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Housing Bottom Now Expected in 2013, Recovery Looks Weaker, by Colin Robertson, Thetruthaboutmortgage.com

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There’s been a lot of interesting housing-related news over the past week, with some good and some bad.

The first bit is that economists finally believe the national housing bottom is near.

Yes, we’ve heard that before, several times, but per Zillow, the economists surveyed are all “largely” on-board this time.

So that’s good news. The bad news is that more than half of the same respondents believe the homeownership rate will continue to fall from the 65.4% level seen in the first quarter.

In fact, one in five think homeownership will be at or below 63% in coming years, which will test the all-time low established in 1965.

For the record, some areas of the nation have already appeared to bottom, and are actually up quite a bit.

In hard-hit Phoenix, home prices are already up 12% from their bottom. In San Francisco, prices are up 10% from bottom.

But New York, Atlanta, and Chicago are still waiting for the bounce.

Housing Recovery Not Looking Too Hot

Meanwhile, future home appreciation isn’t looking as good as it once was.

Back in June 2010, Zillow-surveyed economists expected cumulative appreciation of 10.3% from 2012 to 2014.

Now, the experts only see home prices appreciating a paltry 3.5% for the same period.

That’s $1.25 trillion less in housing wealth than previously expected. Yikes.

So expect an “L” shaped recovery…in other words, a steep decline, followed by many, many flat years. Sure, it may a be “squiggly L” with little ups and downs, but an “L” nonetheless.

That said, make sure you actually like the place you buy, don’t just buy it because you think you’re going to make a killing off it as an investment.

The good news is mortgage rates continue to be absurdly low, with the 30-year fixed matching a record low 3.48% this week, per Zillow.

I didn’t see rates falling that low, so I’ll start eating my hat now.

But I still think the low rates could be a major artificial stimulus, which has led to homeowners listing the worst properties out there of late.

Why the Housing Recovery Will Take Time

If you’re wondering why the housing market won’t bounce back immediately, you merely need to consider all the ineligible buyers.

Let’s start with the millions of underwater homeowners, who won’t be able to move unless they’re rich enough to buy a new house and short sell or bail on their current property.

There aren’t many people this lucky, especially now that lenders actually document income.

Then there are those who still haven’t gone through foreclosure yet, but are hanging on by a thread.

There are plenty who still haven’t been displaced, but will be in the next several years. So there’s a ton of shadowy shadow inventory yet to materialize.

Even those who received loan modifications are in serious trouble. A recent study released by credit bureauTransUnion found that a scary 60% of those who received loan mods re-defaulted just 18 months later.

So there’s a lot of bad news that just isn’t making it to the presses, largely because we are riding the “good news train” right now in the housing world.

All of these former homeowners will also have difficulty qualifying for a mortgage in the future, so they’re essentially out of the mix.

Let’s not forget the millions that are unemployed…they obviously won’t be able to buy a home either, so this explains the dip in homeownership as well.

And it doesn’t bode well for home prices going forward. Consider that as home prices rise, more would-be home sellers will list their properties. This should keep downward pressure on prices for a long time.

It also makes one question if the bottom is really as close as some think, or even for real. We saw misleading upticks with the homebuyer tax credit too, so it’ll be interesting to see if this latest rally has legs

The Truth About Mortgage

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CoreLogic: 11.1 Million U.S. Properties with Negative Equity in Q4, Calculatedriskblog.com

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CoreLogic released the Q4 2011 negative equity report today.

CoreLogic … today released negative equity data showing that 11.1 million, or 22.8 percent, of all residential properties with a mortgage were in negative equity at the end of the fourth quarter of 2011. This is up from 10.7 million properties, 22.1 percent, in the third quarter of 2011. An additional 2.5 million borrowers had less than five percent equity, referred to as near-negative equity, in the fourth quarter. Together, negative equity and near-negative equity mortgages accounted for 27.8 percent of all residential properties with a mortgage nationwide in the fourth quarter, up from 27.1 in the previous quarter. Nationally, the total mortgage debt outstanding on properties in negative equity increased from $2.7 trillion in the third quarter to $2.8 trillion in the fourth quarter.

