Economics Roundtable

From the O.C. Register: A three-hour tour of foreclosed homes.

This is a tour of coastal properties in Orange County, CA, with some homes over $1 million. Here is the video. Not exactly subprime.

Trivia: the longest "three-hour tour" (from the TV show Gilligan's Island) also ...

David Streitfeld writes in the NY Times about the impact of the housing bust on self storage: Losing a Home, Then Losing All Out of Storage. There are several interesting sub stories in this article, like the trend toward "residential units":

Fred Reger, an auctioneer in Washington and its ...

From the Observer: HSBC to reveal $5bn of fresh write-offs

HSBC is expected to announce tomorrow that it is writing off a further $4.6bn (£2.3bn) against mortgages, credit cards and other loans to stricken US consumers, bringing the total over the last 15 months to almost $17bn.

The confessional is ...

Here is a story of a city in Northern California devastated by the housing bust, from the San Francisco Chronicle: Brentwood the poster child for housing bust (hat tip rainyday)

This farming community on the eastern edge of the Bay Area absorbed an outsize portion of the region's ...

Yes, this is Calculated Risk.

Best to all.

From The Times: Home repossessions to double this year for mortgage defaulters

The number of people who are losing their homes because they cannot meet rising mortgage bills is set to double this year, experts said yesterday.
...
The number of repossession orders granted in England and Wales in ...

A follow up to Tanta's post this morning, from Michael Hiltzik at the LA Times: In mortgage meltdown, ‘walkaway’ homeowners may be suburban myth (hat tip Dagny)

Bankers and housing market analysts are warning of a chilling new trend in the mortgage world: Homeowners voluntarily defaulting on their ...

In the New York Times, too! I think we're going to have to make Vikas Bajaj an honorary UberNerd.

Millions of Americans are “upside down” on their mortgages — they owe more on their homes than their homes are worth. So far, however, there is little evidence that people who ...

The FDIC closed ANB Financial today with an estimated $214 million hit to the FDIC insurance pool (see previous post). Here are some details from an article earlier this week.

From ArkansasBusiness.com: ANB Past Dues Up 58 Percent (hat tip Steve)

... ANB Financial's loans that are 30 ...

Did someone say "bank failure" this morning?

From the FDIC: Bank Closing Information for ANB Financial, NA, Bentonville, AR

ANB Financial, National Association, Bentonville, Arkansas, was closed today by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was named receiver. ...