.8%, while receipts at sporting goods, hobby, book and music stores increased 1.0%.  Sales of electronics and appliances rose 1.0%, while receipts at furniture stores fell 1.2%.

Olick – rent bubble?

“Typically when rents go up, more renters turn to home buying.  When home prices go up, more turn to renting, but today’s housing market is anything but typical.  Rents were up 3% nationally in January, year-over-year, according to a soon-to-be released new rental index from Zillow.com. Home prices, however, were down 4.6% annually.  When you look locally, the numbers are more dramatic.  In some markets, rents rose almost as much as home values fell. Take Chicago, for example, where rents were up just over 9% annually while home values were down just over 10%. The same is true for Minneapolis, where the divide is nearly the same. In San Francisco and Detroit, rents are up around 5% while home prices are down the same. It begs the question, as the rent vs. own divide grows, will the rental bubble suddenly burst?  Right now investors are rushing to get in on cheap foreclosures, hoping to turn them around for quick rental income. The regulator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the FHFA, is in the midst of a pilot program to sell 2500 foreclosed properties to investors as rentals. The bulk of these properties are already rented, which means buyers get a turn-key investment with instant returns.  In the meantime, multi-family housing starts were up over 14% in January from December and have been rising steadily as developers look to cash in on high rental demand and relatively low supply. Multi-family REITs are seeing big returns.

So what exactly is the tipping point, given that mortgage availability is still tough, consumer confidence in housing is still weak, and employment, while improving, is still not where it needs to be to spur strong buyer demand?  ’While it seems that rents are rising at the expense of home values, the opposite is true. A thriving rental market will stimulate home sales, as investors snap up low-priced inventory to convert to rentals. That, in turn, will lower the number of homes on the market, which will eventually help put a floor under the value of all homes,’ says Zillow chief economist Stan Humphries.  More supply of rental homes, especially single family, could slow the upward trajectory of rent rates, which in turn would make renting more attractive and buying less so. It just raises a red flag to see home affordability at a record high, investors rushing in, and rents so strongly outpacing home values.”

Banks to face tough reviews

Banks will face stiff penalties and intense public scrutiny if they fail to live up to the standards of a $25 billion mortgage settlement with state and federal authorities, according to court documents filed as part of the deal Monday in federal court in Washington.  While the broad outline of the deal was announced last month, the mechanics of the agreement that took more than a year to negotiate were laid out in Monday’s filing, including exactly how much credit the five banks would receive for varying levels of loan forgiveness and just what kind of conduct from the past is off-limits to future investigations.  Banks must review their adherence to the new rules every quarter through a random sampling of cases, with a maximum threshold for errors at 1% in some cases if they are to avoid fines. “Any error that is found during the sampling process will have to be corrected,” the official said.  In some cases, servicers would face civil penalties of up to $1 million for each violation of Monday’s consent order.  Repeat violations could bring fines of $5 million each. An independent monitoring and enforcement office is being set up under the agreement, to be paid for by the banks, that will be led by Joseph A. Smith Jr., the former North Carolina banking commissioner.

The complaint, which specifies the terms of the settlement, comes nearly 18 months after reports of “robo-signing” and other abuses in the foreclosure process set off a nationwide furor, and marks another legal milestone in the wake of the bursting of the housing bubble and the financial crisis of 2008-9.  The five banks covered by the settlement - Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Ally - engaged “in a pattern of unfair and deceptive practices,” according to the complaint. Besides failing to perform modifications for borrowers seeking to ease the terms of their loans, the documents also cite what consumers have been complaining about for years: lost applications and other paperwork, inadequately trained staff and wrongfully denied modification requests.

WSJ – rise in Phoenix housing shows the way to recovery

As home prices continue to drop in most cities, a nascent real-estate rebound here holds lessons for the rest of the country.  This sprawling desert metropolis was one of the hardest hit housing markets during the bust. Phoenix home prices declined 55% from 2006 through the end of 2011, and Arizona’s foreclosure rate jumped to No. 3 in the nation in 2009. Hundreds of thousands of homeowners are underwater.  Now real-estate economists across the country are studying an early but surprisingly broad Phoenix turnaround. The sharp drop in home prices has brought new buyers into the market. Unlike other markets where housing recoveries have been snuffed out by big overhangs of homes for sale and foreclosed properties, inventories are lean here.  “Phoenix has hit a bottom,” says Thomas Lawler, an independent housing economist who was one of the first to warn six years ago that prices in overbuilt metros were poised to fall.  The nation’s hard-hit housing markets face a tough act: engineering a housing recovery without traditional trade-up buyers, many of whom are either unwilling or unable to sell because of huge price declines.

