The Housing Market Is Unraveling

You wouldn’t know it from the housing industry organizations, Wall Street or the media propaganda, but the housing market is starting to unravel. It does not matter which person or political party occupies the White House and Capitol Hill. The debt orgy that followed the Fed’s QE program is now showing visible signs of unintended but inevitable consequences and it’s beginning smell a lot like 2008.

Per RealtyTrac, U.S. foreclosure activity increased 27% from September to October. Foreclose starts posted the biggest monthly increase since…December 2008. Scheduled foreclosure auctions posted the biggest monthly increase since 2006. The data is even more startling in certain States. Foreclosures in Colorado jumped 64% in October from September and foreclosure starts soared 71%. Colorado tends to be an economic and demographic bellweather State. In the housing bubble 1.0, foreclosure activity in Colorado began to accelerate before it hit all the other major MSAs.
Just in time for foreclose activity to ramp up, the Obama Government rolled new Fannie and Freddie mortgage programs which removed or reduced required mortgage insurance. Once again the Taxpayers will be left holding the bag and monetizing a mortgage collapse from which the bankers, real estate and mortgage industry collected $100’s of millions in fee money.

Per this analysis posted by Wolf Richter, the Miami condo market is in a freefall: LINK. Mortgage rates have spiked up considerably in the last week. This will extinguish a significant amount of home sales and cash-out refi’s – note – the following is an excerpt from the latest issue of my Short Seller’s Journal :