• 1) Bond (Debt) Disease Spreads to Washington State…

“Under pressure and after witnessing California botch their latest auction, Washington State proactively reduces their bond offering knowing that higher rates are here.”

• 2) Foreclosure notices are up but foreclosure sales are down

“More than 2,000 Santa Clara County homeowners received foreclosure notices from their lenders in September, but a relative few actually had their homes sold at auction.

Foreclosure figures released Tuesday by ForeclosureRadar, a Discovery Bay company that tracks California foreclosure activity, continue a trend of the past several months: More and more homeowners are failing to make their mortgage payments but banks aren’t forcing the sale of their homes while they try to work out loan modifications.”

• 3) Pension Headache (Baltimore)

“On Tuesday, Oct. 13, Mayor Sheila Dixon was presented with a bill for about $101 million.

The bill, payable on July 1, 2010, comes as a result of last year’s stock-market crash–as well as the freeze-up in the credit markets and the huge drop in the value of commercial real estate. These financial disasters cost the joint Baltimore Fire Department and Baltimore Police Department pension fund more than half a billion dollars. The staggering loss–22 percent of the fund’s value–triggered provisions in the city’s contract with city fire and police unions requiring larger payments from taxpayers to keep the retirement plan funded.

And next year’s giant bill is only a small part of the problem.

For more than a decade, under-funding by the city and enhanced benefits paid to retiring firefighters and police officers have sapped the fund’s viability. It has gone from being 100 percent funded in the late 1990s to being less than 60 percent funded by July 2009.”

• 4) San Luis Obispo County pensions

“Officials said the county’s unfunded pension liability is $299 million, primarily driven by investment losses in the pension trust because of the drop in the stock market.”

• 5) “Oct. 14 (Bloomberg) — New Jersey

Republican Christopher Christie, who seeks to unseat first-term Democratic Governor Jon Corzine on Nov. 3, said he’d reduce a budget deficit of as much as $8 billion by deferring pension payments and reducing employee costs.”

“The pension system, which provides benefits to 700,000 current and future retirees, had an unfunded liability of $34.4 billion”

• 6) Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen

“He painted a bleak picture of the next five years in Tennessee as state leaders will try to crawl out of a billion dollar budget shortfall.

“We will have not given any raises to state employees for five years. We will have a pension system that is battered,” said Bredesen. “Our reserves are going to be substantially depleted, and we will not have undertaken any new initiatives.”"

• 7) Homeless Population in Shelters Hits Record High

“In 2002, about 31,000 people were using city shelters — and those numbers have steadily increased each year, the group said.

This year has turned out to be “the worst on record for New York City homelessness since the Great Depression,” they said.”

• Moody’s: CMBS Delinquency Rate Jumps By Record Amt In Sept

“Delinquencies among U.S. commercial mortgage-backed securities surged to by a record amount in September, according to Moody’s Investors Service, highlighing the ongoing woes on the commercial real-estate market.

Occupancy rates and rents are falling, which, coupled with an inability to refinance debt, is resulting in an acceleration of woes for property owners. “After tapering off for two months, the delinquency tracker appears to have resumed an upward trend as expected,” said managing director Nick Levidy. “The delinquency rate is likely to continue moving higher over the next several months as troubles compound in the commercial real estate sector.”

September’s delinquency rate of 3.64% compares with 0.54% a year earlier.”

• 9) Twin Cities Homeless Shelters Running Out Of Room
• 10) Stuyvesant Town Set To Implode

“The 56-building, 11,000 unit complex was acquired at the peak of the bubble for $5.4 billion by Tishman Speyer and BlackRock, with investors ranging from CALPERS (naturally) to the Church of England (not as obvious).

Here’s the deal:

The property is now thought to be worth just $2.1 billion.

The buyers originally projected income would triple to $336 million in 2011, but right now it’s only at $139 million.

They’ve got just $33 million cash on hand from its interest reserves to cover its debt, and a burn rate of $16 million.

So basically: they’re screwed”

• 11) Mortgage Lending Business Expected to Sink Next Year

“The mortgage lending business is expected to take a turn for the worse in 2010 according to the industry’s leading trade group.

Mortgage origination volume is expected to plunge by almost 21 percent to $1.56 trillion next year compared to an estimated $1.96 trillion in originations in 2009 according to a new forecast released yesterday by the Mortgage Bankers Association.

According to the release, mortgage lenders can expect to experience a dramatic decline in refinancing business due to mortgage rates inching upwards throughout next year.”

• 12) SF: CITY’S UNEMPLOYMENT RATE AT A RECORD 10.1 PERCENT

13) Number of homeless students soaring

“Public schools are used to dealing with children in poverty, but this school year, San Antonio school districts are seeing more children than ever from families that have gone from struggling to put food on the table to keeping a roof over their heads.

School social workers say the increases are extreme.

“Never have I seen so many. Never, never. … It’s never been this bad,” said Diana Calderon, homeless liaison for Edgewood Independent School District.”

• 14) More new lows for the dollar

Somewhere in the distance the dollar can be heard calling out