Phoenix has found a viable formula. Low prices are igniting demand from first-time buyers and investors who are converting the homes to rentals. The local economy is on the upswing with several big employers like Amazon.com Inc. and Intel Corp. hiring again, which is further increasing demand for housing. And the region is benefiting from a surge of buyers from Canada who are using their favorable exchange rate to scoop up bargains in the desert.  Local mom-and-pop investors are also playing key roles in soaking up supply. Out-of-state buyers accounted for one-quarter of all purchases last month. One in every 25 sales went to a buyer that listed a Canadian address when registering the sale, according to the Cromford Report, a local real-estate publication. Many are flush with cash from a real-estate boom of their own in Canada and an exchange rate that has given Canadians unusual buying power.

Nationally, housing demand still remains weak and bank-owned sales are expected to rise this year, putting more pressure on prices. Many economists say they expect home prices nationally could fall by another 3% or so this year before hitting a bottom next year. Most expect that prices will rise little for several years.  US home prices fell another 2% in the fourth quarter on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index tracking 20 cities. But prices rose by 2% in Phoenix, the biggest increase of any metro area in the country. Over the past year, prices in Phoenix are down by 1.2%, the smallest drop since its prices started falling in 2006.  Big price drops, like those in Phoenix, are another key. In Detroit, prices are down by 46% over the past six years and have fallen to levels last seen in 1994. Sales have picked up in Miami, where prices are down by 51% over the past five years.

But low prices alone haven’t been enough to so stabilize other epicenters of the housing bust where job growth still lags. In Las Vegas, where prices have tumbled 62% since 2006, including 8.9% over the past year, the local economy is heavily dependent on tourism and gambling, both industries that haven’t recovered. “A lot of markets in the country have hit a bottom, but I just don’t see them coming back the way Phoenix has,” says John Burns, a homebuilding consultant in Irvine, Calif.  The improving housing market in Phoenix isn’t much comfort to anybody who bought a home there a few years ago. More than 52% of mortgage borrowers owe more than their homes are worth, according to CoreLogic, a real-estate data company. And not everyone in Phoenix is convinced that the improvements will last, especially if the economy falters or oil prices soar.  Phoenix saw a small run-up in prices three years ago when federal tax credits spurred a buying frenzy, but prices dropped again once the credits expired. Others worry that banks have delayed foreclosures and will begin to saturate the market with more properties in the coming year.

Small business optimism up

Optimism among small business owners may be increasing at a “glacial” pace, but it’s “mostly headed in the right direction.”  That’s according to William Dunkelberg, chief economist of the National Federation of Independent Business and keeper of the Small Business Optimism Index. The latest survey of 819 NFIB members showed indications that small business owners are starting to spend, and could even ramp up hiring in some sectors over the next few months.  Respondents to the February survey expressed optimism about their expectations for higher real sales, an increase in inventories and positive earnings; these three things taken together helped push the index up 0.4%, to 94.3, the sixth straight increase in the monthly index.  Inventories have decreased for many business owners in the past month – 20% of respondents reported reductions – which is good news for an economy that needs spending to make it grow.

Capital outlays, too, are being planned, according to the survey. “The capital spending number keeps going up,” he noted. “It’s the highest we’ve seen in years.” While still far from normal, he said, “Even if it’s just to fix a leaky roof, business owners’ capital expenditures are rising.”  In the past month, more business owners also added workers – 12% of owners added 3.4 workers per firm.  The November elections, as well as the uncertainty surrounding health-care reform, are causing some business owners to remain on the sidelines, said Dunkelberg, waiting to see the outcome of both before committing to spending and expansion. “There is a lot of political uncertainty between now and November,” he said.  Still, the trend, at least for now, is upward. And for many business owners, even a slow improvement is better than movement in the other direction.

