Some Useful Bits O Information

• median property price in Detroit (proper) is $5700
• one of the largest investors in real estate in the United States is the bank of Singapore. the funny thing about this is that in Singapore people are not allowed to own property.
  
• BofA now services over 50% of residential real estate loans in the U.S. 5% of these loans are actually BofA loans, the other 95% are other banks!
  
• when a bank takes back a property they have to put three times the amount of the default in a reserve account. So every $1 in foreclosure equals $3 less they can loan
• take all the money spent on the following events: Marshall Plan, LA Purchase, Race to the Moon, S&L crisis, Korean War, The New Deal, Vietnam War, Lifetime NASA budget, and both Iraq wars. Add all those dollar amounts together, adjust for inflation and you will still not arrive at the amount of money the government has spent on the bank bailouts.
  
• in the year 2000 only 2% of loans were interest only. In the year 2005 these loans accounted for 25% !!!
• the S&L crisis was $120 billion. 30% of that was recovered, resulting in an $84 billion loss. $300 BILLION in mortgage debt write offs is expected
• the mortgage debt relief act has been extended to January of 2013. What does this tell you the government thinks will happen to the housing market over the next three years?
  
• the HOPE now program (remember that last year??) had a goal of 143,000 loan mods. By the end of 2008 they had completed 1,392. Guess that didn't work!
• some estimates suggest a foreclosure costs a bank $200,000 because of the length of time required to resell the property
• did you know loan servicers get a percentage of the payments they collect? BofA, for example, is a servicer. When loans default the percentage goes up, giving the servicer NO incentive to help homeowners.
  
• california just passed legislation regarding agents being allowed to do BPOs on properties when if the deal dies, they will get the REO listing. Serious conflict of interest