Countrywide Foreclosures Blog

[Sapiens]

http://countrywide-foreclosures.blog...ff-charts.html

Update:

There were 195,433 properties published for sale (click on state links above to see the properties) by Countrywide Financial all through last night and this morning (probably up until noon time I'm guessing). Countrywide no longer has all these properties on their site as being offered for sale and the number of REO's currently listed are back to the 13k range. This huge number of listed properties is too huge to figure out what is going on. I truly thought those numbers were going to stay published on their site. I cannot say what Countrywide's intentions were for publishing 195,433 properties. Perhaps it was a mistake? I have no clue. The current properties offered for sale can be found here. All data on this blog is AS IS.

Clever mistake by CFC IT.... heads up...

[Sapiens]

Hub group, Countrywide in deal

Hub group, Countrywide in deal

http://www.boston.com/realestate/new...ywide_in_deal/

Neighborhood Assistance Corp. of America will calculate how much overwhelmed borrowers can afford to pay each month, and Countrywide will alter loan terms accordingly.

Debt slavery anyone???... Welcome to the matrix!

[Sapiens]

Countrywide Financial: Henry G. Cisneros Leaving Board

Countrywide Financial: Henry G. Cisneros Leaving Board

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/...9_FORTUNE5.htm

October 24, 2007: 05:13 PM EST


DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

Countrywide Financial Corp. (CFC) said late Wednesday that director Henry Cisneros is leaving the board of the mortgage lender to focus on CityView, an urban homebuilding finance company he chairs.

Cisneros has been a Countrywide director since 2001.

Countrywide said its Corporate Governance and Nominating Committee has hired a search firm to help it find one or more independent director candidates to join the company's board.

Countrywide shares fell 8% to $13.83 on Wednesday. The stock is trading at 4 1/2 year lows.

-Alistair Barr; 415-439-6400; AskNewswires@dowjones.com

LOL, there is a treat due out on Friday!

[olivegreen]

Re: Countrywide Foreclosures Blog

Look, you know I'm a newcomer here and quite ignorant indeed but I'm trying painfully to understand all this because as ignorant as I am I think "something" isn't right but I don't know what it is. I'll try not to bug you all with stupid questions... much...

Question 1:

Now am I wrong in understanding that the banks could go so far as to offer people 99 year mortgages ad infinitum... thereby owning all real estate and enslaving people literally... a slave state to the banks. Is this what you're saying?

Question 2:

Here is a rant I'm reading which was posted on another forum and it frightens me. Is it a reality valid rant and if it is, what does it mean? This rant is (I apologize) profane so skip if that bothers you... here:

Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Wilderness Wednesday

Yes, wilderness.

Barren, at least in the context of economic data today, unlike yesterday (which printed three recession-level indicators!)

Today we only got one. But boy, was it a doozie!

Existing home sales for September came in down 8% in September, down 19.1% from September of 2006. Inventories up 0.4%, to 5.04 million units. Prices fell 4.2% year-over-year. And this is from the "cheerleaders in chief", the National Association of Realtors - those who were complicit in the game right up front!

The gig is up kids!

What's even worse is that they're still building into the oversupply of inventory! INSANITY!

What was the market reaction to this? It priced in more rate cuts! As if that's the solution to whatever ails the market. Here's a hint kids - you can't clear this sort of inventory overhang by making money cheaper when the prices are still being at DOUBLE the affordable maximum!

Overnight we saw an interesting dichotomy; Asia opened up bright green but ended with a far more mixed picture with most indices closing down modestly in what was a fairly surprising (to some) reversal of fortune. It didn't surprise me; the press is calling it "risk aversion" but let's be straight with people here - this isn't about "risk aversion" at all and never was.

It has been about intentional mispricing of risk so you can make money by ******* the poor dupes you sell your shit sandwiches to. After all, is a shit sandwich worth anything at all? Even though you start with perfectly good bread, which does have a value, once you apply the shit the bread becomes just as worthless as what's inside.

There are a few other people who have picked up on this, talking about how "CDOs" and "CLOs" and such are only "of value" to issue if you can misprice them. Well, duh. It also flies over the average person's head, which is why I like the shit sandwich analogy instead. After all, that's one that's graphic, easy to understand, and impossible to play "spin" with.