Foreclosures to jump in 2012

Analysts expect between 900,000 and 1 million homes will move from delinquency into REO in 2012, back to levels seen before the robo-signing slowdown.  Servicers moved roughly 800,000 properties through the foreclosure process and into REO liquidation in 2011, according to RealtyTrac. After resolving affidavit problems late last year, banks began moving more properties through the process. JPMorgan Chase analysts expect repossessions to reach as high as 900,000 even with a wave of new alternatives to foreclosure.  “Several major policy changes in the last few months have sped up resolution of the pipeline. Of course, new delinquencies will ensure that full resolution will still take years, but the pace may be faster than we expected,” analysts said.  Daren Blomquist, vice president of RealtyTrac, said that pace could return this year.  “For 2011 we hit 804,423, not quite the 825,000 we were on pace for because of a slowdown in November and December,” Blomquist said in an interview. “We are expecting close to 1 million REOs in 2012 as some of the delayed foreclosures finally complete the process this year.”

The pace began to pick up in January but is still down from 2011. Servicers repossessed 66,500 homes that month, up 8% from December but down 15% from one year ago.  Just because a property moves into REO doesn’t mean it will be resold that year, either. For instance, Freddie Mac data shows the GSE had to wait an average of nearly 200 days to unload an REO. According to Blomquist, there were nearly 538,000 REO sales in 2011, roughly two-thirds of all homes repossessed that year.  About 2.6 million loans, or half of the total delinquency inventory, will be removed either through modification, short sale or a traditional repossession in 2012, Chase analysts said.  The AG settlement guidelines released yesterday could result in 500,000 modifications, according to Chase.  The Treasury Department expanded the Home Affordable Modification Program in January to allow more borrowers to qualify and provide higher incentives for principal reduction.

Analysts still expect the changes to result in relatively few additional modifications, roughly 140,000 added to the 220,000 permanent workouts under the program estimated this year.  If so, HAMP workouts may outnumber the 270,000 proprietary modifications, which have routinely outsized HAMP in the past.  Chase analysts also expect the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bulk REO sales and rental programs to reach as high as 100,000 properties. A pilot program began in February to sell just 2,500 Fannie-owned homes.  Roughly 500,000 short sales could occur in 2012, roughly one-third of all liquidations — which include the 900,000 expected repossessions and the new rental program as well.

See you at the top!
Chris McLaughlin

**************

Copyright Loss Mitigation Institute LLC 2011.
All Rights Reserved.

http://www.shortsalesriches.com

http://www.shortsalescoach.com

http://www.sixfigurebpo.com

http://www.reomillionaireclub.com

http://www.youtube.com/shortsalesriches

http://www.smartrealestatenews.com

(subscribe to this newsletter)

*************************************************

About the author:

Chris McLaughlin is widely known as America’s top
Real Estate Attorney and Investment Consultant.

* As the top Florida foreclosure and pre-
foreclosure expert, he oversees more than
100 short sale & REO closings each month

* Long-time authority on real estate investing
and rapid reselling of distressed homes.  Owns
portfolio of nearly 150 high-value, high-profit
properties

* Owner of one of Florida’s largest Real Estate firms,
running 4 different offices, supporting over
420 agents, uniquely positioning him to help
thousands of investors make money in the
biggest market opportunity ever!

* In 2011, Chris’ 4 Central Florida real estate offices
closed 3,336 sides for a closed sales volume of
$430,902,643!

* Highly sought-after speaker, consultant, and
seminar leader for current trends and hot topics
in Real Estate Investing, Entrepreneurship, and
Wealth Building

* Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/mclaughlinchris

* Join my Facebook Fan Page: http://www.mclaughlinchris.com

Smart Real Estate News & Commentary by Chris McLaughlin March 12, 2012

Forward this e-mail to your friends!

