Are Huge Real Estate Defaults Coming in 2010?

by Myke on January 30, 2010

in Real Estate Defaults, The Instability Scenario

David Galland interviews Andy Miller about the next downturn in the real estate market and its impact on financial institutions.

I hope Andy Miller is wrong but I fear he is right.

An Insider’s View of the Real Estate Train Wreck – John Mauldin, Outside the Box

David Galland: Andy Miller has been singularly successful in pretty much all aspects of the real estate market, including financing and developing large projects – such as shopping centers, apartment communities, office buildings, and warehouses – from one end of the country to the other. His expertise has also allowed him to build an impressive business providing assistance to large financial institutions that need help in dealing with problem commercial real estate loans. As you might suspect, business is booming.

Back in 2007, Andy was almost alone among his peer group in foreseeing the coming end of the real estate bubble, and in liquidating essentially all of his considerable portfolio of projects near the top. There are people that think they know what’s going on, and those who actually know – Andy very much belongs in the latter category.

As you’ll read in the following excerpt from my latest interview with Andy, who now spends considerable time each day helping the nation’s biggest banks cope with growing stacks of problem loans, he remains deeply concerned about the outlook for real estate.

No one has been more right on the housing market in recent years. So, what’s coming next? Some of the housing numbers in the last few months look a little less ugly. Could housing be getting ready to get well?

MILLER: I don’t think so.

For all intents and purposes, the United States home mortgage market has been nationalized without anybody noticing. Last September, reportedly over 95% of all new loans for single-family homes in the U.S. were made with federal assistance, either through Fannie Mae and the implied guarantee, or Freddie Mac, or through the FHA.

If it’s true that most of the financing in the single-family home market is being facilitated by government guarantees, that should make everybody very, very concerned. If government support goes away, and it will go away, where will that leave the home market? It leaves you with a catastrophe, because private lenders for single-family homes are nervous. Lenders that are still lending are reverting to 75% to 80% loan to value. But that doesn’t help a homeowner whose property is worth less than the mortgage. So when the supply of government-facilitated loans dries up, it’s going to put the home market in a very, very bad place.

Why am I so certain that the federal government will have to cut back on its lending? Because most of the financing is done via the bond market, through Ginnie Mae or other government agencies. And the numbers are so big that eventually the bond market is going to gag on the government-sponsored paper.

The public doesn’t have any idea of the scale of the guarantees the government is taking on through Fannie, Freddie, and FHA. It’s huge. If people understood what the federal government has done and subjected the taxpayers to, there would be a public outrage. But you can’t get people to focus on it, and it’s very esoteric, it’s very hard to understand. But it’s not something the bond market won’t notice. The government can’t keep doing what it has been doing to support mortgage lending without pushing interest rates way up. [click to continue…]

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The FED Must Continue To Buy Its Own Debt

by Myke on January 5, 2010

in The Instability Scenario

Craig Harris at EarthBlog News describes why he’s concerned about the still unfolding financial crisis.

Click on the link to read the whole post.

Link: An Introspective Look at the Future of America, by Craig Harris

If the FED had done nothing, the whole system would have quickly degenerated into a deflationary collapse and failure of the financial system due to insolvency. The course the FED chose however is the one myself and many others predicted beforehand… the FED chose to solve the problem of too much debt by creating even more debt by taking the unprecedented action of buying it’s own debt under euphemisms like “quantitative easing” and “debt monetization” and also covert buying to artificially force negative real return rates of interest. Through this course of action, the FED so far has been able to turn what would have been a rapid deflationary collapse into a decaying inflationary depression which is euphemistically called “a recession that is now over” by the six people who control 96% of the global media and attempt to pass off propaganda as “news” to a woefully misinformed, dumbed down and apathetic general public.

Going forward, if the FED doesn’t buy enough of their own debt, then interest rates on the long end would rise and the risk becomes a deflationary collapse into insolvency for the FED and it’s banking system. If interest rates remain effectively at zero on the short end and artificially suppressed by quantitative easing on the long end, then the real estate market can recover and the banks can regain solvency. If interest rates rise as the free markets would argue for however, then the real estate market sinks even further, the US dollar rises, and greater insolvency of the banks follows. The higher interest rates go, the thinner the knife edge gets and the FED would quickly find itself staring into another October 2008 collapse kind of situation. On the other hand, if by buying enough of their own debt they can keep short and long term interest rates down, then the free money percolates through the banking system, puts pressure on the dollar, lifts commodity and real estate prices and pulls out of the collapse via inflating away the debt so long as they can avoid run away hyperinflation in the process. This is the path we have traveled throughout 2009. [click to continue…]

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Overspending and Budget Deficits in Socialist Greece Reach Tipping Point

by Myke on November 27, 2009

in The Instability Scenario

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard at The Telegraph describes the overspending and debt problems in Greece. It could provide some insight into what happens when government bonds (debt) cannot find any buyers.