“Due to the seasonal declines in home prices and slowing foreclosure pipeline which is depressing home prices, the negative equity share rose in late 2011. The negative equity share is back to the same level as Q3 2009, which is when we began reporting negative equity using this methodology. The high level of negative equity and the inability to pay is the ‘double trigger’ of default, and the reason we have such a significant foreclosure pipeline. While the economic recovery will reduce the propensity of the inability to pay trigger, negative equity will take an extended period of time to improve, and if there is a hiccup in the economic recovery, it could mean a rise in foreclosures.” said Mark Fleming, chief economist with CoreLogic.

Here are a couple of graphs from the report:

CoreLogic, Negative Equity by StateClick on graph for larger image.

This graph shows the break down of negative equity by state. Note: Data not available for some states. From CoreLogic:

“Nevada had the highest negative equity percentage with 61 percent of all of its mortgaged properties underwater, followed by Arizona (48 percent), Florida (44 percent), Michigan (35 percent) and Georgia (33 percent). This is the second consecutive quarter that Georgia was in the top five, surpassing California (29 percent) which previously had been in the top five since tracking began in 2009. The top five states combined have an average negative equity share of 44.3 percent, while the remaining states have a combined average negative equity share of 15.3 percent.”

CoreLogic, Distribution of EquityThe second graph shows the distribution of equity by state- black is Loan-to-value (LTV) of less than 80%, blue is 80% to 100%, red is a LTV of greater than 100% (or negative equity). Note: This only includes homeowners with a mortgage – about 31% of homeowners nationwide do not have a mortgage.

Some states – like New York – have a large percentage of borrowers with more than 20% equity, and Nevada, Arizona and Florida have the fewest borrowers with more than 20% equity.

Some interesting data on borrowers with and without home equity loans from CoreLogic: “Of the 11.1 million upside-down borrowers, there are 6.7 million first liens without home equity loans. This group of borrowers has an average mortgage balance of $219,000 and is underwater by an average of $51,000 or an LTV ratio of 130 percent.

The remaining 4.4 million upside-down borrowers had both first and second liens. Their average mortgage balance was $306,000 and they were upside down by an average of $84,000 or a combined LTV of 138 percent.”

 

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Are you ready to take out your first mortgage loan?, By Melissa Gates

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Whether you’re looking to buy a home in New Jersey, New York, Carolina, Texas or anywhere in the United States of America, you have to inevitably take out a mortgage loan to finance the property. Apart from the ultra-rich people, no one is able to finance their own property with their funds as this requires a huge amount of money. For all the laymen who come from mediocre families, taking out a mortgage loan is the only option left. If you’re a first-time homebuyer, you must not be aware of the basics of taking out a home mortgage loan. If you don’t choose a loan within your affordability, it is most likely that you have to take out a  loan in the near future after paying all the closing costs and other fees. Its better you take the required steps before. Read on to know some basic facts that are taken into consideration by your lender while lending you a loan.

 

1. Your credit score: The most vital fact that is taken into consideration by the mortgage lenders is your credit score. You’re entitled to take out a free copy of your credit report from any of the three credit reporting agencies and by doing this you can easily take the steps to boost your score before applying for a home mortgage loan. With an exceptionally good credit score, you can grab the best mortgage loan in the market and thereby save your hard-earned dollars.

 

2. The amount of loan you can afford: This point is to be taken into consideration by you so that you don’t overstretch yourself while getting yourself a mortgage loan. Take out a loan within your affordability so that you don’t have to burn a hole in your pocket while repaying the loan. Consider all the other factors needed to determine the amount of loan that you can afford.

 

3. The total income earned by you in a month: The gross monthly income that you earn in a month is another important document that is checked by the lender so that he can determine whether or not you can repay the loan on time after managing all your other debt obligations that you owe. If you want to secure a lower interest rate on the home mortgage loan, you should boost your income in a month and then apply for the loan.

 

Apart from the above mentioned factors, the mortgage lenders take the debt to income ratio into account as they also need to see whether or not the borrower can make timely payments on the home mortgage loan. Manage your personal finances so that you don’t have to opt for refinance in the future.

