File under "It’s worse than I thought": There’s an article in Sunday’s New York Times, "Losing a Home, Then Losing All Out of Storage," about how folks about to lose their homes put their stuff in storage… but then lose that, too.

But some people cannot keep up with their storage bills any better than they could handle their mortgage payments, and storage companies are auctioning off their property for a pittance.

A cottage industry has developed to profit from these lost and abandoned items. The other day in this Chicago suburb, Stephanie Donahou and her son Marcus had only a moment to decide whether to bid on a unit in default. They could see a couch, a sewing machine, a fish tank, a washer and dryer, lots of Christmas wrapping paper, a television and other trappings of daily life.

"This is someone’s house,” Mrs. Donahou said.

This from last Friday’s WSJ, on Moody’s and the other bond rating agencies’ complicity in bringing about the current market crisis.

This from last Thursday’s WSJ on lessons learned from the current housing crisis. Here’s a snippet:

The great American experiment with homeownership for all and mortgages for everyone is over.

Millions of homeowners will lose their houses. The government is scurrying to minimize the damage to the nation’s economy and banking system. Wall Street is picking shards out of its hide. Politicians are beseeching experts for ways to prevent a recurrence. Academics are straining to find the right historical analogy and tally the losses. And the press is looking for people to blame.

In this cacophony, it’s hard to hear a couple of important questions, let alone the answers: What have we learned about providing affordable housing to low-income Americans? And can the current “oversupply” of housing be used as subsidized shelter for those who need it?

Making every American adult a homeowner was always imprudent and impractical; now that’s obvious. Four years ago, President Bush declared: “The more people who own their home, the better off America is.” And as his administration proposed federal guarantees for mortgages without requiring down payments, then-Federal Housing Commissioner John Weicher told me in 2004: “We will have some defaults, but nearly all those families will remain homeowners.”

It was true then, and clear today, that some people should rent. Some Americans don’t earn enough to pay for a mortgage and maintain a house; in recent years, mortgage brokers worried little about the first concern and never mentioned the second. Homeownership can give Americans a stake in society and help build savings — but not if they don’t have any equity in their homes. Better to help them open savings or retirement accounts.

And this from the Calculated Risk blog, from a recent Wachovia conference call on how it views consumers “walking away” from mortgage obligations. Here’s a quote from Wachovia’s chief risk officer:

The severities in the market place when we take a house back, it takes a lower price to get homes sold and our outlook is — and as I think everybody has been reading, there is an expectation that there’s a broad accumulation of foreclosed properties that haven’t hit the market yet and perhaps even some shadow foreclosures that haven’t emerged as yet. So our concern, looking forward is that — and again, what we’re beginning to see more evidence of and sense more of in the first quarter is that conditions are going to continue to get tougher and there’s an overhang of inventory out there that is going to be costly for the industry to work through.

And on that cheery note…Good day.

WE’RE TAKING ON simple, routine, non-controversial topics this time, involving the Attorney General, the Real Estate and Appraiser boards, foreclosures, fraud – things like that.Support the troops

Q. Have you heard from the Attorney General lately?

A. I got a nice call a couple of weeks ago, thanks. Actually, an attorney from the Coast Guard called and asked me to remind all REALTORS® that regardless of what your landlord’s lease provides, a landlord subject to the Residential Landlord Tenant Act may not charge members of the military for early termination of their leases, if termination is done in accordance with the Act. Mitigation is no longer permitted, even if the lease so provides. (The Act was amended a year or two ago, but old leases may still be in effect.) According to the Coast Guard, the AG is watching Virginia property managers and landlords closely, so remember that whatever your lease says, mitigation is no longer permitted, and you may not charge active duty tenants for early termination. Please be sure that all new leases are consistent with the Act as amended.

No licensed agent? no open house

Q. May my unlicensed assistant conduct open houses if she merely permits access and hands out general information about the property and does not answer any questions about the house or give advice to the visitors?

