The political leadership of this country, and especially here in Florida, has made the conscious decision to abandon decades of social, legal and economic policy which asserted that helping families to own homes in their communities was the way to promote strong communities and social stability. This has in fact been the bedrock of our national social and legal policy far beyond decades and goes back to the very founding of this nation. (For far more detailed analysis search out “The Mystery of Capital” a book which propositioned that this policy is one of the key foundations of American exceptionalism was in fact the private ownership of property.)
There is no disputing one fact. A bedrock of the American experience had been that we respected private property rights and the system of stable, legal title and ownership…a transparent and public system governed, regulated and supervised by our court system.
What has changed so dramatically in the context of the “foreclosure crisis” is that this nation’s political and legal leadership has turned its back on this foundation entirely. In its place, they have made a conscious or unconscious decision to repatriate property to entities or sub entities of The State, principally Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and, more disturbing to private foreign and domestic investor groups. On paper at least, the largest owner of single family homes in the United States of America is The Blackstone Group. I say on paper because the reality is we really have no real idea. I suspect that in reality the largest real owner is going to be Fannie/Freddie, but given the substantive realities the real owners of properties are the foreign and off book investors who own US treasuries and debt.
All of this is far more complex than most people are willing to consider. Let’ s deal with some tiny, very uncomfortable and very disturbing facts that point to a very dire situation on the horizon, especially here in Florida.
- Florida courts are engaged in The Foreclosure Purge of 2014, Clearing The Foreclosure Docket.
- New Mortgage Applications are at their lowest level since 1995.
- Vacancy Rates And Returns on the investor ownership model are failing.
- “The Banks” are the largest purchaser of homes at foreclosure auctions.
And with all of that in mind I ask again…
What Could Possibly Go Wrong With Florida’s Current Model of Foreclosure and Housing Policy?
(we will wake up and wonder why we rushed to kick families out into the street)
NEW YORK, Feb 19 (IFR) – The stabilized vacancy rates for the single-family home rental properties backing the first-ever REO-to-rental securitization from Blackstone’s Invitation Homes unit were higher than that predicted by the issuer.
In a deal “performance update”, Morningstar Credit Ratings said the expected stabilized vacancy rate for properties underlying the deal were 8.0% or in line with its expectations but exceeded the issuer’s underwritten vacancy rate of 6.0%.
