NEO steps up, stands up, on foreclosure abuses

Foreclosures Hit a Snag for Lenders - New York Times -- Peter N. DeWolfe (of Grimm FT, LLC--sure beats the old "anonymous" tags) over at RealNEO got this into my consciousness early this morning.

This is huge news, now that Boyko has entered the fray. We stand to make history here in Northeast Ohio, first with Jim Rokakis standing up, now with Chris Boyko jamming the cogs of the machine. The tide is turning. We can all benefit. Stay closely attuned, pay attention. Reporters from NYC, Washington, Great Britain, and France have been covering this way better than our local PD.

The eye of the foreclosure maelstrom may in fact be right here--we host many of the causes, and many of the solutions. Because we host so many of the causative factors--the perps--we may get no press coverage that is critical of them. Think about it. Connect the dots. Use the Cleveland+ technique, as in things like Latourette+DC lobbyist wife+GCP+Clinic+PD advertising = Blogging Jeff and Blogging Jill on the street, or Bruce Akers+Keybank+GCP+local Republican party = the current sad state of affairs.

Having fun yet? I am. It's not so much a blame game as it is a realistic assessment of linkages, and cause and effect, the stuff Valdis Krebs charts. You can use big charts, or, for mini-drills, just use the Cleveland+ technique, a sort of shorthand to insight and understanding. I like the campaign more and more. It was inspired, perhaps even more than the perps realized.

again, they're getting set to talk the talk, to sing the sad foreclosure song; they know some of the words, but not the tune

I got this notice from CoolCleveland's weekly newsletter. I hope they, the "experts," will begin to address the real causes, instead of focusing merely on the subprime and the substandard markets. This is about more than just ministering to the poor and the downtrodden, and being paid to spout platitudes about something you know little about, something that happens to "those people"; it's about neglecting to challenge those who are hiding behind the law to plunder the American neighborhood, because they're your funders and financial contributors:

Foreclosure Crisis: Shaping the Consumer Response

Learn more about one of this region's hottest topics at this informative conference, held Fri 11/9 starting at 8:30AM at Trinity Cathedral, 2230 Euclid Ave. The conference will feature national and regional experts, presenting strategies to combat predatory lending and payday lending. Among the speakers will include Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann. An overview of Governor Strickland’s Foreclosure Task Force will be also presented. Free parking is available off the E. 22nd St and Prospect Ave. entrance to the church. The conference agenda and registration form can be found at http://www.organizeohio.org. For more information call 431-6070.

telling the story as it should be told, about foreclosures

I wanted to make sure we got the link up to last Sunday's piece by Jim Rokakis in The Washington Post. What's happening right now in Cleveland and in Cuyahoga County is an exceptional and aggravated example of a national plague of parasitism, as lenders, servicers, attorneys, brokers, and investment bankers descend on cities to capture decades of equity to which they are not entitled. Our friend Jim is a strong, clear voice, and he's also a good storyteller. We're going to have lots of similar stories to tell as this foreclosure farce unwinds. Stay tuned.

Jim was talking about this problem a good few months ago when we talked to him in a MeetTheBloggers session. Check it out.

consolidations to Cleveland?

KeyBank eliminates call center, 200 jobs -- Just keeping you posted, from our neighbors in Dayton:

KeyBank is the second Cleveland-based bank to cut jobs and slash operations in the Dayton area recently.

National City Corp. announced last week that it is cutting nearly 1,300 jobs to shrink the bank's faltering mortgage business. More than 100 employees at National City Mortgage in Miami Twp. were laid off as a result.

Jim Rokakis' Opening Statement--I heard it first from Okie lawyer

Satellite Sky: Congressional Hearing On Predatory Lending Opening Statement -- Here's our county treasurer on YouTube. Okie Lawyer posted this on March 22nd at his blog called SatelliteSky. Good stuff, but you probably have come to expect that from Jim. Strong stuff. Persuasive. Compelling. Listen to find out a new meaning of "ninja."

I'll post this again with a direct link to YouTube so we can see the picture on this blog, too. This speech begs for a transcript, so it is text-searchable.

connecting the dots, doing simple math, just noticing, just wondering

Taxing balance Abatement reviewed: From the SunNEWS on March 15th, with my emphasis added. The SunNEWS quote is italicized:

"Cleveland's existing citywide residential property tax abatement law was renewed in 1999 and is set to expire June 15. A separate abatement law for downtown won't expire until 2010. Cleveland began offering residential tax abatement, at 100 percent for seven years, for new downtown construction in 1987.
In the decade prior, new housing construction in Cleveland was almost non-existent. In some years, fewer than 20 homes were built. After 1987, the pace quickened. It accelerated in 1991 when the use of tax abatement was expanded citywide, offering a 100 percent abatement over 15 years. The abatement applies only to structures, not land.
Since then, 11,259 residential units were built, according to a 2007 study by Cleveland State University's College of Urban Affairs. The study also showed 60 percent of people buying tax-abated housing are coming from outside Cleveland. "

The forecast for 2007 is that Cleveland will have between 10,000 and 12,000 vacant or abandoned properties, which can be accounted for nearly directly by the 11,259 tax-abated new properties. The overall Cleveland population is less now than what it was in 1991. Where is the benefit? Where exactly is the gain? What is the loss?

