From the May issue: To buy or not to buy: That is the question for many New York apartment hunters, particularly as the gap between the monthly cost of owning and renting a home in Manhattan has narrowed. While mortgage rates remain at historic lows, rents continue to rise: the median Manhattan rent hit $3,100 in the first quarter of this year, or 7.1 percent higher than during the same period last year, according to appraisal firm Miller Samuel. In some cases, rents are breaking records set before the financial crisis. [more]

Apparently, the over-confident man is also a homeowner. Fifty-nine percent of male homeowners believe their home is worth more than what they borrowed to buy it, compared to just 47 percent of their female counterparts, according to a survey conducted by Rasmussen Reports. Men also outpace the national average, as just 53 percent of homeowners across the nation believe their home is worth more than they owe. Of the remaining 47 percent, 31 percent say they are underwater on their mortgages and the rest were unsure.  [more]

Just because President Barack Obama’s latest budget proposal calls for rollbacks in mortgage interest deductions solely for high-income taxpayers, should a homeowner assume that all of his or her write-offs are secure from attack? Absolutely not. In fact, those tax benefits — from capital gains exclusions to home equity and second-home interest deductions — might be more vulnerable to broad-based cutbacks during the next two years than at any time in decades.
Here’s why: An influential, bipartisan group of lawmakers on Capitol Hill — led by a so-called “gang of six” in the Senate — is drafting a legislative framework that would essentially seek to implement much of the president’s deficit-reduction commission report released last December. [more]

New York state saw an uptick in residential mortgage delinquencies and home foreclosures in the third quarter, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Nearly 9 percent of residential mortgages were in delinquency in the third quarter, according to the report, up 14 basis points from the second quarter. The percentage of loans that were in the foreclosure process last quarter hit 4.74 percent, up 17 basis points from the second quarter, while the percentage that entered the foreclosure process reached .95 percent, up 13 basis points. TRD [more]

Foreclosure cases in New York state have ground to a near-halt, according to the New York Post, after new foreclosure rules set harsh penalties for any filings that include fraudulent information. While many banks aren’t filing any foreclosure documents in court, state officials say that they are still preparing those cases. “Banks do not want to be the first to test the new rules,” a source with the state department said. The number of homes in foreclosure in New York state is 80,000 — up from 20,000 four years ago. [Post]

Is the foreclosure scandal overblown? In this video from the “DealBook” team at The New York Times, reporters Joe Nocera and Andrew Ross Sorkin take the pro and con viewpoints, respectively. “If the person next to me doesn’t deserve to be in their home, does that mean I have the right to kick them out?” Nocera asks, rhetorically.

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Multi-family lending declined sharply between 2008 and 2009, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s annual multi-family lending report, released today. Developers nationwide secured $52.5 billion in loans for new apartment buildings in 2009, marking a 40 percent decline from the dollar amount loaned in 2008. In total, 2,725 different lenders financed projects in 2009, according to the report. The top five lenders — in terms of dollar value lent — were Wells Fargo, PNC Real Estate, Deutsche Bank Commercial Real Estate, CBRE Capital Markets and Capmark Financial Group. TRD

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Spurred by recent improvement in nationwide employment, the commercial real estate market is beginning to firm up, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s second-quarter market report. The office sector improved as “businesses eased job cuts and started to hire,” in the second quarter, according to a statement from the MBA. Meanwhile, in the multi-family market, a nationwide trend toward renting a home — rather than owning — has helped landlords. “Since the end of 2005, census figures indicate the number of households owning their home has declined by 370,000 while the number of households renting has increased by 3.25 million,” the MBA said. TRD

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Countrywide Financial is under fire for allegedly giving preferential loans to numerous Fannie Mae employees during the run-up to the housing market collapse, according to the Associated Press. Countrywide, which had been the largest granter of subprime mortgages in the nation, gave discounted mortgages to more than three dozen Fannie Mae employees, according to company documents released under a subpoena from Congress. The loans were reportedly granted in the midst of a burgeoning multi-billion dollar business relationship between the two groups, potentially creating a significant conflict of interest. Sibling organization Freddie Mac has a strictly-worded policy against that practice, according to Doug Duvall, a spokesperson for the group. “We have a code of conduct that says employees cannot solicit or accept discount prices or more favorable loan terms on the basis of their being Freddie Mac employees,” Duvall said. Fannie Mae representatives have declined to comment on the accusations. [AP via HuffPo]

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The Obama administration’s foreclosure prevention efforts are facing
major obstacles, according to the Associated Press, with more than 40
percent of the homeowners engaged in the president’s mortgage aid
program already dropped out. Of the 1.3 million participants who have
enrolled in the program since March 2009, about 30 percent — 390,000
– have received permanent modifications on their home loans, the
Treasury Department reported. While the program has been able to slash
mortgage holders’ monthly payments by $500 a month, on average, many
participants have complained that red tape and confusing paperwork
makes the program difficult to complete. Further compounding the
program’s problems, many of the borrowers who receive temporary
modifications have troubling transitioning to a permanent modification,
industry experts say, rendering the program largely ineffective. [Palm Beach Post]

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