This much is for certain - you have no doubt about the "value" of such a thing once you've taken a bite!

Merrill reported an $8 billion loss on writedowns. Yes, they said $7.9 billion. That's a lot like your local gas station - "$2.99/9", claiming loudly "under $3!" Horseshit. As an aside, do you realize that in the days of mechanical gas pumps the "9/10" was actually built in to the mechanism? Yep. Intentional mispricing by design. Kinda like what's going on now, eh?

Indeed, its the oldest game in the book; make a bad number look smaller so people will buy, and make a good number look bigger so people will be enticed to sell. So when its what you're "given" for your used car, its $13,000. When its the price of the car you want to buy, its $12,999. Uh huh. And before our government's intentional misstatements on inflation, the other buck would have actually gotten you a cup of coffee - but now the Latte at the Green Mermaid not only tastes like a shit sandwich but costs $4 on top of it!

Now let's talk about cops and robbers (again). Where are the cops? Just a couple of weeks ago Merrill said this loss was going to be 30% - or more - less! And let's cut the bullshit kids - the quarter had already closed. So the idea that this was some sort of "surprise" in the last two weeks is utter horseshit. I ain't buying that, but heh, even in this day of SarBox which allegedly forces CEOs to either shut the fuck up or tell the truth, it appears that nothing has - in fact - changed.

And yet today the deception continues in "structured finance" land. Yes, we've seen downgrades - but has anyone truly "marked to market"? No. Why? Because if they had, the fact of the matter is that there is no such thing as a "AAA" mortgage written to a consumer. Huh, you might say? How can that be?

Simple - AAA credit has a risk profile similar to that of the United States Federal Government. Yet not even Bill Gates has credit that good. Excellent, yes. As good as the "Full Faith and Credit" of the world's largest economy? Bollocks.

So what's going on here?

What's always been going on. What was going on during the 1990s. What's still going on now. Today.

Intentional deception for profit.

The common word for this is FRAUD. Yet it is, in fact, what this entire decade has been built upon, and most of the tech boom before it.

In the 1990s it was all about intentionally overstating growth forecasts ("The internet is doubling in size every 3 months"), allegedly supporting multiples that were stratospheric and business plans that, when all the bullshit was distilled out, could be written in one sentence: "We're an internet company - give us $500 million for our stock in an IPO."

In the 00s it has been all about intentionally mispricing complex financial instruments - the more complex the better, as it makes it essentially impossible for "the sheep" to figure out that you're going to fuck them (and charge them for the privilege!) 100+ page documents describing the "subordinated classes", alleged "credit support", claimed "models" which assumed that houses would never go down in price but instead would rise at 2, 3, or even 5 times the rate of wage growth.

This is, in fact, nothing more than a complicated Ponzi scheme! Those schemes have been highly illegal since Charles Ponzi assfucked a bunch of "investors" 75 years ago!

Huh? How's that you say? Certainly not ALL of the mortgage and housing mess is fraud, is it?

Yes it is.

Here's why.

While it is certainly possible for some people to make a lot of money in real estate, on balance housing must be a net cost - not a net profit center - for the American Homeowner.

Why?

Because prices cannot rise faster than the rate of wage growth over longer periods of time. It is simply impossible for that to be a sustainable situation; as prices rise in order to keep up with the last year's "growth rate" the required increase in price goes exponential due to the "curse" of compound price growth.

And, since every house has expenses, such as replacement of roofs and appliances, lawn care, taxes, electricity, water, sewer charges, trash hauling and the like on balance housing must be a net cost - not a net profit - on American's balance sheets.

It simply is not possible for what we've been told over the last seven years to be true! Mathematically it cannot happen.

The financial "alchemists", including the "smartest people in the room" such as Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke, are fully aware of this. They KNOW that this entire house of cards is fraudulent. So does Greenspan. So does every last one of the "investment bankers" on Wall Street, all the ratings agencies, and all of the regulators involved in actively looking the other way.

Yet all of the above continue to insist that this was just "accidental mispricing of risk."

That claim is a total, unadulterated load of bullshit.

Now, let's get back to the facts, and the simple question - where are the cops?

