Servicers are now required to evaluate mortgage loans backed by the two GSEs and actively reach out to borrowers to offer a streamlined loan modification if the mortgage loan was previously modified to include a step-rate feature (which allows for a gradual rate increase in the first few years) and if the mortgage rate becomes 60 days delinquent in the first 12 months following a rate increase.
Read More »Can HAMP Borrowers Absorb Higher Payments When Mods Reset?
Approximately half a million homeowners who received a mortgage loan modification in 2010 through the government's Home Affordable Modification Program, commonly known as HAMP, are due to reset in 2015 – and those homeowners will be facing slowly increasing monthly mortgage payments. Will these homeowners be able to handle the payment increases, or will there be a massive wave of re-defaults?
Read More »Recent HAMP Loan Mods Re-Defaulting At Higher Rates
Loan modifications facilitated through the government's Home Affordable Mortgage Program (HAMP) have historically re-defaulted at a lower rate than proprietary loan modifications, but HAMP mods facilitated in 2014 began re-defaulting at a higher rate than those modified in the two previous years, according to Black Knight Financial Services' November 2014 Mortgage Monitor released on Monday.
Read More »HUD, Treasury Announce Enahancements to Mortgage Loan Mod Programs
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Department of Treasury have announced enhancements to the government's Making Home Affordable (MHA) program to assist homeowners who are struggling to make monthly mortgage payments.
Read More »Five Star President: ‘Embedded Risks’ May Be Hindering Mortgage Market Recovery
While the housing market has made measurable strides toward recovery in the last two years, the coming year could bring the start of another downturn, one expert says. Delivering comments to a group of REO brokers and agents, Ed Delgado, ...
Read More »Virginia Man Sentenced for Hacking Fannie Mae-Run Website
A Virginia man has been sentenced for illegally accessing government servers that hosted a Fannie Mae website used to support federal mortgage loan modification programs, the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) announced on Friday.
Read More »OCC: Loan Mods Lowered Monthly Payments for 91 Percent of Borrowers
More than 91 percent of borrowers nationwide who received mortgage loan modifications in the second quarter of 2014 had their monthly principal and interest payments reduced, while 56.1 percent of borrowers lowered their monthly payments by 20 percent or more, according to a report released earlier this week by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) regarding first-lien mortgages at large national and federal savings banks.
Read More »Servicers Need to be ‘Creative’ With Loan Modification
A panel of experts at the Servicing Lab at the Five Star Conference on Tuesday agreed that in order for loss mitigation to be effective in 2014 and heading into the future, servicers must find new and inventive ways to execute.
Read More »Loan Mods Down, Foreclosure Starts Up in July
The total number of homeowners receiving permanent loan modifications declined in July, as did the number of modifications made under the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), according to figures released this week by HOPE NOW. Meanwhile, foreclosure starts rose a little more than 1,000 from June to settle at 70,401.
Read More »Three Charged in Massive Mortgage Modification Scam
Three men were arrested and charged in connection with what is believed to be one of the biggest mortgage modification schemes ever perpetrated, according to an announcement made by Christy Romero, Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP), and Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
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