It is likely no coincidence that standards are easing as rates rise and mortgage applications fall. Total mortgage applications were down 47 percent last week from a year ago. Refinances, which had been the banks bread and butter during the housing crash, are down 59 percent from a year ago. Applications to purchase a home are up just 5 percent.

“People see interest rates rise, they slow down some of that eagerness to get into the market,” said David Stevens, CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association in an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

(Read more: Map: Tracking the US real estate recovery)

Credit standards tightened dramatically over the past several years, as loose credit was largely blamed for the crash in housing. Average borrower credit scores on new loans are dramatically higher today, and lenders require larger down payments.

Even the FHA, the government mortgage insurer, which was created to help lower creditworthy borrowers, has raised its standards as well as its insurance premiums. Many lenders have overlays to their guidelines that they add on top of standard conventional guidelines. They could do that because refinances were so high, they needed to slow the volume in order to process all the loans.

Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100939328

But others will be closing their doors next month, despite the movie-rental chain’s last-minute reprieve from liquidation.

A $229 million deal to turn Blockbuster over to a group of hedge funds and Blockbuster bondholders was agreed to by a New York bankruptcy judge, after disgruntled creditors, including movie studios and Yahoo, signed on to a revised deal.

That means 17 Blockbuster stores out of 24 listed in the inner Bay Area will stay open, at least for a while longer. “We’re fine, we’re fine,” said a sales clerk in the Alameda store.

Of those scheduled to shut their doors in April, three are in San Francisco – on Church Street, Geary Street and 16th Street in Potrero Hill – and one each in Albany, San Leandro and Alamo.

But there could be more. The company, once the world’s largest movie-rental outlet, with 9,100 stores, reported a loss of $64.8 million in the last quarter. Under the purchase agreement signed with the hedge fund group last month, Blockbuster said 609 of its remaining 3,300 U.S. stores were to be shut as part of an “initial liquidation.”

A sales clerk at the Daly City Blockbuster, not currently on the list, said she’d been told hers might close in November. On the other hand, the Pinole store, which is on the list, might be re-evaluated, a sales clerk there had heard.

To what extent the new owners are re-evaluating remains to be seen. Having made what is called a “stalking horse” bid for the Dallas company, they might be looking to flip the property for a higher price.

Asked what she’s going to do in April, a sales clerk at the Church Street store replied, “Stand on a street corner, hope people feel sorry for me and give me money.”

Coincidence?: Turns out the scheduled auction of the Westin San Francisco, which we noted in Thursday’s column, is off. The creditor seeking the foreclosure suddenly got the $22 million loan owed by the hotel’s owners, a Goldman Sachs real estate entity and a Dallas private-equity firm.

“The borrower paid off the loan in full (Wednesday) night,” said an attorney for the Carlton Group, a foreclosure and debt restructuring firm, after it had posted the auction notice that morning on behalf of its client, Deutsche Bank.

All this occurred after we made inquiries – which got the silent treatment – and a small item appeared in the Wall Street Journal.

News of the payment was e-mailed to interested parties Thursday morning, and showed up in bold capital letters on the Carlton Group’s website, over the original notice of the auction.

Dare we say The Chronicle gets results?

Cold decaf: Remember how hard Peet’s Coffee Tea tried to buy Diedrich Coffee, the Castroville (Monterey County) roastery and chief supplier to the fast-growing single-cup coffee market?

The Emeryville chain thought it had the $226 million deal closed in November 2009, when along came Green Mountain Coffee, known for its Keurig single-cup coffee dispensers and K-cup portion packs, and snatched it out of Peet’s hands with a better offer.

Adding insult to injury, the Vermont company on Thursday signed a partnership deal with Starbucks, under which the latter’s coffee (and its Tazo tea) will be sold in Green Mountain’s K-cups portion packs at Starbucks’ 11,000 outlets, plus supermarkets, drugstores and other retail establishments throughout North America.

Instant reaction: Green Mountain shares up 41 percent at the close of trading Thursday; Starbucks up 10 percent.

Peet’s, down 11.5 percent.

Good trade: Nice numbers for California’s exporters. They had the best January ever, according to trade figures released Thursday by the U.S. Commerce Department.