Then they can subscribe directly at the following link:

http://www.smartrealestatenews.com/

*** Join Chris’ Facebook Fan Page–>

http://www.mclaughlinchris.com

*** Follow Chris on Twitter–>

http://www.twitter.com/mclaughlinchris

************************************************************

Fannie and Freddie CFOs make more than CEOs

The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) announcement of salary cuts for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives doesn’t go as far as some would like.  The FHFA detailed a $500,000 cap on salaries Friday, in particular for the incoming CEOs of the government-sponsored enterprises. That remains above the federal pay scale and falls short of compensation caps in standing legislation, and includes deferred payments that boost potential pay to $30.73 million for the top 10 executives.  Fannie and Freddie’s chief financial officers are exempt from the base salary cap, meaning they’d make more than the new chief executives. CFOs Ross Kari and Susan McFarland will make $675,000 and $600,000, respectively, in 2012.  Patrick Lawler, FHFA chief economist, said candidates the agency contacted for CEO positions requested subordinates make a competitive salary.  “We’re going to try and fill these two positions at a very low wage rate, but we just don’t think there’s any chance on the others,” Lawler said.

Three Freddie executives are also set to receive a raise, albeit at or below the $500,000 barrier.  These levels do represent a sharp reduction since the government took Fannie and Freddie into conservatorship. Compensation for the top 15 executives at each GSE is down 63%, according to the FHFA.  Members of Congress, however, weren’t keen on the changes.  “That may (be) an appropriate level for the private sector, but as long as the GSEs live off the taxpayers, these companies are owned by taxpayers and their staff should be paid accordingly,” Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., said in a statement Friday.  A House bill sponsored by Bachus would limit GSE executive pay at $218,978 for 2011. It passed the committee level in November.  Jeff Emerson, a spokesman for Bachus, said that bill could come up before a full House vote soon. Bachus called the FHFA’s change “long overdue,” but said it doesn’t go far enough.

Another measure, attached to a House and Senate-approved congressional insider trading bill, would put Fannie and Freddie employees on a federal pay scale with a maximum $275,000 salary and no bonuses.  Both chambers approved separate versions, each with the GSE provision, in February, but have yet to reconcile the two measures.  Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., cosponsored the GSE amendment in the Senate and called the FHFA’s move a “good first step.”  “Even a $500,000 salary is too much,” Rockefeller said in a statement. “Excessive executive pay at taxpayer-funded entities has already been going on for too long and must end — period.”  The FHFA said any further salary reduction from its $500,000 benchmark or uncertainty around it would “heighten safety and soundness concerns.”  “A sudden and sharp change in pay from these levels would certainly risk a substantial exodus of talent, the best leaving first in many instances,” FHFA acting director Ed DeMarco said in a release. “A significant increase in safety and soundness risks and in costly operational failures would, in my opinion, be highly likely.”

Legislators in Washington railed against executive pay at Fannie and Freddie during committee hearings in the fall, including before the House Oversight Committee. That committee, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., issued a critical report on GSE pay, calling executives “government-sponsored moguls.”  “I’m encouraged to see that (the) FHFA took the Oversight Committee’s recommendation to reevaluate the bonus structure for these executives,” Issa said Friday in a release.  The $500,000 salary cap, however, only refers to bimonthly or weekly payments, according to FHFA documents. The pay structure includes “deferred payments,” which the FHFA does not consider bonuses, delayed by a year for each quarter.  The top 10 executives can still earn that $30.73 million with deferred payments included, a 13% reduction from roughly $35.3 million in 2011. Executives ultimately brought in $30.1 million last year with these payments.

Deferred payments are subject to reductions based on conservatorship and personal performance, as well as continued employment up to Jan. 31 2014. Early-exit provisions make up 70% of deferred salary.  The FHFA included that provision to encourage executives to stay, Lawler said.  “This is an unusual pay structure that’s designed for a very unusual situation,” Lawler said. “It doesn’t look 100% like the private sector, but it certainly isn’t the government either.”  Charles “Ed” Haldeman and Michael Williams, Freddie and Fannie’s outgoing CEOs, could earn up to $5.4 million in 2012, including $900,000 in base salary. Haldeman, however, recently asked not to receive $2 million in incentives tied to 2009 and 2010, according to a regulatory filing and first reported by The Wall Street Journal.  But both have said they’d leave before year-end, with $2.88 million in deferred salary tied to retention reductions.