Link: Greece tests the limit of sovereign debt as it grinds towards slump

Greece is disturbingly close to a debt compound spiral. It is the first developed country on either side of the Atlantic to push unfunded welfare largesse to the limits of market tolerance.

Euro membership blocks every plausible way out of the crisis, other than EU beggary. This is what happens when a facile political elite signs up to a currency union for reasons of prestige or to snatch windfall gains without understanding the terms of its Faustian contract.

[click to continue…]

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The Financial Crisis Drags On – Joblessness Rises

by Myke on November 8, 2009

in The Instability Scenario

John Mauldin at Thoughts from the Front Line describes the ugly secrets of the unemployment report.

Link:  The Ugly Unemployment Numbers

The headlines said unemployment, as measured by the “establishment survey,” was down by 190,000; and even though that was slightly worse than forecast, market bulls were cheered by the fact that the number was not as bad as last month’s. It is an improvement that we are not falling as fast.

Well, maybe. What I did not see in many of the stories I read was that the number of unemployed actually soared by 558,000, to 15.7 million, as measured by the household survey. The establishment survey polls larger businesses; the household survey actually calls individual households. [click to continue…]

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Lessons from Argentina’s Hyperinflation

by Myke on November 2, 2009

in Hyperinflation, The Instability Scenario

John Mauldin describes the hyperinflation that infected Argentina in 1989, emphasizing that it was a political decision to print money to cover massive budget deficits. Now the United States is tempted to follow that path rather than make the painful adjustments to less spending. Excerpts below.

Link:  Catching Argentinian Disease – John Mauldin – InvestorsInsight.com

As is often said, those who do not understand history are doomed to repeat it. … the United States in particular, and the developed world in general, are faced with a series of very unpleasant, if not downright bad choices. The time for good choices was ten years ago. Now we face the prospect of painful decisions, no matter what we do. It is not a matter of pain or no pain, of somehow avoiding the consequences of our bad decisions, it is simply deciding how much pain we will take and when, or allowing the pain to build up to a climactic event. Today we look at what I think would be the worst choice of all.

Catching Argentinian Disease

At the beginning of the 20th century, Argentina was the seventh richest nation on earth. It’s very name means “silver.” “As rich as an Argentine” was a byword. Even after falling from the heights through a series of bad decisions, the country was still so wealthy that, in 1946 when new president Juan Peron first visited the central bank, he could remark that “There was so much gold you could barely walk through the corridors.”

Argentina had actually defaulted on its debt in the late 19th century, not once but twice! But still they managed to avoid destroying the currency and devastating the country. But in 1989, after years of massive budget deficits that were financed with borrowing from abroad and Argentinian citizens, the country was left with so much debt and no one was willing to lend it any more money, that the leaders felt compelled to resort to the printing press. [click to continue…]

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Is the Financial Crisis Really Behind Us?

by Myke on October 24, 2009

in The Instability Scenario

Media, government officials, and some economists say the Recession is over; other observers say that the causes of the Financial Crisis continue to undermine economic health.

Michael Panzner, one of my favorite guides through the financial crisis turmoil, pointed to the list below on James Wesley Rawles’ blog. If you find reading this list depressing, remember that awareness is essential to preparation. Being prepared always beats being blindsided.

Link: Twenty-Two Reasons Why this Recession is Different and Why it Will Endure – SurvivalBlog -  James Wesley Rawles

  1. A broken global credit market that has not fully recovered. See: After Lehman, U.S. firms adjust to new face of credit
  2. Lack of transparency in Mortgage-Backed Securities and other re-packaged debt instruments. See: Geithner Blames Lack of Transparency for OTC Derivatives Hit on Market.
  3. The increasing Federal debt, which is growing at an unprecedented rate. See: The National Debt Clock.
  4. Mountains of consumer and corporate debt. See: Observations on the US Debt.
  5. The Federal budget deficit. See: Federal Deficit Hits All-Time High of $1.42 Trillion. [click to continue…]

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The Transition to a Sustainable Lifestyle

by Myke on October 20, 2009

in Transition Scenario

Richard Heinberg describes the growing awareness that the American way of life – I’d call it unsustainable consumption – is dysfunctional. These leaders of the transition are growing food locally, investing in local economies, rebuilding skills, and preserving local ecosystems.

Link: MuseLetter #204 / April 2009: Post Carbon Institute Manifesto – The Time For Change Has Come

The winds of social change are upon us. Consumerism as we’ve known it is at death’s door—not because everyone has joined the Sierra Club, but because suddenly nobody can afford to buy much of anything. Our new historical moment requires different thinking and strategies, but it also opens new opportunities to solve some very practical problems. Ideas from the environmentalist community that for decades have been derided by economists and politicians—reducing consumption, re-localizing economic activity, building self-sufficiency—are suddenly being taken seriously, and people want to know more about them.

