Free Republic

This week’s winner of the you-can’t-make-this-stuff-up contest is undoubtedly a front-page story in this morning’s New York Times. When New York art dealer Ileana Sonnabend died in 2007, she left her children a fabulous collection of modern art valued at $1 billion. Her children have already paid $471 million in estate taxes on the collection, being forced to sell off most of it to meet the bill. (This is a beautiful example, by the way, of why estate taxes should be abolished and replaced with a capital gains tax on inherited assets—the collection, an artistic whole in itself, had to...

When people die they leave behind an estate. An “estate” is what you owned at the time of your death. It can be real property, land and the buildings that sit on land, or it can be personal property. That’s “stuff.” After you’ve paid off all the bills and expenses, what’s left is “residue.” That’s what gets divided up amongst the heirs. If there’s going to be a dispute it usually comes from distributing that “stuff.” It’s been my experience that if heirs are going to argue it’s over the small stuff. In particular, women argue over jewelry and antiques...

Bank of America increased foreclosures by nearly 200 percent in California between July and August. John Karevoll, an analyst with DataQuick told Patt Morrison that the bank is capitalizing on favorable laws in California and other states where a court order isn’t needed to repossess a home. “This is the rip-the-band-aid-off policy here," he said. "It’s basically just to go out there and plough through it and get rid of it.” Dan Frahm, the senior vice president of Bank of America Home Loans, says the recent upswing in foreclosures is due to a massive backlog. “Those foreclosures that have been...

Sales of new homes in the U.S. saw a modest decrease in the month of June, according to figures released Tuesday by the Commerce Department, with the drop in sales coming as a surprise to economists. New single-family home sales came in at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 312,000 in June, a 1 percent drop from revised figures that showed the May rate at 315,000. Most economists had predicted a slight rebound to an annual rate of 321,000 new home sales. Additionally, the May figures were revised downward from initial reports that showed an annual rate of 319,000.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Sales of new single-family homes fell 1.0% in June as purchases in the Northeast dropped to the lowest level since the government began tracking the data in 1973. Single-family sales fell last month to an annual rate of 312,000, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had expected sales to climb to an annual rate of 325,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis. Sales for May were revised slightly lower to an annual rate of 315,000. Sales of single-family homes sank 15.8% in the Northeast and 12.7% in the West. The Midwest saw sales climb 9.5%...

The key to the Senate Gang of Six deficit-cutting grand bargain is the combination of higher tax revenue with lower tax rates. The former makes Democrats swoon and Republicans are sweet on the latter. The first date was a hit, with a surprising number of senators declaring their everlasting love and President Obama giving it his blessing on Tuesday. But just how much do the two sides know about their partner?

One of the nation's biggest owners of home mortgages has made a move that could add to an already overburdened Hawaii court system's caseload. Fannie Mae, a publicly owned company created and overseen by the federal government, recently instructed companies that handle foreclosures for its loans to file all new Hawaii foreclosures in court. Fannie Mae also told the firms known as loan servicers to cancel any pending nonjudicial Hawaii foreclosures and restart them in court.Fannie Mae took the steps in response to Hawaii's new foreclosure law enacted last month. Critics are concerned Fannie Mae might be attempting to sidestep...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Ground-breaking on new U.S. housing units recovered a bit in May after a sharp drop in April, but remained well below levels that would provide any boost to the economy. Starts rose 3.5% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 560,000, but remain 5.6% below March, the Commerce Department said. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch were expecting a smaller gain, with starts forecasted to rise to a 550,000 rate. See MarketWatch calendar with forecasts of major indicators.

“All three of these lines of research to point to the familiar sunspot cycle shutting down for a while.” I’ve managed to get a copy of the official press release provided by the Southwest Research Institute Planetary Science Directorate to MSM journalists, for today’s stunning AAS announcement and it is reprinted in full here: WHAT’S DOWN WITH THE SUN? MAJOR DROP IN SOLAR ACTIVITY PREDICTED Latitude-time plots of jet streams under the Sun's surface show the surprising shutdown of the solar cycle mechanism. New jet streams typically form at about 50 degrees latitude (as in 1999 on this plot) and...

Economy: The collapse of residential real estate prices just officially exceeded the scale of the Great Depression's housing crisis. Using mortgages as a welfare program turned out to be long-lasting poison. Home prices have fallen by 33%, according to Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller data, since the housing market began its long, hard collapse in 2006 — with a further decline expected in the months ahead. During the Depression, by comparison, prices fell 31%. In about a dozen U.S. cities, the prices of residences in March were at their lowest since the housing crisis began. Investment strategist Barry Ritholtz, while believing...

