Throwing in the Towel

Is this the beginning of the end,
for our old friend,
extend and pretend?

At least as far as the commercial and residential real estate markets and the continued viability of the financial services sector as presently constituted are concerned?

Consider the following seven data points/factoids/developments:

1. Over the summer the first time home buyer incentive program came to an end. There is no political appetite for resuming it.

2. All of the housing indexes are indicating a resumption in house price declines. Good news for home buyers, bad news for home owners and lenders.

3. Residential and commercial construction is dead. Still dead. Not yet undead. Making no contribution to the 'recovery,' such as the recovery is.

4. HAMP was a failure. And servicer footdragging/non-cooperation that contributed to that preceded the inevitable homeowner redefaults to come.

5. There is the nasty little problem of a huge slug of not-yet-written down second mortgage loans on the books of various TBTF financial institutions (arguably a reason for the footdragging mentioned in point 4?).

6. The commercial real estate market, which hasn't been supported with the kind of governmental effort that has distorted the residential market, has resumed its decline and continues to set new lows. A contributor to continuing weakness of bank balance sheets and a harbinger of the residential real estate market?

7. The foreclosure gate scandal is leading all kinds of revelations about how the originate-to-distribute business model has actually been functioning (perhaps since inception?).

And a bonus, freebie, consideration--18 months ago the feds required the major banks to prepare stress tests predicated on a pair of assumptions concerning the path of residential real estate prices and unemployment levels. House prices could drop slightly more than 15% from where they are today without dropping to the the price levels projected in that exercise for the base case. House prices would have to drop almost 25% before reaching the levels projected in the more adverse case for the stress tests.

All of this suggests that a strategy of 'let's just hold things together 'til things get better' may have exhausted its utility and that the the time may have come to actually address the problems.