 

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The New Homestead Act: Update, by Dr. Ed’s Blog

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President Barack Obama recently promised that he has a plan to create jobs, which will be disclosed in September, after he takes 10 days off in Martha’s Vineyard. I certainly hope he comes up with a good plan. If he needs one, how about the one that Carl Goldsmith and I proposed at the beginning of August? [1] I met with my congressman, Gary Ackerman, last Tuesday to pitch the plan. He liked it well enough to issue a press release on Wednesday of this week endorsing it and promising to introduce the “Homestead: Act 2” when Congress returns from its August recess.[2]

The Act aims to reduce the huge overhang of unsold homes by offering a matching down payment subsidy of up to $20,000 for homebuyers, who do not currently own a home, and exempting newly acquired rental properties from taxation for 10 years. The cost of these incentives would be offset by the tax revenues collected by lowering the corporate tax rate on repatriated earnings to 10%. 

Congressman Gary Ackerman is presently serving his fifteenth term in the US House of Representatives. He represents the Fifth Congressional District of New York, which encompasses parts of the New York City Borough of Queens and the North Shore of Long Island, including west and northeast Queens and northern Nassau County. Ackerman serves on the powerful Financial Services Committee, where he sits on two Subcommittees: Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit as well as Capital Markets and Government-Sponsored Enterprises (of which he is the former Vice Chairman). The stock market rose sharply after March 12, 2009, when Mr. Ackerman, during a congressional hearing, leaned on Robert Herz, the head of FASB, to suspend the mark-to-market rule. FASB did so on April 2. I had brought this issue to the congressman’s attention in a meeting we had during November 2008.

 

Dr. Ed’s Blog
http://blog.yardeni.com/

 

 

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U.S. Real Estate Delinquencies Top 10% for First Time, Morgan Stanley Says, By Sarah Mulholland , Bloomberg.com

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Delinquencies on commercial mortgages packaged and sold as bonds surpassed 10 percent for the first time last month, according to Morgan Stanley.

Payments more than 30 days late jumped 26 basis points to 10.15 percent in April, Morgan Stanley analysts said in a report yesterday. While the pace of increase has slowed since the middle of last year, that’s partly because delinquencies are being offset as troubled loans are resolved. The rate of borrowers missing payments for the first time has been constant for the past four months, the analysts wrote.

“The bottom line is that loan performance is not yet exhibiting significant improvement,” according to the analysts led by Richard Parkus in New York. “Many market participants have come to believe that credit deterioration is more or less over, and were caught off guard by April’s rise.”

Delinquency rates for loans bundled into securities during the bubble years, when property values peaked amid lax underwriting, have reached 10.37 percent for 2006 deals and 13.26 percent for those in 2007, according to Morgan Stanley.

Borrowers with maturing debt taken out during the boom are still struggling to retire loans, according to the report. About 63 percent of commercial mortgages in bonds scheduled to mature in April paid off on time. That rate dropped to 33 percent for loans taken out from 2005 through 2008, the analysts said.

Sales of commercial-mortgage backed securities are rising after plummeting to $3.4 billion in 2009 from a record $234 billion in 2007, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Wall Streethas sold $8.6 billion of the debt in 2011, compared with $11.5 billion in all of last year, the data show. Sales may reach $35 billion this year, according to Standard and Poor’s.

Property Values Down

New bond offerings provide financing to borrowers with maturing loans. Still, property values are down 44.6 percent from October 2007, according to Moody’s Investors Service, making it difficult for property owners to come up with the difference when repaying the debt.

“Loans originated after 2005 had weaker loan characteristics,” Parkus said in a telephone interview. “On top of that, they were done at the peak of the cycle so they didn’t benefit from any price appreciation prior to the crisis.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Sarah Mulholland in New York atsmulholland3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Alan Goldstein at agoldstein5@bloomberg.net

U.S. Homeowners in Foreclosure Process Were 507 Days Late Paying, by John Gittelsohn, Bloomberg.com

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U.S. homeowners in the foreclosure process were an average of 507 days late on payments at the end of last year as lenders handled a record rate of mortgage delinquencies, Lender Processing Services Inc. said today.

The average grew 25 percent from 406 days at the end of 2009, according to the Jacksonville, Florida-based mortgage processing and default management company.

“The sheer volume of loans going through the system is going to extend those timelines,” said Herb Blecher, senior vice president for analytics at Lender Processing. Foreclosure processing also was slowed by “an abundance of caution” in the last three months of 2010 after lenders were accused of using faulty documentation and procedures to seize homes, he said.

