A shifting population will eventually bring a shifted sports landscape. Las Vegas Nuggets anyone?

One ongoing certainty in America is that the population never stops shifting. And where people go, so do sports teams.

Good news for Las Vegas, Portland and Sacramento. Those growing towns, among others, are likely landing spots for the next wave of expansion and franchise shifting around the NFL, NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball.

Housing affordability has people migrating inland from the West Coast to central California and Nevada and north to Oregon, according to urban expert Wendell Cox, who runs Demographia.com, which tracks population shift. The trend will continue once this recession ends.

“People realized they could cash out in L.A. and scale down to a smaller house in Las Vegas, while socking away a nice retirement fund,” he says. So don’t be shocked to see Vegas or Sacramento get one of the Bay Area’s two NFL teams, if politicians in either of those towns are willing outdo their Oakland or San Francisco counterparts on a new stadium. The San Francisco 49ers’ plans for a Santa Clara venue seem to be on hold.

The greater Los Angeles area is still growing thanks to inward migration to San Bernardino and Riverside, Cox notes. For years, the NFL has been looking at filling the glaring hole created by the Rams, who bolted to St. Louis for a sweet stadium deal in 1995. Expect that to happen before long if an ownership group can get a modern stadium built.

Adding up the national numbers shows that the big-league U.S. sports markets hold 152.7 million people watching 113 NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL teams, setting a standard of just over 1.3 million people per team. Household incomes and other demographic factors (age, educational levels) also play a role in a market’s viability to support big-time sports, but to a lesser degree. More than anything else, it’s about having enough eyeballs watching the action, whether on television or at the arena.

“The single biggest factor is population,” says Bernie Mullin, who runs The Aspire Group, an Atlanta-based sports consultancy. “The makeup of that population comes second.”

We weighted the factors accordingly in our study, picking future sports locales primarily through population projections by Demographia.com, with secondary weight given to median income levels.

We also factored the presence in each market of large corporations, which fuel sponsorship dollars. Even though many big companies spend across the country on sports, being local makes a difference, Mullin points out. All else equal, companies are more likely to hook up with a team its employees root for and whose fans feel connected to the local company (Coors is synonymous with Colorado and Citi with New York, TARP controversy notwithstanding).

Sacramento and Portland, two NBA-only towns, are both projected to grow population 38% by 2030, to about 3 million people apiece. Seattle, which just lost the NBA Sonics to Oklahoma City, also remains in the mix to add a third team, thanks to a high median income and a population expected to grow to 4 million over the next 20 years.

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One of the biggest causes of the financial crisis was that Americans were borrowing (and spending) more money than they could afford to pay back.

So how are credit-card issuers reacting to consumers’ attempts to live a more financially responsible lifestyle? They’re threatening to cut their credit cards off if they don’t spend enough.

Loretta Maxwell of Troy, Mich., thought her credit score of 790 buffered her against most of the fallout of the credit crunch. When Chase (JPM) closed her $6,000-limit card in December without warning after two years of inactivity, she called to fight it. She was unsuccessful. “If you’re not using it, they entice you to do so, and then the moment you don’t spend enough, they cut your limit,” she says. (Chase says it is standard practice is to review inactive accounts. “Inactive cards with large open credit lines present a real risk of fraudulent use and large potential liabilities for Chase,” says spokeswoman Stephanie Jacobson.)

Maxwell’s experience is far from an isolated incident. Most major issuers, including Chase, Bank of America (BAC), American Express (AXP) and Citibank (C) have been slashing credit lines and closing the accounts of those who don’t spend on their card regularly. While these issuers are required to notify you in writing of an account closing, there’s no requirement that they do so in advance. Even when they do give early notice, the only way a cardholder can stop their account from getting shut down is to start spending again.

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Fannie Mae seeks $15.2 billion in government aid after posting $25.2 billion 4th-quarter loss

• Alan Zibel, AP Real Estate Writer
• Thursday February 26, 2009, 7:12 pm EST

WASHINGTON (AP) — Fannie Mae said Thursday it needs $15.2 billion in government aid — though that figure is expected to grow — because it lost nearly $59 billion last year as the foreclosure crisis mushroomed.

The Washington-based mortgage finance company hemorrhaged $25.2 billion, or $4.47 per share, in the fourth quarter. That compares with a loss of $3.6 billion, or $3.80 a share, in the year-ago period.

