Tax Implications of Loan Forgiveness
November 25, 2009
There is an article in the latest issue of the NAR’s Commnews Roundup discussing the downside of loan forgiveness as far as taxes are concerned. We weren’t able to locate the article online, so we’ll give you a synopsis: Provisions of the economic stimulus legislation permit CRE owners to postpone tax liability on forgiven mortgage [...]
Read More >>Housing Market Not As Healthy As Low End Would Suggest
November 18, 2009
For months now we’ve been hearing of the housing market picking up, starting with the low end. We’ve seen a healthy uptick in volume, and even price increases, but we’ve been skeptical about the durability. The reason being is that home lending by the FHA has filled the vacuum left by the departure of the [...]
Read More >>Banks Quick to Adopt New FDIC Guidelines
November 11, 2009
WSJ is reporting that banks are being quick to adopt new FDIC guidelines which allow them to reclassify the type of debt they have on their books from performing to non-performing by meeting less stringent requirements. The new policy statement recently issued by the FDIC recently gives banks the ability to restructure loans without hurting [...]
Read More >>Tishman Speyer Office Fund Values Off 33.5% YoY; Renegotiates Debt
August 25, 2009
Tishman Speyer has reached an agreement with at least 51% of the debt backing an 18-office building portfolio to revise the loan terms to keep it from breaching covenants contained within the loans. Still, the revised terms leave little breathing room in a market where values are falling on a monthly basis. Layer on rents [...]
Read More >>Unemployment Driving More Foreclosures Than Subprime
August 19, 2009
Subprime lending standards are being outflanked by unemployment as the driving force in residential foreclosures. Economists estimate that 1.8 million borrowers will lose their homes this year, up from 1.4 million last year, according to Moody’s Economy.com. And the government, which has already committed billions of dollars to foreclosure-prevention efforts, has found it far more [...]
Read More >>90-Day Foreclosure Moratorium Kicks In Tomorrow
June 14, 2009
The new California Foreclosure Prevention Act is kicking in tomorrow (and stays in effect until January 1, 2011). Under the new rules, which apply to owned-occupied homes with first mortgages recorded between January 1, 2003 and January 1, 2008, the time period before a notice of trustee sale can be filed is extended by 90 [...]
Read More >>JP Morgan and Citibank to Halt New Foreclosures
February 13, 2009
JP Morgan (JPM: 38.16 +1.11%) and Citibank (C: 3.88 +0.84%) both announced that they will halt new foreclosures for owner-occupied homes until around the first week of March as the government works on a bailout plan to help homeowners. Unfortunately, Countrywide already tried this back in mid-2008. What happened was that there was a glut [...]
Read More >>Mortgage Modification Talk Swirling
February 6, 2009
The new Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is set to hold a press conference on Monday to discuss his new plan for helping the economy get back on its feet. It’s not clear exactly what will be proposed, but one of the latest efforts which is being talked about is the government using some $100-150B, and [...]
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