A national jobless rate of 9 percent is increasing loan defaults and weighing down prices as foreclosed properties sell at a discount. Homeowners with 6.87 million loans — 13 percent of all mortgages — were at least 30 days behind on their payments as of Dec. 31, Lender Processing said.

Florida led the nation with a 23 percent delinquency rate, followed by Nevada at 21 percent, Mississippi at 19 percent, and Georgia and New Jersey at 15 percent, the loan processor said.

California homeowners who didn’t make their mortgage payments had the longest average wait before receiving a notice of default at 379 days, followed by Florida at 349 days, Maryland at 345 days, New York at 344 days, and Rhode Island and Washington, D.C., at 341 days.

Delinquent homeowners held onto their properties for the longest in Vermont, where it took an average 754 days to lose their homes, followed by 697 days in New York, 695 days in Maine, 688 days in Florida and 682 days in New Jersey.

The number of U.S. homes receiving a foreclosure filings may climb 20 percent this year, reaching a peak of the housing crisis, as banks step up the pace of seizures, RealtyTrac Inc. said Jan. 13. A record 2.87 million properties received notices of default, auction or repossession last year, according to the Irvine, California-based data provider.

To contact the reporter on this story: John Gittelsohn in New York at johngitt@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kara Wetzel at kwetzel@bloomberg.net.

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Ladd Tower sold for $79 million, by Wendy Culverwell, Portland Business Journal

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Ladd Tower in Portland, Oregon, USA

Image via Wikipedia

Ladd Tower sold for $79.35 million to a Dallas-based institutional investor in November, marking the largest apartment sale of the year.

CoStar Group and the Daily Journal of Commerce first reported the news.

Invesco Institutional acquired the 332-unit tower from U.S. Bank. The bank took over Ladd Tower, 1300 S.W. Park Ave., in August from developer Opus Northwest in lieu of foreclosing on an $82 million construction loan.

Ladd Tower is one of the last local projects completed by Opus Northwest, once one of the region’s most prolific developers with 17 million square feet developed in the metro area.

Also in November, Opus sold its 101-unit Park 19 project, 550 N.W. 19th St., or $28.8 million to TIAA-CREF, a New York investment giant.

@wendyculverwell | wculverwell@bizjournals.com | 503-219-3415

Read more: Ladd Tower sold for $79 million | Portland Business Journal

Panel Is Critical of Obama Mortgage Modification Plan, by David Streitfeld, Nytimes.com

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The Treasury Department’s loan modification program, which has been criticized as ineffective almost since its inception, came in for another battering in a Congressional report released Tuesday.

Only about 750,000 households will be helped by the Home Affordable Modification Program, which pays banks to modify loans under Treasury guidelines. That is far fewer than the three million or four million modifications promised in early 2009 by the Obama administration, the Congressional Oversight Panel said.

The panel’s report calls the program a failure, although Senator Ted Kaufman, a Democrat from Delaware and chairman of the panel, declined to go that far in a conference call with reporters.

“The program has turned out to be a lot smaller and had a lot less impact on the housing market than we thought,” Mr. Kaufman said.

One reason: the loan servicers, who act as middlemen between the distressed homeowners and the investors who own the mortgage, often find it more profitable to foreclose than modify. The modification program provides incentives for servicers to participate in the program but no penalties for their failure to do so.

The oversight report estimated that the modification program would spend only about $4 billion of the $30 billion approved for it. With the deadline for reallocating the money having passed, “an untold number of borrowers may go without help,” the panel said.

Tim Massad, acting assistant secretary for financial stability, said at his own press briefing that the criticism was “somewhat unfair.”

Aside from the borrowers directly helped by the modification program, Mr. Massad said, many others have been helped indirectly, as servicers used the government standards in proprietary modifications.

The program “is having a real impact on the ground, even though I certainly acknowledge there are a lot of challenges and a lot of difficulties,” he said.

One of the challenges is a persistently weak housing market. Many households that have won permanent modifications are still heavily in debt, which leaves them vulnerable to redefaulting.

If the redefault level rises significantly, Mr. Kaufman said, “that’s a lot of taxpayer money down the drain with no effect.”

