Escrow accounts get scrutinized by regulatory officials at mortgage servicers often.

I completely agree with Rich that things are likely to get worse in the short term in many markets...with alt-a and option arm loans coming due in higher volume than at any point in history, there is sure to be greater foreclosure supply over the next 6-12 months.For the reasons Bill mentioned, I don't think it will have an impact on the banks any more so than it's had the past couple years, with the exception that banks may hold off the foreclosure process in many cases to keep their reserve levels within regulatory requirements (what they're currently doing with commercial property on the books).As for whether this is a bad time to flip properties, I think that's going to be market dependent.

Cities that make it hard to build and have a lot of regulatory hurdles (e.g.

Obama adviser and regulatory “czar” Cass Sunstein has even written a book titled “The second Bill of Rights: FDR's unfinished Revolution and why we need it more than ever.”

Due to California's highly regulatory environment building new homes is very difficult.

(Not to the people who were hurt of course; but to the federal regulatory agency.)

The way the industry is structured from my experience the electrician often 'may' oversee the project, but typically you engage with a 'turnkey' solar type company to do all of the following:front end financial analysisget through the regulatory process and most utilities require filing what's called an 'interconnection agreement'bring in an engineer like me to draft plans, as requiredthen once the interconnection has been approved, they shop the install to an electricianoften in house resources from that solar company are used to actually mount panels and do most of the LV wiring, and they will leave the 120/240 etc wiring to the electricianGranted, the above process unfortunately has a lot of 'soft costs' built in that drive up the cost of these types of projects for a homeowner, but they still do pencil out in some cases.  

What are the regulatory restrictions on leverage?

A; I believe that this was begun back during the first Bush's admin and B, typical of any regulatory agency, they are inept at notifying/educating about upcoming reg's and then expect everyone to comply.

Custodians do exactly the same thing but with the added regulatory and financial scrutiny.