Nobody's doing the simple math. Nobody's talking straight talk.

New York Times wheels in its big financial gun

Crisis Looms in Market for Mortgages - New York Times -- here, the NYT has wheeled in its big gun, financial-press hit-woman Gretchen Morgenson, to level the mortgage market, perhaps to drive a panic, certainly to bang a gong and sell the news. The excerpt below is the tip of the three-page iceberg:

The analyst’s untimely call, coupled with a failure among other Wall Street institutions to identify problems in the home mortgage market, isn’t the only familiar ring to investors who watched the technology stock bubble burst precisely seven years ago.

Now, as then, Wall Street firms and entrepreneurs made fortunes issuing questionable securities, in this case pools of home loans taken out by risky borrowers. Now, as then, bullish stock and credit analysts for some of those same Wall Street firms, which profited in the underwriting and rating of those investments, lulled investors with upbeat pronouncements even as loan defaults ballooned. Now, as then, regulators stood by as the mania churned, fed by lax standards and anything-goes lending.

Investment manias are nothing new, of course. But the demise of this one has been broadly viewed as troubling, as it involves the nation’s $6.5 trillion mortgage securities market, which is larger even than the United States treasury market.

Hanging in the balance is the nation’s housing market, which has been a big driver of the economy. Fewer lenders means many potential homebuyers will find it more difficult to get credit, while hundreds of thousands of homes will go up for sale as borrowers default, further swamping a stalled market.

we talked about this with Jim Rokakis

Lender Stops Accepting Mortgage Applications - New York Times--We talked about this subprime mortgage-lender meltdown situation with Jim Rokakis a few weeks ago in a MeetTheBloggers session at Gypsy Beans, and how our county and our state may proceed in the matter. Gloria tells me that our governor has little more sympathy than Rokakis for the people who have created this sloppy subprime mess. Here's an excerpt from the NYT March 9th article about this New Century, "at the center of the subprime storm:"

Like other subprime lenders, New Century’s problems can be traced to a sharp spike in defaults among mortgages written last year, when lending standards eased across the industry and companies sought to increase loan volume. More borrowers with extremely poor credit were given mortgages without being required to make down payments or to prove the income they stated on mortgage applications.

As more recent borrowers began falling behind on payments, New Century’s financial backers on Wall Street demanded the company buy back nonperforming loans under terms of its securitization agreement with the company. It appears that New Century compounded that problem by incorrectly accounting for loans that it had to buy back and by not setting aside adequate reserves to deal with the problem.

The company said yesterday that it had significantly tightened its lending standards in the last few months and was no longer allowing borrowers to take out loans without putting any money down. The new policies, it says, have reduced the number of borrowers who are defaulting on their first mortgage payment to 1.9 percent in February, from 2.5 percent in 2006.

government & nonprofit reps now fly to the rescue of more banks

Banks have a confirmed commitment to the city--In yesterday's Letters to the Editor in the PD, two of our representatives, one from the government and the other from the nonprofit sector, flew to the rescue of still more banks, citing specific nice little things these other banks do and why they should have a bigger share of whatever City-of-Cleveland preferences shifted to KeyBank a few days ago. Joe Cimperman and Ann Zoller cite a few instances of bank beneficence, but then Joe goes on to begin to start to get around to getting to a key point:

This picture of those two banks is different from the one painted by an outdated city administration formula that doesn't tell the true story. Cleveland's needs change daily. So must its relationships with financial partners. To continue to grade on a scale that does not reflect the banks' support of community needs sends the wrong message. We must recognize when institutions serve our community in ways that mean real quality-of-life improvements for all Clevelanders.

First of all, is there a formula, is this preferential-treatment-of-banks thing actually quantified, and who has seen it lately? Does this formula have at the top of the list the amount that the institution expects to pay the city on the deposits? The term and liquidity of the deposits? The ratings of the institution to hold the deposits, and the default insurance available per account? The ability to provide multiple accounts and also good accountability? The percentage of employees who actually live in Cleveland proper (no municipal income tax recripocity) and the payroll specifically attributable to those employees? The dollar amount of mortgage loans let out, with an offset for sloppy lending practices evidenced by foreclosures? A benevolent practice of cashing government and payroll checks for ordinary people with small or no accounts, so they aren't forced to go to the high-fee check-cashing gouge joints?