Quietly, a small but growing movement of engaged citizens, community groups, businesses, and elected officials has begun the transition to a post-carbon world. These early actors have worked to reduce consumption, produce local food and energy, invest in local economies, rebuild skills, and preserve local ecosystems. For some citizens, this effort has merely entailed planting a garden, riding a bike to work, or no longer buying from “big-box” stores. Their motivations are diverse, including halting climate change, environmental preservation, food security, and local economic development. The essence of these efforts, however, is the same: they all recognize that the world is changing, and the old way of doing things, based on the idea that consumption can and should continue to grow indefinitely, no longer works. [click to continue…]

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New Evidence of a Strong Economic Rebound

by Myke on October 12, 2009

in The Recovery Scenario

Jon Markman at Money Morning describes the indicators that suggest a strong recovery is imminent. Excerpts below.

Link: Here’s Why the U.S. Rebound Will Be Stronger Than You Think – Jon D. Markman – Money Morning

What’s the best way to follow a Great Recession?

How about with a Great Recovery …

According to the latest data from the Economic Cycle Research Institute, the economy is poised for its strongest recovery in more than 30 years. The monthly growth rate of its Weekly Leading Index is now sitting at a level that has not been witnessed in at least four decades.

That’s big.

[click to continue…]

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We Cannot Borrow Our Way Into Prosperity

by Myke on October 10, 2009

in The Instability Scenario

John Mauldin describes the financial predicament unfolding in the US. He also provides some solutions — tough choices that will get tougher if the denial and ignorance continue. Excerpts below.

Link: Killing the Goose – John Mauldin

Peggy Noonan, maybe the most gifted essayist of our time, wrote a few weeks ago about the vague concern that many of us have that the monster looming up ahead of us has the potential (my interpretation) for not just plucking a few feathers from the goose that lays the golden egg (the US free-market economy), or stealing a few more of the valuable eggs, but of actually killing the goose. Today we look at the possibility that the fiscal path of the enormous US government deficits we are on could indeed kill the goose, or harm it so badly it will make the lost decades that Japan has suffered seem like a stroll in the park.

And while I do not think we will get to that point (though I can’t deny the possibility), for reasons I will go into, there is the very real prospect that the upheavals created by not dealing proactively with the problems (or denying they exist) will be as bad as or worse than the credit crisis we have gone through. This is not going to be something that happens overnight, and the seeming return to normalcy that so many predict has the rather alarming aspect of creating a sense of complacency that will only serve to “kick the can” down the road.

As a culture, the current mix of generations, especially in the US, has made some choices. Choices which, in hindsight, leave the adult in us asking, “What were we thinking?”

We made a series of bad choices and suffered the credit crisis because of it. Now, as a nation, we are in the middle of making an even worse choice, one that will leave us with no good choices – only choices of pretty bad to awful.

OMB projections imply that the US will run deficits equal to 43.3% and 39.9% of expenditures in 2009 and 2010, respectively. To put it simply, roughly 40% of what our government is spending has to be borrowed. [click to continue…]

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The Ongoing Hangover from the End of Cheap Abundant Energy

by Myke on October 9, 2009

in The Instability Scenario

In this blog post by John Michael Greer, he describes how cheap abundant energy created a mismatch between money and wealth. The bad news is that era of cheap abundant energy is ending and the value of money is being revised. Excerpts below.

Link: The Archdruid Report: The Metastasis of Money.

If economists took a wider view of the history of their discipline than they generally do, they might have noticed that what most of them consider a fundamental feature of all economies worth studying – the centrality of money – is actually a unique feature of an economic era defined by cheap abundant energy. Since the fossil fuels that made that era possible are being extracted at a pace many times the rate at which new supplies are being discovered, current assumptions about the role of money in society may be in for a series of unexpected revisions.

In an ironic way, this process of revision may be fostered by the antics of the world’s industrial nations as they try to forestall the Great Recession by spending money they don’t have. The economic crisis that gripped the world in 2008 was primarily driven by a drastic mismatch between money and wealth. When the price of a rundown suburban house zoomed from $75,000 to $575,000, for example, the change marked a distortion in the yardstick rather than any actual increase in the wealth being measured. That distortion caused every economic decision based on it – for example, a buyer’s willingness to go over his head into debt to buy the house, or a bank’s willingness to lend money on the basis of imaginary equity – to suffer similar distortions. Now that the yardsticks have snapped back to something like their proper length, the results of the distortion have to be cleared out of the economy if the amount of money in the system is once again to reflect the actual amount of wealth.

Yet this is exactly what governments and businesses are doing their level best to forestall. Governments are scrambling to prop up economic activity at a pace the real wealth of their societies can no longer support; banks and businesses are doing everything in their power to divert attention from the fact that a great many of the financial assets propping up their balance sheets were never worth anything in the first place and now, if possible, are worth even less. Both are doing so by the simple expedient of spending money they don’t have. As government deficits worldwide spin out of control and the total notional value of the world’s derivatives market climbs steadily above one quadrillion dollars, the decoupling of money from wealth is even more extreme than it was at the height of the real estate bubble.

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