Other members of the oversight panel include Damon Silvers, director of policy and special counsel to the A.F.L.-C.I.O., and Richard H. Neiman, New York superintendent of banks.

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Sales of U.S. New Homes Increased Again in September, by Bob Willis, Bloomberg.com

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Sales of new homes rose in September for a second month to a pace that signals the industry is struggling to overcome the effects of a jobless rate hovering near 10 percent.

Purchases increased 6.6 percent to a 307,000 annual rate that exceeded the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News, figures from the Commerce Department showed today in Washington. Demand is hovering near the record-low 282,000 reached in May.

A lack of jobs is preventing Americans from gaining the confidence needed to buy, overshadowing declines in borrowing costs and prices that are making houses more affordable. At the same time, foreclosure moratoria at some banks, including JPMorgan Chase & Co., signal the industry will redouble efforts to tighten lending rules, which may depress housing even more.

“These are still very low levels,” said Jim O’Sullivan, global chief economist at MF Global Ltd. in New York. “Ultimately, a significant recovery in housing will depend on a clear pickup in employment.”

Another Commerce Department report today showed orders for non-military capital equipment excluding airplanes dropped in September, indicating gains in business investment will cool.

Capital Goods Demand

Bookings for such goods, including computers and machinery meant to last at least three years, fell 0.6 percent after a 4.8 percent gain in August that was smaller than previously estimated. Total orders climbed 3.3 percent last month, led by a doubling in aircraft demand.

Stocks fell, snapping a five-day gain for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, on the durable goods report and investor speculation that steps taken by the Federal Reserve to shore up the economy will be gradual. The S&P 500 fell 0.5 percent to 1,179.8 at 10:14 a.m. in New York.

Economists forecast new home sales would increase to a 300,000 annual pace from a 288,000 rate in August, according to the median of 73 survey projections. Estimates ranged from 270,000 to 330,000.

The median price increased 3.3 percent from September 2009 to $223,800.

Purchases rose in three of four regions, led by a 61 percent jump in the Midwest. Purchases dropped 9.9 percent in the West.

Less Supply

The supply of homes at the current sales rate fell to 8 months’ worth, down from 8.6 months in August. There were 204,000 new houses on the market at the end of September, the fewest since July 1968.

Reports earlier this month showed the housing market is hovering at recession levels. Housing starts increased in September to an annual rate of 610,000, the highest since April, while building permits fell to the lowest level in more than a year, signaling construction will probably cool.

Sales of existing homes, which now make up more than 90 percent of the market, increased by 10 percent to a 4.53 million rate in September, the National Association of Realtors said yesterday. The pace was still the third-lowest on record going back a decade.

Home resales are tabulated when a contract is closed, while new-home sales are counted at the time an agreement is signed, making them a leading indicator of demand.

Moratoria’s Influence

Economists are debating the likely effect on new-home sales from the foreclosure moratoria and regulators’ probes into faulty paperwork. Most agree the moratoria pose a risk to housing sales as a whole.

Michelle Meyer, a senior economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Research in New York, is among those who say the moratoria, by limiting the supply of existing homes, may lift demand for newly built houses in coming months.

“There is a possibility there will be a shift in demand for new construction, at least in the short term,” she said.

The U.S. central bank and other regulators are “intensively” examining financial firms’ home-foreclosure practices and expect preliminary findings next month, Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said this week at a housing conference in Arlington, Virginia.

Fed officials have signaled they may start another round of unconventional monetary easing at their next meeting Nov. 2-3 to try to spur the economic recovery.

Homebuilders say labor-market conditions will be the biggest factor in spurring or delaying a recovery.

“The U.S. economy needs to improve, and we’ve got to see some improvement in job creation,” Larry Sorsby , chief financial officer at Hovnanian Enterprises Inc., the largest homebuilder in New Jersey, said during an Oct. 7 conference call.

To contact the reporter on this story: Bob Willis in Washington at bwillis@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Christopher Wellisz at cwellisz@bloomberg.net

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Apartment Rents Rise in U.S. West as Foreclosures Boost Apartment Demand, by Danielle Kucera, Bloomberg.com

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Apartment rents rose across the U.S. West and South for the third straight quarter as record foreclosures boosted demand for rental housing, RealFacts said.