Way after all these things, we can list the actual amounts the banks give to city politicians and to the nonprofits, to make sure nobody is buying the business, and the amount of fees they use as incentives for the nonprofits to promote their banking products. Anything over $50 should be accounted for, just like our former governor's golf perks.

We need lots of analysis and then transparency and accountability, so that we can proceed to talk intelligently about who gets what city-deposit business, and how much.

Key in distress, and here comes Cleveland to the rescue

For banks, it pays off to reinvest in the city--As you saw a few days ago, Richard Cordray began taking KeyBank to task for putting its interests ahead of those of the rest of us. Well, lo and behold, here comes Key's champion to the rescue, taking money out of the other banks and shifting it over to KeyBank.

Cleveland stripped millions of dollars in deposits from National City and Charter One banks on Tuesday, citing the lenders for not doing enough to help city residents and businesses.

I wonder how those "city-assigned" rankings were determined. From the article, it appears that a few other people are wondering that, too. I wish Sharon Dumas, the finance director for the city, were more forthcoming with details. For instance, I think bank ratings and overall financials would play a huge part in the selection of a place for our community deposits, but I don't see that mentioned anywhere. One of the criteria, having a lot of branches in the city, might be a sign of bad management and too much overhead, for instance, and I haven't noticed the rates at KeyBank on consumer loans being any more competitive than those anywhere else. Did they identify and then count in the check-cashing storefronts with relationships to KeyCorp, and assess a penalty for parasitic activity?

Also, where is the mention of foreclosure rates and amounts here? I know Key has moved aggressively to cover its own assets in our neighborhood. Is there a foreclosure offset or penalty calculated in?

Is there any talk of what interest rate the banks will pay the city? Are our government employees here, Sharon Dumas and Ken Silliman, acting in the best interest of their fellow citizens if they don't try to maximize earnings? I know of common opportunities where plain old deposit money earns between 4.5% and 5%, yet all I see here is the use of some vague "profit" estimate, where each bank makes 3.5 cents profit per hundred dollars of deposits. First of all, what does this mean? Why are we talking about what the bank makes? Shouldn't we be talking about what the city makes? Quickly, $111,000,000 times the average of say, 4.75% is $5,272,500.

The biggest banks, like those who hold Cleveland's money, made about 3.5 cents profit on every $100 of deposits in 2006, according to data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which regulates them.

Is there talk anywhere else of the deposit insurance, the FDIC coverage, available per account? Again, I know of a common opportunity where the FDIC coverage is $1,200,000 per registration, but has anybody looked into that, in these times when banks earnings are down and they're straining under a heavy load? Is this a time when we should be consolidating our city money in one place, or is it a time when we should be spreading it out more?

Are we doing the right things with our city money, for the right reasons, for the right people?

Oops--almost forgot. Do you think one of the litmus tests could be how many bank executives you find in the city after the sun goes down?

if you get to talk about the money, you get to talk about everything

George has the podcast posted for the Jim Rokakis session last Wednesday, and Gloria, Jeff/Yellow Dog Sammy, and Wendell, and George, too, have already brought forth commentary to bear on the content and spirit of the talk we had. I think it's one of the better ones thus far, over the year and a half that MTB's been in play, but it can be argued that I'm biased, so you be the judge.

One of my favorite parts is where Jim recounts his running for county treasurer and getting comments from other politicians about why he'd ever want to have that job, where you only dealt with money. Jim's take is that, if you get to talk about the money, you get to talk about everything, and he does. Enjoy.

what goes around comes around: subprime stooge's karma's not instant, but quick enough

Tremors at the Door - New York Times--Two days ago, Cuyahoga County Treasurer Jim Rokakis alerted us to this phenomenon as it had made itself manifest just across the Harvard-Denison Bridge, in the North Broadway and Fleet areas. The podcast should be posted shortly over at Meet.The.Bloggers. From a moral standpoint, this guy Dallas, the subprime mortgage lending company poster child, is, in my opinion, reprehensible. If this "hey, it paid more money, what would you do?" attitude passes for business ethics, we need to do a lot of re-tooling. Here's the poster child's whiny lament, now that HE no longer has credit:

...William D. Dallas, the founder and chief executive of Ownit, would argue that his company has become an early case of road kill.

In mid-November, JPMorgan Chase, which provided Ownit with money to make home loans, notified the company that it was in default and would lose access to a $500 million credit line by Dec. 13 because it was losing money. It had taken on too much debt and its net worth had fallen, according to bankruptcy documents and people briefed on the company’s finances

....For his part, Mr. Dallas acknowledges that standards were lowered, but he placed the blame at the feet of investors and Wall Street, saying they encouraged Ownit and other subprime lenders to make riskier loans to keep the pipeline of mortgage securities well supplied.

“The market is paying me to do a no-income-verification loan more than it is paying me to do the full documentation loans,” he said. “What would you do?”