Stress tests expected to show progress

The Federal Reserve will release the results of its latest stress tests this week, and they are expected to show broadly improved balance sheets at most institutions.  While unpleasant surprises are possible, analysts are counting on the Fed to find banks largely healthy. That would stand in marked contrast with the holes, in the tens of billions of dollars, found on balance sheets in the first round of stress tests in 2009.  The examination is not merely an intellectual exercise. If institutions fall short, they could be required to raise billions in new capital, depressing their shares. If they pass, dividend increases and stock buybacks by the strongest institutions will follow as they did after the second round of tests a year ago, pleasing investors whose banks’ stocks still trade at levels far below where they where before the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008.

Under the tests, Federal Reserve specialists are trying to predict how capital levels at the 19 largest banks would withstand an economic downturn even more severe than the one that followed the Lehman collapse.  In addition to a 50% stock market decline and an 8% contraction in real gross domestic product, the tests envision an unemployment rate of 13%, well above the 10.2% peak recorded in October 2009. A surge in unemployment would increase losses for banks on mortgage and credit card debt.  If all that were not enough, the Federal Reserve is considering what would happen to bank assets if a market shock hit Europe and reverberated in the United States, gauging the extent of losses that have not loomed large for American institutions, despite the continuing problems in Greece and weaker European borrowers.

Regulators are walking a fine line: if they permit the banks to return too much capital now, that might leave the industry vulnerable in the event of a downturn and lead others to think the industry was returning to its risky ways. On the other hand, a raft of negative results would alarm investors just as calm seems to be returning to the markets.  For banks to pass the tests, they must show that their Tier 1 capital ratio – the strictest measure of a bank’s ability to absorb financial blows – will be at 5% or better, even in the Fed’s nightmare case. To raise dividends or buy back stock, the ratio would have to remain above 5%, after capital was returned to shareholders.  Tier 1 capital ratios for the 19 largest banks have improved since the depths of the financial crisis, rising to 10.1% in the third quarter of 2011 from 5.4% in the first quarter of 2009. Actual capital in dollar terms has jumped to $741 billion from $420 billion.

Olick – homebuilding stocks too hot?

“Improvement in the jobs market, improvement in potential buyer traffic, improvement in existing home sales, no change in record low mortgage rates…no surprise the analysts are starting to upgrade the nation’s public home builders. Not to mention that we’re getting an unusually warm start to the spring market.  ‘We are raising our targets for the builders, and are upgrading DHI, LEN, and TOL to Outperform (from Neutral), and also upgrading MTH and RYL to Neutral (from Underperform),’ wrote Credit Suisse’s Dan Oppenheim in a note this morning, that then sent the stocks of all the builders on a tear.  Not that they haven’t been on a tear since last fall, with the S&P home builder’s index nearly doubling. If that happened even before all this new spring energy in the market, then the obvious question is, how much farther do these stocks have to go?

That will depend entirely on the spring results, which we won’t get until summer. We want to focus on new orders and new home sales, but we also need to pay close attention to the distress in the market, since many foreclosed homes are relatively new construction, left over from the building boom barely six years ago.  ‘There will likely be added supply/competition as more foreclosures come to market following the robo-signing agreement, and a significant backlog of 6.6 million delinquent loans/foreclosures still needs to be worked off (though foreclosure pricing seems to have bottomed and there are plenty of investor buyers of foreclosures),’ writes Oppenheim.

He also cites increases in FHA mortgage insurance premiums. FHA is a favorite loan product for first time home buyers, and first time buyers are major clients of the new home builders. And while bargain-basement foreclosures may be hurting the home builders in the short term, the rental boom due to all these foreclosures may actually provide builders with another opportunity.  ‘Bowing to the realities of today’s for-sale housing market, a growing cadre of market-rate builders are warming to the concept of houses as an alternative rental product,’ writes Lew Sichelman in National Mortgage News.  That’s right, building houses to rent, not sell. Not so crazy, given rising rents and rising demand. If the multi-family developers can do it, why can’t single family builders?  As for the stocks of the big guys, are they too hot? Most builders are pricing in order increases of 20% at least, according to CNBC’s Bob Pisani.  ‘That seems to be happening, which would leave little room for price run-ups, but remember, this market is very under-owned by a lot of investors, so these stocks could go beyond reasonable valuations very easily,’ says Pisani.”

