Click on Los Angeles and the map looks like a red planet exploding. The red lines indicate residents who are leaving LA, mostly for Texas and North Carolina. Black lines indicate residents moving into a county. Here the black lines show you that New Englanders are moving to LA in modest numbers.

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Humans aren't the only ones who lose their homes during a foreclosure. The American Humane Society says animal shelters have been overwhelmed by abandoned pets whose owners who lost their houses. Some delinquent home owners simply move out and leave the pets locked inside the abandoned home. Weeks later, the lender’s agent finds the terrified pets in an empty, filthy.

The problem is

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Smashing. Fantastic. Great. Engaging. On Target.

Those are the comments I’ve heard today about FNC’s inaugural Servicing Executive Forum held at the historic Rosemont Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas yesterday. The steamy weather outside did nothing to dampen the invigorating and illuminating debate inside.

Attendees agreed the event was a huge success that should be repeated annually, if not even more frequently.

Most of the nation’s key servicing executives as well as

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The Justice Department today announced nearly 500 arrests for mortgage fraud since March as part of an undercover sting called Operation Stolen Dreams. A total of 1,215 defendants have been targeted in cases that amounted to more than $2.3 billion in losses.

FBI agents have been working in 23 mortgage fraud task forces across the country. Attorney General Eric Holder said the Justice Department will also file in civil suits to recover more than $147 million. At a press conference

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Two reports rolled out this weekend estimating the loss in property values. The median price for a Gulf Coast home was $173,100 in April before the disaster and an acre of land was valued at $3 million.

Costar Group estimates the oil spill may cost $4.3 billion in property values along the 600 miles from Louisiana’s petrol-streaked beaches to Clearwater on Florida’s central Gulf Coast. But that estimate may already be a lowball; tar balls have been reported in Key West, about 242

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The Financial Times reports two sources in the FBI say the law enforcement agency will launch a major, nationwide raid against hundreds suspected of mortgage fraud. Charges include encouraging borrowers to falsify income on mortgage applications, misleading home owners about foreclosure rescue programs and inflating home appraisals. The FBI opened 23 local mortgage fraud task forces back in October 2008.

"Mortgage fraud-related losses totaled $1.4billion in 2008, an 83.4% rise

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When the guys at Wall Street Cheat Sheet put together a list of states where foreclosures are increasing most, it was no surprise to see Illinois (a Rust Belt state aching from recession) and Nevada (shredded by exploding real estate bubble shrapnel).

But Hawaii? The unemployment rate is 6.8%, quite manageable compared to the national rate of 9.7%. Yet foreclosures have rocketed 116% since April 2009. Maui is the hardest hit island with one in 187 homes in

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Recently, several banks conducted research linking unemployment to foreclosure. The response most Americans may have is, “Well, duh.” But the point the banks were making is, subprime loans are no longer the reason most Americans cannot afford their mortgages; losing a job is.

At the REO Expo in Dallas yesterday, RealtyTrac explained the math. For every one to six Americans who lose their jobs, there will be one foreclosure. Being unemployed, not being underwater, is what puts a home

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Owning a home of one’s own is no longer the American Dream for almost half of this nation. The National Foundation for Credit Counseling said 49% of Americans responding to a survey believe they will never be able to scrape together the 20% down payment to buy a home. Homeowners once had faith that if they had to sell their house, the value would raise enough to cover their down payment on a new home. Now, no one knows when home values will go up.

Only 12% of respondents said they

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For decades, gorgeous, adrenaline-soaked South Beach has been lined with stratospherically priced luxury condos that no one who worked in the neighborhood's restaurants, stores, groceries or parking lots could afford to buy or rent. When the real estate bubble exploded, those condos became white elephants. Now, the Miami Beach Community Development Corp., a public housing agency, is buying the condos at cut-rate prices and renting them to the working- class Miamians who keep South Beach

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In a provocative interview with Fortune magazine, economist Robert Shiller (father of the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price indices) advised Americans not to regard real estate as a stellar investment unless they had golden guts, luck and the money to invest in glamour capitals like San Francisco and Manhattan.

He suggested Japan as a case study. "After Japan's 1980s bubble, prices fell for 15 consecutive years in that country's largest cities, and lost almost two thirds of their

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CNN is reporting that BP has, as of yesterday, paid a total of "$75,725 to start settling some of the 446 claims against it for lost income on area rental properties. BP disbursed another $5,000 to cover real-estate sales losses.”

That amount is tiny compared to the more than $40 million in damages BP has paid so far on about half the 32,000 loss of income claims filed. Those claims come mostly from fisheries, tour boats, seafood wholesalers and other small businesses along the Gulf

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Grab a mug of Bosco, think Avocado Fiesta and Mellow Yellow thoughts and imagine a place where nothing bad happens: the Brady Bunch house. In the 1970s, there was no splattered real estate bubble. The Bradys romped through their enormous split level house, never worrying about the mortgage.

But how would the Bunch survive in tough 2010? Suppose architect Mike Brady had to sell the house because the recession bit into his work. The Brady Bunch home is a real house on 11222 Dilling

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What makes a city’s housing market a hopeless case? According to Business Insider, it takes a witches’ brew of rocketing unemployment, plunging property values and no white knights (such as a huge company ready to inject jobs and cash into the town) anywhere in sight. Crunching numbers from the National Association of Realtors into local unemployment statistics, the Business Insider came up with this list of 13 cities where housing values will never recover. Do you agree

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Army Reserve Capt. Michael Clauer was current in his mortgage payments but a Texas homeowners’ association foreclosed on his $300,000 home and sold it for $3,500 while he was serving in Iraq---because he owed $800 in homeowners’ association fees. Clauer’s wife did not realize they had lost their home until the new owner sent her letters demanding rent money then, finally, an eviction notice.

The Service Members Civil Relief Act protects military personnel from foreclosure while

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