Monday Morning Cup of Coffee: Goldman Sachs economist predicts greater housing gains

HousingWire's Monday Morning Cup of Coffee takes a look at news from the weekend, with more coverage on bigger issues.

Jan Hatzius, the chief economist for Goldman Sachs, answered ten questions for clients over the weekend. For HousingWire readers, one question in particular would be worth noting: Will the housing market continue to recover?

Yes, said Hatzius.

"The fundamentals for housing activity point to further large gains in the next couple of years. The key chart (below), which plots our forecast for the “demographic demand” for homes—the sum of household formation and the demolitions of existing homes—against housing starts," Hatzius wrote in an email to clients.

"Although starts have recovered from 500,000 in 2009 to 850,000 (annualized) at the end of 2012, they remain far below our estimate of demographic demand. This stands at 1.3 million now, and we expect it to pick up to 1.6 million over the next couple of years as household formation normalizes further," the economist concluded.

Bank of America ($13.55 0.1185%) reported that it will sell $306 billion worth of mortgage servicing rights, or contracts that give it the ability to collect payments due on mortgages, in exchange for a portion of the proceeds, the Financial Times reported.

This announcement comes only days after BofA struck an $11.6 billion settlement with Fannie Mae.

Read more about the recent changes at BofA by clicking here.

A week after 10 lenders agreed to pay more than $8 billion in a settlement with federal regulators and the CFPB announced its long-awaited rules, the dust is settling … and Wells Fargo is emerging dominant, the Financial Times reported.

The big bank has amassed such a large share of both new and refinanced loans that it is actually causing the Federal Reserve officials to worry, FT said.

Read more about how Wells Fargo is handling the recent changes within the lending industry, by clicking here.

Weeks after purchasing their foreclosed home, one Detroit couple was shocked to see that the house had been demolished, along with 11 other properties that had been purchased by a local investor, AOL Real Estate reported.

Detroit’s planning and facilities department claimed it was a mistake made by the state’s Land Bank Fast Track Authority. In fact, the 12 homes shouldn’t have even been sold at auction, according to the state government. 

Click here to read the entire article.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. closed its first bank of the year.

Westside Community Bank in University Place, Wash., was closed by the Washington State Department of Financial Institutions, which appointed the FDIC as receiver. To protect the depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement with Sunwest Bank in Irvine, Calif., to assume all of the deposits of Westside Community Bank.

The former Westside Community Bank will reopen its two branches as Sunwest Bank during regular business hours. 

Westside Community Bank had approximately $97.7 million in total assets and $96.5 million in total deposits. More than a third of the bank’s assets included past-due loans, foreclosed real estate and other nonperforming assets, the Seattle Times reported.

The estimated cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund will be $20.3 million. Read the entire Seattle Times article here.

mhopkins@housingwire.com