See, this is really just garden-variety fraud. An asset cannot grow in price at a rate which exceeds the earnings power acceleration of its purchasers for very long. Oscillations around the mean can and do happen - the very concept of "buy low and sell high" comes from this, and it works.

But over time the price of a house is limited by the financial ability to pay for it. Therefore, over time, houses cannot grow in price at a rate which exceeds the growth in wages.

This is so blatantly obvious - and immutable - that each and every one of those "merchants" who have sold "investors" on the basis of a contrary claim should, under the law, be under indictment for fraud!

Yet as we've seen time after time, you get the best "justice" you can buy in this country. Nowhere have we seen the cops actually show up to break up this merry band of fraudsters and send them off to the hoosegow where they can experience some of the assrape they've served up to their "investors" and the American Public.

Indeed, we now have Hank Paulson, a US Government Official, participating in trying to paper over the fraud with even more fraud by setting up a "super-SIV" in a bald attempt to stop the market from pricing these alleged "assets" at their true market value - that is, ZERO! And even better, "an unidentified Fed Official" last night said that The Fed "was not opposed" to this plan!

Imagine that - our central bank isn't opposed to intentional hiding of liabilities off company balance sheets and intentional mispricing of securities? In short, The Fed isn't opposed to FRAUD?!

This is beyond ridiculous and yet these are precisely the sort of actions that trapped rats take when the ship starts to go down.

Unfortunately for "the pigmen" they are ultimately doomed to fail, because in the end analysis when the payments can't be made the cashflow stops and those "credit default events" grow precipitously.

You can only sustain the fraud until people stop paying - just like Ponzi and his "postal coupon" scheme when the money simply can't meet the cashflow requirements you're no longer able to lie to people and the whole scheme comes apart in your face.

The absolute stupidity on display in the equity markets in holding up these companies is testament to the fact that we don't teach math any more in our schools; even a fifth grader can, with a paper and pencil, figure out what happens when you assume 10% growth rates in prices on an annual basis yet wages only advance at 5%!

What's even more stupid is how individuals continue to "spend spend spend" well beyond their means. Oh we hear how "the consumer's balance sheet is strong" yet that's a lie too. It is predicated upon a house "value" that is fully double what reality is. Take that back out and account for true debt load - debt that exceeds in many cases by half the value of the underlying assets - and suddenly you find that the consumer is functionally bankrupt!

The truth is showing up in things like credit card chargeoff reserves. American Express, Capital One Financial and more are all reporting dramatically growing delinquency rates. And of course the delinquency rate on mortgages is growing at a ridiculous rate as well.

"The worst is behind us"? Oh bullshit. "The worst" has not even yet begun to be talked about! We face an absolute tsunami that is now just starting to curl over as it approaches the shore, while all the locals are scurrying out on the exposed seabed collecting fish and chatting about how smart they are while raking in their "hoard", totally blind to what is about to happen to them.

We learned absolutely nothing from Enron.

Enron exploded due to these very same sorts of financial games.

Ponzi finance at its best.

This morning yet another example of fraud was on display and yet the dip buyers came out right at the open and started bidding up stocks.

Bidding them hard? No. Heh, a few people got smart - margin contraction scared a few people and Spamazon got sold off hard, being driven to an 8 handle almost immediately.

But in general the "mark to market" has not yet occurred.

So here's my question to "The Market" - when are you going to display more than a shoe-sized IQ? Will it be before - or after - your portfolio gets shredded?

You don't remember 2000?

Really? You sure?

I sure as hell do and I know what happened to friends of mine who were "true believers", forgetting their fifth grade math skills before they pushed the "buy" button in a speculative frenzy to bid up stocks to 80, 90, 100, 1000 P/E multiples.

Will you ever hear CNBullShit talk about this? Oh fuck no. Never mind that every one of those people behind a desk know the truth. Never mind that Hank Paulson sounds like someone has a cattle prod up his ass every time I see him on TV. He knows he's lying but he also knows that if he tells the truth about these "compounded rates of return" and that they are not only unsustainable but in addition that the promise of these returns were an act of intentional fraud that the financial markets would implode 30 seconds later!

