[GeneV]

This is something that just amazes me. Before my mother moved here she owned a condo in Oakland, CA. Her monthly association fees were only $75.00 less than my total house payment for principal, interest, taxes, insurance and PMI.

The condo fees include some of the insurance and taxes which are normally in your payment as a single family homeowner. Imagine everything besides principal and interest that home ownership costs (in the world outside of Pierre) if you did no maintenance yourself including a reserve for replacements, and that is the condo fee. There are usually all kinds of amenities that have to be maintained, as well.

The thing about condo ownership that is even more mind boggling is that what you are actually buying is usually just the space inside the interior walls of your unit. You do not own the bricks, mortar or walls around your unit. Each owner just has a small fractional interest in all of the buildings and grounds.

---------- Post added 03-31-2010 at 09:15 AM ----------

Well I've postulated this thought in a previous thread but let's revist it. Why don't the banks/lenders work with the people about to be foreclosed upon and work out some kind of plan? If you can't get the whole loaf at least get a couple of slices. Find a payment that a mortgagee can afford at that particular time and rework the loan. When things get better the money is made up in future payments.

First the house would stil be taken care of and not stripped.
Second the bank keeps a toxic asset off their books.
Third one less homeless family.

Now I know it won't work for every situation. After all contrary to popular belief at the time not every one should be a homeowner. Some folks are made for renting. Some folks are just too stupid to own their own dwelling.

Someone from the accounting profession can correct me, but I think that if they hold it on their books at face value, it is less toxic than if they reduce it to a lower amount.

George, I will agree with you 100% that not everyone should be a homeowner. I don't think that it is necessarily because of stupidity, but it would be stupid to believe that one kind of living arrangement is best for everyone.

I will also say that this is one area where there is a large helping of fault on the part of the government for offering a tax incentive and other subsidies for home ownership not offered for buying or renting any other asset. Not only does our subsidy of single family home ownership distort the housing market, but it encourages suburban sprawl, needless waste of transportation fuel and, in some cases, the kind of shabby apartment development that was not designed to be one's home for the rest of one's life.

I could say some of the same things about zoning, but I'm getting way afield of this topic.

[Nesster]

Actually the reason these assets became toxic is the mark to market rule the corporations are under, plus the insane amounts of leverage they heaped on the securities.

If you and I were under mark to market rules, we'd have to account for the changing value of our belongings - and pay tax immediately if the value goes up, and take a loss if the value goes down. To cover the loss you'd have to accumulate large chunks of cash, as loss provision. This money then becomes unusable for anything else... (for a bank, they can't lend it out.)

So when the underlying mortgages stop producing the anticipated cash flows, and become 'non-performing', the various stripping and re-combination of future payment-based securities rapidly become worthless. The institutions holding these - with less than 5% down - take a huge loss, as $1 invested results in a $30 loss... which then ties up their capital to cover the loss and other, now anticipated losses.

With mortgage modification, as Ranieri is doing for example, the underlying loan principals are reduced etc... however, now the mortgage backed securities become more predictable and therefore easier to value, and you know which bits remain toxic and which got better. Still, someone somewhere is taking the loss.

The institutions found themselves in a bind - if they sold at panic prices, they'd be looking at huge realized losses. If not, they were still in a financial bind, but at least could hope that a combination of 'non aggressive' mark to market + an eventual rebound in the market would eventually minimize the damage.

The systemic danger was that too many huge institutions were going insolvent due to their leverage and need to fund (paper) losses. And they'd look at themselves, and say I wouldn't lend to me knowing what I know, so why should I lend to the next guy, in essence. Thus the TARP and the stress testing - the institutions needed to prove they had enough capital to cover a reasonably bad future case. Without this intervention, a lot businesses would have gone belly up and the jobless rate etc would be much worse than it is. Or that's the theory.

One of the brilliant strokes about TARP - maybe not intended but politically mandated - was the limitations on compensation for rescued firms. This put management squarely on the same side as the government - repay TARP as soon as possible and at a profit to the treasury.

[GeneV]

Actually the reason these assets became toxic is the mark to market rule the corporations are under, plus the insane amounts of leverage they heaped on the securities.

If you and I were under mark to market rules, we'd have to account for the changing value of our belongings - and pay tax immediately if the value goes up, and take a loss if the value goes down. To cover the loss you'd have to accumulate large chunks of cash, as loss provision. This money then becomes unusable for anything else... (for a bank, they can't lend it out.)

So when the underlying mortgages stop producing the anticipated cash flows, and become 'non-performing', the various stripping and re-combination of future payment-based securities rapidly become worthless. The institutions holding these - with less than 5% down - take a huge loss, as $1 invested results in a $30 loss... which then ties up their capital to cover the loss and other, now anticipated losses.

With mortgage modification, as Ranieri is doing for example, the underlying loan principals are reduced etc... however, now the mortgage backed securities become more predictable and therefore easier to value, and you know which bits remain toxic and which got better. Still, someone somewhere is taking the loss.

The institutions found themselves in a bind - if they sold at panic prices, they'd be looking at huge realized losses. If not, they were still in a financial bind, but at least could hope that a combination of 'non aggressive' mark to market + an eventual rebound in the market would eventually minimize the damage.

The systemic danger was that too many huge institutions were going insolvent due to their leverage and need to fund (paper) losses. And they'd look at themselves, and say I wouldn't lend to me knowing what I know, so why should I lend to the next guy, in essence. Thus the TARP and the stress testing - the institutions needed to prove they had enough capital to cover a reasonably bad future case. Without this intervention, a lot businesses would have gone belly up and the jobless rate etc would be much worse than it is. Or that's the theory.

One of the brilliant strokes about TARP - maybe not intended but politically mandated - was the limitations on compensation for rescued firms. This put management squarely on the same side as the government - repay TARP as soon as possible and at a profit to the treasury.

Good points. I had forgotten how Mark to Market changed traditional accounting.

[Green_Manelishi]

Good points. I had forgotten how Mark to Market changed traditional accounting.

I'll bet the former employees of the debacle known as Enron have not forgotten.