Fears of a housing double dip were realized on Thursday with news that the U.S. had officially seen home prices drop below the lowest point of the recession. And in related news, the city of Los Angeles is suing Deutsche Bank for its illegal foreclosure activities, including the improper maintenance of its properties.
U.S. Suffers Official Housing Double Dip
A new report from Clear Capital has confirmed fears of a housing double dip. According to the report, home prices are now lower than they were in March 2009, which was previously the low point in the midst of the recession and after the housing market crash.
While most hoped that the industry was not headed south after what seemed to be a recovery with the success of the First Time Homebuyer Tax Credit, homebuyers’ inability (or lack of desire) to buy homes due to a shaky economy, along with the foreclosure crisis, left the housing market in an irreparable state.
According to the report, the sale of bank-owned properties (thanks to foreclosures and short sales) hit 34.5 percent of the market. The rush of empty homes into the market contributed to a national price drop of 11.5 percent in the past nine months, causing prices to double dip.
L.A. Sues Deutsche Bank over Foreclosures
In Los Angeles, one bank is in trouble over its unsatisfactory foreclosure activities. Recent reports show that the city of Los Angeles is suing Deutsche Bank AG for illegally evicting low-income tenants then failing to properly maintain the properties once empty.
Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen Trutanich says the bank has become “one of the major slumlords in the city” after buying more than 2,200 properties through foreclosure then letting the vacant buildings fall into disrepair. She says the bank also unlawfully evicted its tenants in order to sell buildings, not unlike other banks that have contributed to the foreclosure crisis and housing double dip.
California’s lawsuit filing comes only one day after the U.S. Justice Department sued the bank for more than $1 billion, claiming that it lied while arranging federal insurance on faulty mortgages. In the L.A. suit, Trutanich seeks a court order for the bank to clean up its city properties and pay restitution.
Trutanich said in a statement that the bank could ultimately be liable for “hundreds of millions of dollars.”
After reading your aticle here, I felt I had to educate you on what is really going on in the housing market.
In Bakersfield California we are daily watching home prices rise to prices above or at the levels they were when this nation decided to take a look at what was going wrong in the housing market and perplexed because so many homeowners were being foreclosed on.
First I want to ask…do you really want to find the problem or do you just want to report what you think the American people will eventually accept?
I began looking for a home one year ago, and doing it on a daily basis, because I am in need of a home.
I have been told by the banks they are not selling to individuals, but instead, the government or investors that want to buy a large volume of the homes. After the investors and the government finished buying up the choice properties, the only ones left were the trash that no one wanted. The homes the government bought were already paid for once in the bailout and then the government buys the damn homes from the banks for the second time and then has the audacity to list them for sale to the American public, homeless people looking for a home, at inflated prices, as is, and no warranties of any kind. The mortgages they had were taking them under, how in the hell can they recover when the game is still on. Nothing has changed! Prices have not double dipped for the consumer or buyer of homes? A home I could have bought at the height of the discovery of this nationwide fraud, I could afford, now…that same home has increased by 75,000 to 100,000 in just a 6 month time span. Further..we are wathching appraisers increase the value of the these homes once again at a rapid pace. It is a daily activity in the real estate market here.
No longer in my experience is there a buyers agent or a sellers agent. Its one and the same, with no one concerned with the rights of the buyer or what is in the buyers best interest.
[...] City records show more than 50 code and habitability …Slumlord MillionaireMother Jones (blog)Housing News: U.S. Home Prices Double Dip & L.A. Sues Deutsche Bank over EvictionsGo Banking RatesDeutsche Bank – Foreclosed properties make it one of top Slumlords in [...]
2008 – It’s A Great Time To Buy! (decline)
2009 – It’s A Great Time To Buy! (decline)
2010 – It’s A Great Time To Buy! (decline)
2011 – Cry!
To be continued….
[...] The report found that home prices dropped 8.2 percent over the past 12 months, marking a low not seen since 2008. In fact, it was reported last week that home prices had double dipped. [...]