Them US Bankers Could Well Turn Into Real Estate Agents

Posted on WSJ's Real Time Economics : Number of the Week: 103 Months to Clear Housing Inventory

• 103: The number of months it would take to sell off all the foreclosed homes in banks’ possession, plus all the homes likely to end up there over the next couple years, at the current rate of sales.
  
  How much should we worry about a new leg down in the housing market? If the number of foreclosed homes piling up at banks is any indication, there’s ample reason for concern.
  
  As of March, banks had an inventory of about 1.1 million foreclosed homes, up 20% from a year earlier, according to estimates from LPS Applied Analytics. Another 4.8 million mortgage holders were at least 60 days behind on their payments or in the foreclosure process, meaning their homes were well on their way to the inventory pile. That “shadow inventory” was up 30% from a year earlier.
  
  Based on the rate at which banks have been selling those foreclosed homes over the past few months, all that inventory, real and shadow, would take 103 months to unload. That’s nearly nine years. Of course, banks could pick up the pace of sales, but the added supply of distressed homes would weigh heavily on prices — and thus boost their losses.

The banks have 103 months to unload their housing inventory???

LOL!!!

It's only some 9 years plus. Only 9 years.

Aha!

But don't you worry about it since it's a capitalist world.

Let's see what can our beloved money loving bankers can do...

Create a property subsidiary, write down as much as possible the value of these housing inventory, sell them (how difficult is it to get good profit margins since the value written down low?), LIST THEIR SUBSIDIARY IN THE MARKETS, profit from the listing, Viola! No problem!

Say Doc, could them bankers have more houses to sell?

Pretty please... and if you don't mind, since our darling bankers are making more money, can they be paid more? Yeah, give them more compensation for all their hard work too!

Nothing wrong, yes?

And not forgetting this is such a non-issue. Doesn't anyone knows that them US Bankers don't make money via banking anymore? The bulk of the profit comes from their trading activities.

I wonder if them bankers should be reclassified as Trading Banks!

What a wonderful capitalist world this is.