It’s official: a new Ice Age is on its way. In what has been described as “the science story of the century”, heavyweight US solar physicists have announced that the sun is heading for a prolonged period of low activity. This makes global cooling a much more plausible prospect in the next few decades than global warming. Indeed, it might even usher in a lengthy period of climate grimness such as we saw during the Maunder Minimum (when Ice Fairs were held on the Thames) or the Dalton Minimum (which brought us such delights as the 1816 Year Without A...

On Tuesday, Ontario Environmental Commissioner Gord Miller essentially advocated hiking our hydro bills by 10%. Last month, he lobbied for road tolls. He favours time-of-use pricing for electricity, despite complaints from consumers across Ontario their hydro bills are skyrocketing under it, no matter how much they conserve. Miller’s also disappointed the provincial government recently announced it will delay entering into a regional cap-and-trade market with some provinces and U.S. states, which will raise the cost of goods and services. Listening to him, you’d think Ontarians are flush with cash and the only challenge for government is to figure out new...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – For years, scientists have been predicting the Sun would by around 2012 move into solar maximum, a period of intense flares and sunspot activity, but lately a curious calm has suggested quite the opposite. According to three studies released in the United States on Tuesday, experts believe the familiar sunspot cycle may be shutting down and heading toward a pattern of inactivity unseen since the 17th century. The signs include a missing jet stream, fading spots, and slower activity near the poles, said experts from the National Solar Observatory and Air Force Research Laboratory. "This is highly...

Charles and Jill Segal have not made a mortgage payment in nearly five years -- but they continue to live in their five-bedroom West Palm Beach, Fla. home. Lynn, from St. Petersburg, Fla., has been living without paying for three years. In Thousand Oaks, Calif., an actor has missed 30 payments, and still, he has not lost his home. They're not alone. Some 4.2 million mortgage borrowers are either seriously delinquent or have had their cases referred to lawyers to pursue foreclosure auctions, according to LPS Applied Analytics. Of those, two-thirds have made no payments at all for at least...

PANAMA CITY BEACH — Lindsay Hall took out a $200,000 loan in 2005 on her paid-off beach house with the understanding that her $600 monthly Social Security check would cover the mortgage payments. When her interest rate jumped more than a year ago, it raised her mortgage payments to $1,500. At that point, Hall started the fight to save her home. “I want to say I did my best to fight for the American dream,” said Hall, 70. Hall has negotiated with her loan servicer, IndyMac Mortgage Services, to modify her loan payments multiple times. Each time she negotiates payments...

John McMonigle claims to be the world's number one real estate agent. With $2.5 billion in residential sales over the past six years, this 46-year-old realtor may well have been. And now he's declaring bankruptcy. According to the Orange County Register, McMonigle has amassed $50 million in debt, even after selling his luxurious Newport Beach condo, his car and personal effects. The Oklahoma native started small, arriving in California with only $73 in his pocket in 1989. But within four years he was grossing $100,000 a year. McMonigle's ascension through the ranks of top realtors reached dizzying heights during the...

Is it ethical for the American homeowner whose mortgage has been securitized to default, even If they are not financially distressed? First, consider it is unlikely that marketable, fee simple, insurable title can be obtained as a result of fulfilling the obligations of the related promissory note. On the contrary the titles to some 60 million homes in America are badly clouded. Secondly, encouraging investment in an asset class that has been artificially inflated, then deliberately destroying the price of the asset, as part of a separate profit making scheme is unethical, and any agreement based on this type of...

If you thought the housing crisis was bad, think again. It’s worse. New data just out from Zillow, the real-estate information company, show house prices are falling at their fastest rate since the Lehman collapse. Average home prices are down 8% from a year ago, 3% over the quarter, and are falling at about 1% every month, according to Zillow. And the percentage of homeowners in negative-equity positions — with a home worth less than its mortgage — has rocketed to 28%, a new crisis high.

Real Estate Agent Shot To Death In Model Home Iowa Realty Cancels Des Moines Area Open Houses WEST DES MOINES, Iowa -- A real estate agent was shot to death Friday in a new townhome complex in West Des Moines. West Des Moines police have identified her as Ashley Okland, 27, of West Des Moines. Polk County Medical Examiner Dr. Gregory Schmunk confirmed to KCCI that he was called in to examine Okland at Methodist Medical Center at about 3:30 p.m. Friday. Schmunk said she probably died within an hour of that call. West Des Moines Lt. Jim Barrett said...

~ EXCERPT ~ WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Sales of new single-family homes collapsed in February, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday, as a combination of high unemployment, tumbling prices and a glut of cheaper alternatives brought activity to a near-standstill. New-home sales fell 16.9% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 250,000 in February, though January’s figures were revised higher to 301,000 from 284,000. Compared to February 2010, sales collapsed by 28%. Every region but the West saw record lows, and in the Northeast, sales dropped by 50% compared to year-earlier levels.