(This comes under the category of, "Boy you're just full of good news, aren't you?)

More signs that the subprime meltdown is only beginning…

Increasing numbers of renters are being thrown out of their dwellings because their landlords are defaulting on their mortgages.

RealtyTrac, a national real estate network that specializes in foreclosed properties, estimates that more than 20 percent of foreclosures involve investment properties. When landlords lose those properties, their tenants are thrown out with little or no warning.

Social agencies are being swamped with calls for help from families who were being tossed out on the street. Most families have never been late on a rent payment.

State and local governments will soon feel the pinch of sharply reduced property tax revenue. Counselors say divorces and domestic abuse are rising as families take their stress out on one another.

Houses are the most important assets most Americans have, and those assets are disappearing.

This is a new kind of homeless — those that are the innocent victims.

Officials at the Bakersfield CA homeless shelter say they are at capacity, and more families want in.
Government agencies are facing a bind because the high number of foreclosures removes property tax payers from the rolls.

Foreclosures will cost nearly $3 billion in property tax revenue, and another $1 billion in sales and transfer tax revenue.

Property tax revenues fall as foreclosed homes drive down property values. The Center for Responsible Lending puts tax loss at more than $17 billion nationwide.

At the Women’s Center of San Joaquin County in Stockton, Calif., calls to the domestic abuse hot line have jumped 12 percent in recent weeks, fueled largely by the strain on families losing their homes. Families run out of money even as they watch their mortgage rates climb. Typically the abuse starts when there’s not enough money to make mortgage payments.

Source

Meanwhile Washington Mutual Inc., the nation’s largest savings and loan, will fire more than 3,000 workers. The company expects losses of $2 billion or more.

Most of the big banks in Europe are laying employees off in droves.

Swiss banking giant UBS AG said Monday it will write off a further $10 billion on losses in the U.S. subprime lending market.

Shareholders are now suing UBS.

Bank of America will close a money market fund that lost $22 billion because of the sub-prime meltdown.

Foreclosures are already at an all-time high.

The forecasting and consulting firm Global Insight says New York will lose $10.4 billion in economic activity in 2008, followed by Los Angeles at $8.3 billion, Dallas and Washington at $4 billion each, and Chicago at $3.9 billion. This will mean layoffs of teachers, policemen, firemen, social workers, and so on.

New York state prosecutors have sent subpoenas to Wall Street firms seeking information related to the packaging and selling of debt tied to high-risk mortgages. The firms include Merrill Lynch & Co, Bear Stearns Cos, Deutsche Bank AG, and others. Prosecutors want to know how investment banks reviewed the quality of mortgages before packaging them into products that were sold to investors.

The Australian stock market closed sharply lower today as the U.S. meltdown spooked investors.

Analysts say the next big meltdown will be in reverse mortgages, in which people who have a lot of equity in their house can take out new mortgages and get cash. This will hit elderly people hardest. They cannot pay their mortgage back.

The nation of Ireland says it will start regulating sub-prime mortgage lenders next year. (Start?)

Oh yes, the fun is only beginning…

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• debt
• derivatives
• financial collapse
• Fraud
• Money
• morgtages
• real estate
• scam
• securities
• Sub-prime meltdown
• US dollars

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