Obama defends energy policy

President Obama is stepping up defense of his record amid concern higher oil prices may lift gasoline to $5 a gallon in some parts of the country this summer, posing a potential threat to the president’s bid for reelection on November 6.  Republicans point out that Obama policies have hobbled the energy industry with red tape and point to the administration’s blockage of TransCanada Corp’s Keystone XL oil pipeline project to back their charge that he is hostage to environmentalists in his political base.  Obama visited election battleground states North Carolina and Virginia last week to promote his message and will speak at the White House on Monday with local television stations serving key swing states, including Colorado, Nevada and Pennsylvania.

BOA and MBIA battle over evidence

Bank of America (BOA) is defending itself after insurer MBIA filed a letter with a court asking for sanctions against BOA over alleged delays or failure to produce records compelled in discovery.  MBIA, which is suing Countrywide over alleged misrepresentations made about the quality of Countrywide loans that MBIA insured as securities, is requesting documents that could shed light on allegations of fraud within the former subprime lending giant. BOA purchased Countrywide in 2008.  In a letter to Judge Eileen Bransten with the New York State Supreme Court, MBIA claims BOA failed to produce documents requested on fraud allegations, delayed the production of requested materials and dumped thousands of documents on MBIA at the last minute, making it difficult for the insurer to conduct an appropriate investigation before depositions in the case.

Bank of America responded with its own letter to the court. The bank said the allegations are baseless and blamed the mass release of documents on a coding error that was disclosed to MBIA.  Furthermore, in its letter, BOA claims MBIA refused to wait for the coding error situation to be remedied, which led to the production of documents on a rolling basis. The bank claims MBIA knew the process would take weeks and says BOA devoted significant resources to the document production.  MBIA views the recent discovery spat in a different light.  “Over the course of the last three weeks, Bank of America has produced nearly 170,000 pages of new, relevant, successor liability documents,” MBIA attorneys wrote. “These productions, which are continuing, have forced postponement of a number of successor liability depositions and compelled MBIA to agree to a brief extension of the successor liability discovery schedule. This is just the latest conduct by BAC to sabotage the discovery schedule and cause MBIA significant prejudices, and is part of an indefensible pattern of delay and discovery abuses by both the BAC and Countrywide defendants.”

MBIA’s request for discovery sanctions also claim Countrywide failed to produce documents related to allegations of fraud on Countrywide home loans.  “This includes withholding important categories of documents on specious grounds and then selectively producing certain of such documents that it believes are favorable on the eve of (or during) depositions,” MBIA said in its filing.  Bank of America denies the discovery process has prejudiced MBIA and says MBIA’s sanction requests are baseless in a letter to the court.

See you at the top!

Chris McLaughlin

**************

Copyright Loss Mitigation Institute LLC 2011.

All Rights Reserved.

http://www.shortsalesriches.com

http://www.shortsalescoach.com

http://www.sixfigurebpo.com

http://www.reomillionaireclub.com

http://www.youtube.com/shortsalesriches

http://www.smartrealestatenews.com

(subscribe to this newsletter)

*************************************************

About the author:

Chris McLaughlin is widely known as America’s top
Real Estate Attorney and Investment Consultant.

* As the top Florida foreclosure and pre-
foreclosure expert, he oversees more than
100 short sale & REO closings each month

* Long-time authority on real estate investing
and rapid reselling of distressed homes.  Owns
portfolio of nearly 150 high-value, high-profit
properties

* Owner of one of Florida’s largest Real Estate firms,
running 4 different offices, supporting over
420 agents, uniquely positioning him to help
thousands of investors make money in the
biggest market opportunity ever!

* In 2011, Chris’ 4 Central Florida real estate offices
closed 3,336 sides for a closed sales volume of
$430,902,643!

* Highly sought-after speaker, consultant, and
seminar leader for current trends and hot topics
in Real Estate Investing, Entrepreneurship, and
Wealth Building

* Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/mclaughlinchris

* Join my Facebook Fan Page: http://www.mclaughlinchris.com