The state’s $11.75 billion worth of exports marked a 14.5 percent increase over January 2010, driven by both manufactured goods, and especially raw materials and agricultural products. This was in line with U.S. exports which rose to record levels. But other states did even better, with California’s share of the nation’s export pie falling, according to an analysis of the Commerce Department data by San Rafael’s Beacon Economics. (sfg.ly/iiE5jW)

Future prospects may depend on the price of oil, said Jock O’Connell, Beacon’s international trade expert.

“Economies tend to go wobbly and global supply chains start experiencing serious palpitations whenever oil futures float much over the $100 a barrel mark,” he said.

Job grievance: It’s not exactly hi-ho, hi-ho, and off to work we go these days in the Golden State.

According to a just-released survey of “work environment well-being” in the nation’s 50 states, California dropped from sixth to 21st place. No. 1: South Dakota, followed by Nebraska, Montana, Wyoming and North Dakota. Unsurprisingly, “work environment well-being” was down nationally.

“Healthy behavior” and “emotional health” improved, however, while “physical health” stayed about the same in the latest Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, which measures good feelings in a number of categories.

The most well-being state overall, according to its rolling survey of 1,000 Americans: Hawaii. Other states feeling pretty good include Alaska, Colorado, Minnesota and Utah. California comes in at No. 18. (sfg.ly/hPBymj).

Blogging: www.sfgate.com/ columns/bottomline. Facebook page: sfg.ly/doACKM. Tweeting: @andrewsross. E-mail: bottomline@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page D – 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/03/10/BU5C1I7HHK.DTL

“We’ve made extensive efforts to try to find him,” said Joshua White, the deputy city attorney trying the case. “So far as we know, he’s skipped town.”

In the meantime, Mr. Guajardo’s wife, Debra, has moved to sell two condominiums she owns across the street from the Transamerica Pyramid in addition to 555 Clay Street, the downtown office building that held Mr. Guajardo’s law practice. The three have a combined estimated value of more than $7 million. All are in the early stages of foreclosure.

Public records show Mr. Guajardo has no properties in his own name in California. “We don’t think that’s a coincidence,” said Michael Aparicio, a lawyer with Orrick, Herrington Sutcliffe, a firm that has filed a separate pro bono class-action suit on behalf of immigrants who say they were defrauded.

Both the city attorney, Dennis Herrera, and the Orrick firm are also suing Christopher Stender, an immigration lawyer based in San Diego who began to work out of Mr. Guajardo’s law office after Mr. Guajardo was disbarred in 2008. The plaintiffs say that beginning in 2008, Mr. Stender and Mr. Guajardo worked together to defraud immigrants.

Mr. Stender has retained counsel.

In a court filing Feb. 8, Mr. Stender denied accusations of illegally profiting from his clients. “I have a good reputation,” he said.

In the filing, Mr. Stender also said his “association and employment” with Mr. Guajardo ended last fall, when “I was informed by Mr. Guajardo that he had separated from his wife and had moved out of San Francisco as of Oct. 12, 2010.”

Neither Mr. Stender nor his lawyers responded to e-mail and telephone requests for an interview. Mr. Stender continues to practice immigration law out of a Market Street office.

In an interview, Mrs. Guajardo’s real estate agent, Cesar Contreras of Pacific Union Realty, said he represented “Martin Guajardo’s ex-wife” although The Bay Citizen could not find a record of Mrs. Guajardo’s filing for divorce.

On Feb. 3, the class-action suit expanded its complaint to include Mrs. Guajardo, who, it said, “has financially benefited” from Mr. Guajardo’s “schemes and unlawful acts,” resulting in her possession of “substantial real estate holdings.” The suit was also expanded to include the couple’s two adult children, Alexis and Dulcinea, who both worked for Mr. Guajardo’s firm.

The Guajardo family’s home on Mendosa Avenue in San Francisco’s Forest Hill section, which is also in Mrs. Guajardo’s name, is not on the market.

After trying to reach Mr. Guajardo by phone, this reporter stopped by the cream-colored home, which, atypically for San Francisco, is surrounded by a concrete wall.

Inside, the lights were on, but no one answered the doorbell.

aglantz@baycitizen.org

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/us/06bcimmigration.html?src=twrhp