I know, I know, the solution to every problem is a share buyback, never mind that this is just another example of levering up at unsustainable rates as inevitably debt is used to pay for it, and when losses come you get buttfucked twice - once by the loss taken over a smaller number of shares (making the "EPS" loss much larger) and by the demand on your capital in the form of interest payments.

You want to know what will force "Mark To Market" on all those CDOs? Here's a hint - whisper "Acceleration Event" to a CDO manager and see how white his face turns.

What's an "Acceleration Event"? It is a deterioration in the underlying credit quality that causes all of the subordinate tranche coupon payments (the "regular" interest payments) to be cut off. This is usually an incurable event; once it happens only the "super senior" tranches - which typically are NOT traded - get interest payments. Everything else, including the so-called "AAA" tranches DO NOT.

How close are we to that starting? Pretty close! Exactly how close? I don't know, but I'm hearing whispers about it here and there, which means its bad - real bad. If one of those happens to a CDO then ALL of the tranches become effectively "D" rated (for "Default") immediately, because there are no more coupon payments! So much for "AAA".

When does this whole house of cards come crashing down? I can't give you a date. But what I can tell you is that as certainly as the sun will rise in the east tomorrow that day will come. I call it the "Cold Sweat" moment - when you wake up at 4:00 AM and suddenly realize that the math simply doesn't work - and can't.

Beware.

Oh, in the "Peak Bullshit" department here we go again with totally ILLEGAL market manipulation. Today it was a rumor that hit the Blackberries RIGHT ON SCHEDULE AT 2:15 claiming there was a "discount rate cut" coming.

The result? TWENTY FIVE HANDLES on the Spoos in less than 30 minutes, with the first 15 being STRAIGHT UP.

One way or another - whether this is "rumor" or a "leak" - people need to start going to ******* JAIL for this shit!

And let's be straight here guys - there is no distress in LIBOR, no distress in interbank lending and no reason for an emergency action, especially with a scheduled meeting ONE WEEK AWAY!

This is a big part of why The Petition exists, AND WHY YOU MUST SIGN IT.

This sort of thing simply MUST STOP.

And Maria Cuntface Bartaromo? SHE'S ******* CHEERING THE RUMORMONGERING! No mention ANYWHERE by ANY of these media fuckheads that this shit is a FELONY!

Gee, Enron was a felony though too wasn't it? This is ******* rediculous.

[zoog]

Re: Countrywide Foreclosures Blog

Dude, you think you could maybe summarize that for us? I think that was longer than a Lukester post.:p Who has time to read such a run-on tirade?

The only thing I can say is: don't panic. The world doesn't come crashing down in a matter of minutes. So maybe the banks will convert struggling loans into 100 year mortgages. What are you going to do, pack up in the middle of the night and catch the next plane to Patagonia?

[metalman]

Re: Countrywide Foreclosures Blog

Dude, you think you could maybe summarize that for us? I think that was longer than a Lukester post.:p Who has time to read such a run-on tirade?

The only thing I can say is: don't panic. The world doesn't come crashing down in a matter of minutes. So maybe the banks will convert struggling loans into 100 year mortgages. What are you going to do, pack up in the middle of the night and catch the next plane to Patagonia?

it's gonna go on and on and on like a badly edited movie.

on the topic of bad movies, was watching greenspan interviews on youtube. what a fool! he really thinks that the end of the soviet union in the 1980s created the housing bubble starting in 2002... by coincidence months after he dropped rates to 1.5%? how stupid does he think we are? he goes on about how a billion humans released from the confines of collectivist economies kicked off the housing boom... says china is an example. really? china? there's a free market economy for ya. what a nut.

[Sapiens]

Re: Countrywide Foreclosures Blog

Don't worry, everything is going to be okay. We will wake you up when it's over.

[metalman]

Re: Countrywide Foreclosures Blog

Don't worry, everything is going to be okay. We will wake you up when it's over.

wake me up, too. thank god it's all in good hands.

[olivegreen]

Re: Countrywide Foreclosures Blog

Oh well.. btw zoog, this dude's a broad... now the thing is, I would have summarized that tirade but I'm only remotely understanding what is going on. I just know things don't look good and things aren't behaving according to what makes sense in the market. Has the world gone crazy or have I?