Fannie’s net worth — the value of its assets minus the value of its liabilities — fell below zero at the end of the quarter, forcing the company to request funding from the government for the first time.

The government seized control of Fannie Mae and its sibling Freddie Mac in September and last week doubled their lifelines to $200 billion each to guarantee they would never fail.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said the increase in cash is “not a judgment about the expected losses ahead. It’s just a way to make sure people understand that they will be able to play this role going forward.”

But the year-end results were just “the same sources of bad news, just with bigger numbers,” to debt analyst Jim Vogel of FTN Financial in Memphis, Tenn., who still doubts Fannie will exceed the new $200 billion safety net.

Fannie Mae said its fourth-quarter loss was driven by $12 billion in credit losses due to declining housing market conditions, $12.3 billion in losses on derivatives and $4.6 billion in writedowns of the value of its mortgage-backed securities.

“We expect economic conditions and falling home prices to continue to negatively affect our credit performance in 2009, which will cause our credit losses to increase,” Fannie Mae said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

If the recession deepens, the company said, “more borrowers will be unable to make their monthly mortgage payments, resulting in increased delinquencies and defaults, sharper declines in home prices and higher credit losses.”

Freddie Mac has said it’s likely to require as much as $35 billion in federal support on top of the $13.8 billion it received last year.

Taken together, Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee almost 31 million home loans worth about $5.5 trillion. That’s more than half of all U.S home mortgages.

Delinquent loans rose to 2.4 percent of all single-family loans — more than double the level of a year earlier. Fannie Mae owned more than 63,500 foreclosed properties at the end of December, up from nearly 34,000 a year earlier.

For many people who once only dreamed of a $1 million home, today a $500,000 home is looking pretty good.

Half a million dollars is, by almost any standard, a lot of money. But during the past few years, when credit was easy and regulations were loose, to many Americans it didn’t seem like all that much.

That’s because they were able to borrow huge amounts of money to buy new homes, often with little or nothing down. And while most homes sold in the U.S., even at the height of the housing bubble, were $500,000 or less, rising prices in most major cities and affluent suburbs around the country pushed the cost of a three-bedroom home well into seven figures or more.

In fact, in most parts of the country $500,000 has always bought plenty of house. But the gap between $500,000 and $1 million is more than monetary. It is also psychological. And during the recent boom years Americans became reckless consumers, buying cars, houses, clothes and much more that they couldn’t really afford. The dream of a $1 million home, once so distant, became tantalizingly reachable.

Now that’s all changed. While certain pockets, such as Manhattan, San Francisco, and Boston, remain high compared with the rest of the U.S., real estate prices around the country have fallen dramatically. The downside to this, of course, is that many people now owe more money on their homes than their homes are worth. The upside is that valuations are much more realistic—and affordable.

Pain Is Spreading

That’s because homes priced at the half-million mark—and higher—are now also beginning to shrink in value. Initially, the properties hit hard by the subprime crisis were lower-priced dwellings more often than not bought by people with poor credit. But now, as too many of us are experiencing, the pain is spreading even to people with good credit and higher incomes.

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Yes — if you plan to stay awhile. But even lower mortgage payments can cost you in the long run.

Waves of homeowners are rushing to refinance their mortgages. And no wonder: Long-term rates have collapsed to historic lows.

Thirty-year home loans can run as cheap as 5% right now — down from 6.4% as recently as last summer.

By any long-term measure, today’s rates are a great deal.

The refinancing boom means a sudden surge in new business for a lot of mortgage brokers. The typical refi costs a homeowner maybe $2,000 or so in costs, including fees.

Brokers may be among the few making out in this economy — which is ironic, because some (repeat: some) are the villains who got us into this mess in the first place.

But before you join the stampede, it’s worth asking: When does it make sense to refi?

If you are planning to move or even pay off your loan within the next few years, refinancing probably makes little sense because you won’t be paying monthly bills long enough for the savings to cover the costs.

On the other hand, in some circumstances, refinancing is pretty much a slam dunk.

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Despite more than $1 trillion in federal largesse, they still may not have the capital cushions to bear the risks of making fresh loans

American Apparel executives should have been focused on the sales of their leggings and T-shirts this holiday season. Instead, management spent most of the critical shopping period worrying about $125 million of debt due on Dec. 19. After weeks of intense meetings with major banks, the trendy retailer landed a last-minute extension on a loan. The onerous strings: a $2.3 million fee and limits on capital spending. “The credit markets are still frozen,” says Chief Financial Officer Adrian Kowalewski. “Even companies that are performing well can’t get loans at reasonable terms.”

