Since HUD began SFLS in 2010, it has resolved 38,385 out of 79,029 non-performing loans through various means, a total of 49 percent. Out of those resolved loans, 16,706 of the borrowers (21 percent of the non-performing total and 43.5 percent of the resolved loans) avoided foreclosure through either paying the loans current, forbearance agreements, paying the loan in full, a short sale, a third-party sale, or a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure.

Distressed and at-risk Montana homeowners spoke out against the two bills in the state's House Business and Labor Committee on Thursday, claiming that their respective mortgagees had misled them verbally with regards to loss mitigation practices. The borrowers said they would have had no legal claim against those mortgagees if these bills had been in enacted before they filed their respective lawsuits against their lenders.

Despite both states having high numbers of completed foreclosures for the previous 12 months, other foreclosure-related statistics between the two states do not correlate. Florida's foreclosure inventory rate of 3.5 percent for January (third among states behind New Jersey and New York) was more than double the national average for the month (1.4 percent), whereas Michigan's foreclosure inventor was less than half that number (0.6 percent).

Recent actions by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) indicate that the Agency is placing an increased emphasis on the clearing out of Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's seriously delinquent loan portfolios and steering more borrowers toward foreclosure prevention and loss mitigation actions, using foreclosure only as an absolute last resort.

FHFA is said to be seeking $1 billion in damages over losses the Agency suffered when the sponsor of the mortgage-backed securities, Nomura, and the securities' underwriter, RBS, did not follow underwriting guidelines on 68 percent of a sample of a bundle of securities backing more than $2 billion worth of mortgages sold to the GSEs prior to the financial crisis of 2008.

The review was a test of the strength of the capital planning process of the financial institutions, as well to determine if the projected capital ratios of the firms could withstand a hypothetical scenario of severe economic stress as well. The Fed approved the capital plans of 28 of the institutions tested.

Counsel's Corner is an ongoing series in which DS News talks with default servicing attorneys around the country about the most pressing issues facing the default servicing industry. This installment features Mike Zevitz, Shareholder and Managing Attorney for SouthLaw, P.C.

According to Black Knight, however, one stat experienced an increase – foreclosure starts jumped by 5.5 percent year-over-year in January up to their highest level since December 2013. About 51 percent of January's reported total of 94,300 foreclosure starts were repeat foreclosures, according to Black Knight. January's spike in foreclosure starts is likely attributed more to seasonality than any type of pattern that may be forming, according to Black Knight's SVP of Loan Data Products, Trey Barnes.

The practice of purchasing bank-owned properties in bulk quantities has become popular among investors in recent years, particularly at the height of the foreclosure wave in 2010 and 2011, because the properties can be bought at a fraction of the market value and then flipped for a profit.

The Federal Reserve has instructed Bank of America to revise its capital plan by September 30 to address weaknesses in the bank's capital planning process, according a press release on Wednesday. Bank of America stated in a press release on Wednesday that the company's Board of Directors authorized a $4 billion common stock repurchase program and that the Fed had completed its 2015 Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review and informed the Charlotte, North Carolina-based megabank that the Fed did not object to the bank's capital plan for the period of Q2 2015 through Q2 2016. Under that plan, the common stock dividend rate would be maintained at 5 cents per share per quarter.