This is a great article from the LA Times about our industry.  Check it out below:

Professional investors move into flipping foreclosed homes – latimes.com.

James Currell is struggling to prevent his Minnesota home from being foreclosed. But his lender isn’t a bank. It is the U.S. government.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is facing the prospect of foreclosing on a number of properties in the coming months, from homes to commercial buildings, a result of a souring mortgage portfolio it took over when it helped bail out Bear Stearns in 2008.

Foreclosed On—By the U.S. – WSJ.com.

AMERICA’S economy performed just a little worse in the first quarter of 2010 than the Bureau of Economic Analysis previously estimated. Economists were expecting a slight upward revision to growth in the BEA’s second estimate of first quarter GDP, from the initial 3.2% expansion to 3.4%. Instead, growth was nudged downward, to 3.0%. The American economy expanded in the fourth quarter of 2009 by 5.6%.

via American output: Minor disappointments | The Economist.

Tax credits and historically low mortgage rates have failed to lift home prices so far this year. Prices fell 0.5 percent in March from February, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city index released Tuesday.

That marks six straight months of declines — a sign that the housing market is going in reverse.

via Home prices under renewed pressure: S&P – Economy at a Crossroads- msnbc.com.

Mortgage rates in Cincinnati are low.  Really low.  Like, 30-year-fixed-under-5-percent low.

It’s astounding, really.  Mortgage rates weren’t supposed to drop this low but that’s not stopping people from looking the mortgage gift horse in the mouth.

via Mortgage Rates Are Range-Bound And Doomed To Rise | The Mortgage Reports.

Dour predictions about the housing market aren’t the norm anymore, as many economists have grown optimistic that home prices will begin rebounding strongly next year.

But International Monetary Fund economists Prakash Loungani has found plenty of reasons to remain glum.

Loungani, at a National Economists Club luncheon in Washington Thursday, presented his analysis of housing busts since 1970 in the countries that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. His prediction: Home prices will fall much farther and for much longer.

via IMF Economist Argues Home Prices Still Have Far To Fall – Real Time Economics – WSJ.

Real-estate investment trusts that sold convertible bonds during the go-go years thought they found a good source for cheap capital. But as the conversion dates approach, the bonds are becoming larger-than-expected liabilities.

REITs sold $27 billion of convertible bonds from 2005 to 2007. At the time, companies expected most investors eventually to convert the bonds into stock, a low-cost transaction for the companies. Instead, many investors are expected to demand that the bonds be paid back in full, a figure that could reach $15 billion over the next two years.

via For Some REITs, Payout Date Looms – WSJ.com.

The housing market had a spring fling with buyers hoping to find bargains using the now-expired government tax credits and record low interest rates.

Now it’s back to reality.

The sweet sales pace of March and April, many experts agree, will sour by mid-summer, and the national housing downturn has not yet ebbed.

via Experts see underlying weakness in housing – Real estate- msnbc.com.

It’s a bit like guessing how many pennies are in a gallon jug at the state fair, but housing analysts keep trying to count how many foreclosed homes banks and mortgage investors own.

Why should we care? Unlike at the state fair, there is no prize for guessing right. Still, if we can track the number of these REO (“real estate owned”) homes, we can get some sense of how banks and others are doing in their efforts to dispose of the properties and how much longer they will be weighing on the housing market.

The good news is that two of the leading contenders in this guesstimating game–Tom Lawler, an independent housing economist and gentleman farmer in Leesburg, Va., and Robert Tayon, an analyst at Barclays Capital in New York–have been comparing their methods recently and learning from each other. Both are in the same ballpark and both say the REO count is on the rise.

via More Bank-Owned Homes Likely to Hit the Market – Developments – WSJ.

Early signs of stabilization in delinquent and foreclosure inventories were overshadowed by an elevated pool of more than 7m distressed loans by the end of April, according to the latest mortgage report by Lender Processing Services (LPS: 34.33 +1.45%).

The year-over-year growths in delinquent and foreclosure volumes have leveled off in recent months, with the number of loans 90 or more days past due — including pre-sale foreclosure — declining by nearly 3% to just over 4.07m from nearly 4.19m in March, according to the report (download here).

via More than 7m Distressed Loans Weigh on Early Signs of Housing Stabilization « HousingWire.