I guess if I would summarize what he said in a word I'd say... "Fraud?" or maybe "Is it safe?"

anyway... if only highly intelligent types such as yourselves could translate this down to the common person maybe things could change... right now it seems to me like most people haven't a clue things aren't quite right... If you could state it all in one sentence what would it be?

most gratefully yours,
olivegreen

[olivegreen]

Re: Countrywide Foreclosures Blog

http://wallstreetbear.com/board/view...21&post=141142


hmmmmm......

[zoog]

Re: Countrywide Foreclosures Blog

anyway... if only highly intelligent types such as yourselves could translate this down to the common person maybe things could change... right now it seems to me like most people haven't a clue things aren't quite right... If you could state it all in one sentence what would it be?

Not sure I'd include myself in the group of highly intelligent types.:eek:

Not sure I could distill it down to one sentence either but... yes, there has been a considerable fraud upon homebuyers, investors, taxpayers, and pretty much everyone who's not an insider (and probably quite a few of them as well). It has happened before. It will happen again. In the meantime, lots of people will lose lots of money, either through falling stock values or home values. Investing is always risky. Sometimes the risk is higher than other times. Selling a home will be increasingly difficult over the next few years. Stock markets will see increasingly sharp drops. After possibly falling some, interest rates will likely rise in the next few years, making it more difficult to pay off debts. Inflation will be rising as well. Essentially, we will all pay one way or another for the reckless speculation of investment bankers, hedge fund managers, and lenders. Most of them will walk away with their (m/b)illions.

I don't know if that really explained anything or was helpful to you. Maybe Fred can throw in links to iTulip essays by EJ that cover some of these topics well.

Personally I think this dryly humorous video clip does a pretty decent job of explaining how the system works: George Parr on Subprime

[grapejelly]

Re: Countrywide Foreclosures Blog

Stock markets will see increasingly sharp drops. After possibly falling some, interest rates will likely rise in the next few years, making it more difficult to pay off debts. Inflation will be rising as well. Essentially, we will all pay one way or another for the reckless speculation of investment bankers, hedge fund managers, and lenders. Most of them will walk away with their (m/b)illions.

In nominal terms, not sure that stock markets will drop. I think the money that is being created by the CBs will in fact flow into stocks.

In real terms, different story

[olivegreen]

Re: Countrywide Foreclosures Blog

Dear Zoog, thank you kindly for your brief AND intelligent explanation and the absolutely priceless link... I'm not sure I like any of this and its all serving to keep me awake at night mostly because of what I don't know. I'm not sure what is worse, knowing this is all happening or knowing that is has all happened before and people seem resigned to accepting that fraud, larceny and dreadful things are done in the financial world at the expense of the little guy. Man oh man....

Anyway. Thank you. I'm going off to explore some more angry websites out there.... (not this one which is relatively calm) a nice pastime for hallowe'en by the looks of it...

This site now needs to run a contest on "what the hell is going on in the briefest sentence possible..." that would be interesting....

olive

[Sapiens]

Countrywide Loses $1.2B, Sees Turnaround

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071026/earns...financial.html

Countrywide Financial Reports 3Q Loss of $1.2B on Mortgage Woes, Expects Profitable 4Q, 2008


LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Countrywide Financial Corp., the nation's largest mortgage lender, said Friday it swung to a loss of more than $1 billion in the third quarter as mortgage market woes forced it to set aside millions in loan-loss provisions and writedowns, and the lender originated fewer loans.

lender in 25 years.

But the Calabasas, Calif.-based company said it will be profitable in the current quarter and in 2008, as it restructures its business to take advantage of the current market.

LOL, don't count on it! hahaha!!!

Ahem, excuse me.

[c1ue]

Re: Countrywide Foreclosures Blog

Yeah,

I like how a company can go from $8.6B revenue to $4.9B revenue, and say that its previous $2.05B profit will not disappear.

After all, weren't the Alt-A and subprime loans the highest margin products?

So either the conforming loans are more profitable, and/or the $3.7B of lost revenue were all non-profit loans, and/or the $3.7B of lost revenue were not Alt-A and subprime, or Mozilo is blowing smoke up everyone's butt again so he can dump his last few CFC tranches.