The financial challenges facing Kowalewski and other corporate executives pose a major quandary for the incoming Obama Administration and Washington policymakers, who are trying to kick-start the economy. Despite all the government’s best efforts in recent months, big banks still aren’t lending money freely. One sign of the crunch: New loans to large companies slumped 37% in the three months ending Nov. 30 from the preceding three months. “Banks are being extremely cautious,” says Edward Wedbush, chairman of the Los Angeles brokerage Wedbush Morgan Securities.

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What does being “underwater” in your house really mean? Probably not that you’re drowning.

The number of underwater homeowners — those who owe more on their mortgages than their home is now worth — has been growing sharply since 2006 as real-estate prices have tumbled. By some estimates, between one in six and one in eight homeowners are in that position, most of them people who bought homes in the past few years or who put down small or no down payments.

This worries economists and policy makers, since owing more than your home is worth is the first step toward foreclosure. And it’s a concern to the rest of us because foreclosures are roiling the financial markets and, closer to home, they drag down our neighborhoods. (Most people who still have equity, by contrast, would rather sell their houses at a loss than lose what’s left of their investment.)

In response to concerns about rising foreclosure and delinquency rates, federal regulators are studying possible new programs aimed at needy homeowners. There are concerns that such programs could attract a flood of applications from those who don’t truly need assistance or encourage lenders to push homeowners into foreclosure. At the same time, lenders such as J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank of America have committed to working on new loan terms for the most-distressed homeowners.

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Stocks slide as investors grapple with fears about stability of banks; home sales fall

• Tim Paradis, AP Business Writer
• Wednesday
• NEW YORK (AP) — Investors are selling stocks again as worries about the banking and housing industries pile up.Bank stocks fell amid continued uneasiness about the steps the government will take to help struggling financial companies. The Obama administration is planning to begin “stress tests” on the nation’s biggest banks Wednesday to determine how they would fare if the recession deepened.Banking regulators plan to examine the financial well-being of Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp. and more than a dozen other institutions that have received money from the government’s $700 billion bailout fund. The checkups are designed to help determine whether banks have enough capital to endure any further bumps in the economy during the next two years.Meanwhile, the National Association of Realtors said sales of existing homes fell 5.3 percent to an annual rate of 4.49 million last month, from 4.74 million units in December. It was the worst showing since July 1997, and Wall Street had expected sales would riseday February 25, 2009, 11:00 am EST

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New House bill could allow bankruptcy judges to modify loans and shield lenders who modify loans.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The House is expected to vote on a bill Thursday that would let bankruptcy judges erase some mortgage debt for troubled homeowners and shield mortgage servicers modifying loans from bondholder lawsuits.

According to a summary, the legislation would also strengthen the capacity of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp to deal with bank failures and make permanent an increase in the insured deposit limit to $250,000.

“Hopefully Thursday,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told a reporter when asked when the bill would come to the floor.

The legislation aims to ease a deep U.S. housing slump that has sent foreclosures skyrocketing, saddling banks worldwide with bad debts and threatening economies with deep recession.

The bill would permit bankruptcy judges to erase some principal from troubled home loans just as they are able to adjust other consumer debt, a provision that President Barack Obama called for in a housing rescue plan he released last week.

The so-called mortgage “cramdown” provisions should prod mortgage companies to loosen home loan terms on a scale that they have not done before, Rep. Brad Miller told Reuters.

“We have provided carrot after carrot to encourage them to modify loans,” the North Carolina Democrat said. “With the possibility of facing losses in bankruptcy, the mortgage servicers should have a justification for easing some terms.”

The bill contains a “safe harbor” provision that offers liability protection to mortgages services who modify loans to help distressed borrowers stay in their homes.

Since many home loans are repackaged into debt securities and sold to investors, mortgage services could face lawsuits from bondholders if they modified loans.

The legislation also increases the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp’s credit line with the U.S. Treasury to $100 billion from $30 billion, providing more firepower to tackle what could be a growing wave of bank failures.

In seeking the increase, the FDIC characterized it as prudent contingency planning.

In addition, the legislation would make the current $250,000 cap on deposits insured by the FDIC. The insured deposit limit was raised in October, but it was due to revert to its prior level of $100,000 at the start of next year.