The average asking rent climbed to $958 a month from $950 in the second quarter, according to a report released today by the Novato, California-based research company. It declined 0.7 percent from a year earlier. Rents reached a record $1,002 in the third quarter of 2008.

“We’re getting to be much more of a culture that puts a premium on rental housing,” Sarah Bridge, owner of RealFacts, said in an interview. “People are disillusioned with the housing market. They don’t want to spend their money that way if they’re going to be foreclosed on.”

Sales of properties in the foreclosure process accounted for almost a third of U.S. transactions in September and surpassed 100,000 for the first time, RealtyTrac Inc. said on Oct. 14. The data provider’s figures go back to 2005.

Apartment rents rose fastest in the Denver area, with rates increasing 2.4 percent from the second quarter to $883 a month, followed by the Austin, Texas, region, with a 2.3 gain to $837 a month, RealFacts said. In the Atlanta area, rents rose 2.2 percent to $834, and in the San Jose, California, region they increased 1.9 percent to $1,587.

The San Jose area, which encompasses Sunnyvale and Santa Clara, was the priciest region in RealFacts’ database in the third quarter.

Apartments were 92.8 percent occupied, up from 92 percent in the second quarter and 91.7 percent a year earlier, according to RealFacts.

“It seems the apartment sector is outperforming the economy in general,” Bridge said.

The survey covers 3.29 million rental units in states including California, Florida, Indiana,Arizona, Texas, Colorado and Nevada. Closely held RealFacts surveys apartment owners quarterly.

To contact the reporter on this story: Danielle Kucera in New York at dkucera6@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kara Wetzel at kwetzel@bloomberg.net.

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U.S. Apartment Vacancies Decline for the First Time Since 2007, by Hui-yong Yu, Bloomberg.com

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U.S. apartment vacancies dropped for the first time in almost three years in the third quarter, suggesting the trend of people moving in with family or friends might be abating, Reis Inc.said today.

The national vacancy rate fell to 7.2 percent from 7.9 percent a year earlier and 7.8 percent in the second quarter, the New York-based research firm said. It was the lowest rate since 2008’s fourth quarter, when it was 6.7 percent, and the first year-over-year drop since 2007’s fourth quarter. Vacancies reached a three-decade high of 8 percent late last year.

Rental demand usually goes up during the second and third quarters, when people tend to lease apartments, said Victor Calanog, director of research at Reis. The U.S. recession interrupted that pattern starting two years ago as widespreadjob cuts prompted many people to move in with parents or friends instead of renting their own apartments.

“Those guys are starting to move back to the rental market,” Calanog said in a telephone interview. “What we’re seeing might be these folks who realized, ‘Hey, I love my father and mother, but I don’t think I can live with them forever. I’ll take a chance on a yearlong lease and maybe I can find a job in six to nine months.’”

The change in occupied space, known as net absorption, rose by 84,382 units, a record since Reis began keeping the data in 1999, the company said. Net absorption totaled 157,788 apartments from January through September, compared with almost 21,000 units vacated a year earlier.

Concessions, Jobs

Signing of apartment leases has risen as a surge in home foreclosures forced many people to rent and landlords offered concessions amid a weak economy. Job growth will determine whether the apartment market continues to improve, Calanog said.

“If the pace of job growth is really lackluster, then I wouldn’t be shocked if vacancies suddenly rose in the fourth quarter,” Calanog.

About 90 percent of the rise in net absorption came from leasing up existing apartments, Reis said. New properties came to market almost half empty, and the total supply of new stock was the smallest since 2007’s second quarter. The 21,906 new units that came to market in the third quarter had an average vacancy rate of 60 percent, said Reis.

Landlords’ asking rents climbed to $1,037, little changed from $1,033 a year earlier and $1,032 in the second quarter, according to Reis. Actual rents paid by tenants, known as effective rents, rose to an average $980 from $971 a year earlier and $974 in the second quarter

New Haven, Connecticut, had the lowest vacancy rate in the third quarter, at 2.3 percent, followed by New York City; Long Island, New York; San Jose; and Central New Jersey, according to Reis. New Haven is home to Yale University.

The Reis survey measures about 9.1 million apartments.

To contact the reporter on this story: Hui-yong Yu in Seattle at hyu@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kara Wetzel at kwetzel@bloomberg.net

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