(Reuters) - If you're already inclined to suspect governments of overreaching, boy will you hate the plan San Bernadino is contemplating.About half of the homeowners in the newly bankrupt California city are underwater, which means they owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth.
In conjunction with a San Francisco outfit called Mortgage Resolution Partners, San Bernadino is considering a plan to exercise eminent domain and seize mortgage liens on some of those underwater homes. As my Reuters colleagues Matt Goldstein and Jennifer Ablan were the first to report, the eminent domain scheme works like this: With financing from an outside operation such as MRP, the city would condemn underwater mortgages and purchase them in the name of the public good for a court-determined fair market price.
The financier would then make new mortgage loans to homeowners under modified terms before turning around and selling the modified loans to outside investors. As eminent domain proponents describe the plan, it's a winner for everyone: Homeowners see their loan principal reduced and get to keep their houses, financiers turn a profit on the resold mortgages and the city avoids the blight of foreclosed homes, which drive down property values and destroy neighborhoods.
But there are also losers in the eminent domain model: investors in mortgage-backed securities. San Bernardino is talking about exercising eminent domain only over mortgage loans that have been bundled into private securitizations. Those mortgages are owned by MBS trusts, which, under eminent domain, would be forced to accept fair market value for underlying loans they don't want to sell. To add insult to injury, the San Bernadino plan proposes that only performing loans be part of the initial wave of eminent domain seizures. That's to reward homeowners who have managed to live up to their mortgage obligations. But from the perspective of MBS investors, seizing loans that are still being paid on time means they're being stripped of an ongoing revenue stream.
