As expected, November yielded big results for residential resales in the housing market. Many experts believed the reason for the delay in extending the tax credit past Nov 30th was to try and “encourage” as many closings as possible prior to the original cut off date. Looking at the numbers released today, it seems to have worked. Over  2 million more units were moved in Nov of 09 as compared to Nov of 08.

Realtor.org Article

The goal of filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy is ultimately an attempt to restructure debt. In the end, this will allow the Las Vegas monorail system to expand to the airport and other resort properties.

Why do they need to re-structure? Simple, the company hasn’t earned enough money to pay off the $650 million in construction and start up cost.

Initially, it was estimated that 20 million passengers a year would fork over $2.50 to utilize the monorail.  Instead, the 20 million estimate turned out to be grossly inflated, resulting in revenue not reaching targets.

3 options are now available: Negotiate a new agreement w/out filing for Chapter 11, negotiate a new agreement that does inluding filing for chapter 11,  or finally… just file for chapter 11 w/out a new agreement in place.

Bank of America has more mortgages eligible for the HAMP program than any other loan servicer, however, they are lagging behind the industry average in actually modifying borrowers loans.  (nearly 10% behind the industry average)

Bank of America looks at these numbers a tad differently.  They choose to focus on the total volume of loan mods processed. In this situation, it is in fact true B of A has made more loan mods than any other servicer. ( but again, they have hundreds of thousands of more applications than any other servicer)

If you take the next 3 largest HAMP loan servicers and add together the # of delinquent loans on their books, they equal just about the total # of Bank Of America.  However, these next 3 servicers have processed more than double the # of loan mods processed by Bank of America. (Chase, Wells Fargo, Citi)

A new program is underway to help speed up the short sale process in 2010.

To qualify, the outstanding loan must have been made before Jan 1, 2009 and be less than 729k.  The borrowers total mortgage payment must also exceed 31% of their monthly income.

The plan is simple – speed up the process b/w banks, real estate agents, and buyers/sellers.  The idea is that paperwork will be reduced by forcing lenders to use the financial hardships documents submitted by borrowers seeking a loan modifications. To speed the process up further, lenders will have to approve short sale terms before the property ever goes on the market. (including list price) The govt will provide the mortgage companies with up to 1k to cover admin cost and other incentives to approve the short sale.

Negatives – lenders do not have to adopt the program until April 5th. This means current sellers who wish to take part are out of luck. While the govt is offering financial incentives to lenders, the #’s hardly offset their potential losses.