A. There are two theories about how unlicensed assistants can legally do open houses in Virginia. Unfortunately, neither works. The Real Estate Board (REB) has long considered holding open houses to be the practice of real estate, and thus appropriate only for licensees, regardless of whatever is said or done at the open house. When the subject was raised again recently, I asked REB to revisit the issue and let us know whether its position had changed. The board confirmed its long-standing position that only licensees may hold houses open. I realize there has been quite a bit of information disseminated lately to the opposite effect, in articles, on blogs, in continuing education courses and elsewhere. In many cases, this information deals with the law in other states where the law may be different. In Virginia, however, at least in the opinion of the REB, this practice requires a license.

Pay up…dead or alive (or retired)

Q. An agent left my firm with several deals pending, but was not affiliated with another firm by the time the deals closed. If the agent’s license is inactive, may I legally pay him the commission he is owed on these deals as they close? If he has affiliated with a new firm, must I pay the commission to his new broker?

A. There is a great deal of confusion on this matter, so let’s clear it up once and for all. The only relevant issue is whether the agent was actively licensed at the time he performed the act for which the commission is due (obtaining the listing or buyer agency relationship, obtaining a purchase contract or lease, or whatever it is that gives rise to the entitlement to a commission). His license status at the time of payment is irrelevant. So if, for example, he obtains a listing, and it goes under contract while he is at your firm, you may pay him at closing whatever his status. The verity of this can best be illustrated with the following example. Suppose a commercial agent obtains a ten-year lease with a ten-year renewal, on which the firm is to be paid its commission monthly as rent is received from the tenant. Can we really require the agent to remain actively licensed for the next 20 years to receive his monthly commission split? What if he died during the term of the lease? Obviously, we can’t outlaw retirement or death for this fellow, but may pay him, or his estate, or his designee, whatever his license status at the time of payment. It is license status at the time of his actions giving rise to the entitlement that matters, not what he decides to do thereafter. He can go to Tahiti and paint the natives while basking like a lizard on a rock, or he can keep working. You can pay him either way. By the way, if he joins another firm, you pay him, not his new broker. Your debt is to him, and the new firm has no entitlement to any of his fee. The broker of the firm receiving the commission on the deal is the broker the REB regulations are speaking of when they require all fees to be received through the firm’s broker.

An exemption…with exception

Q. Do foreclosing lenders have to provide disclosure statements, Property owners Association (PoA) packets or condominium resale certificates to buyers who buy at the foreclosure?

A. No. The relevant statutes exempt foreclosing lenders and their trustees from these requirements. As to REO, the lender is likewise exempt from the requirements of the Residential Property Disclosure Act, and thus does not have to provide a disclosure statement. Lenders selling REO must provide the POA packet and the condominium resale certificate, but buyers may waive the right to receive the condominium resale certificate, although they may not waive the right to receive the POA packet. Got that? I knew you would. Be very careful about language in REO contracts attempting to affect a waiver as to these documents.

These provisions often say something like “to the fullest extent allowed by law” buyer waives the right to receive the information, but Virginia law is clear that contract waiver language is unenforceable against buyers of POA property. The Condominium Act has no such prohibition against waiver, so I assume the right to receive the resale certificate can be waived by contract.

I know it may not be PC (in most REALTOR® circles, at least), but this editorial from today’s (March 12) Wall Street Journal makes good sense to me. The gist of it is that helping homebuyers stave off foreclosure (for an additional month or so…) and programs that attempt to keep marginal borrowers in their homes at any cost is actually prolonging the agony. The author argues that the market won’t reach bottom and start back up until the bad credit risks (or at least the worst of them) are out of the homes and bad loans. In particular, he writes:

….Government policy is working against itself. The Fed is pushing on a string — it can’t bring back confidence in specific assets by flooding the market with generalized liquidity, though it can certainly undermine confidence in the dollar and its own anti-inflation credibility. On all sides, meanwhile, the call for a housing bailout is becoming deafening, nigh irresistible. But the seized-up credit markets won’t be unseized by trying to induce debtors to cling to houses they now see as throwing good money after bad.

By definition, the only haircut lenders rationally want to take is the minimum required to keep owners on the fence about walking away. Not much better are bailout plans that try to keep borrowers in their homes by shifting some of their equity losses to the taxpayer. The market has utterly changed from the market in which these recent purchasers made their purchase decisions. They’ve been renting their homes and don’t really lose much through foreclosure. Let them go.

What do you think?