Foreclosure

Las Vegas has enacted a city ordinance that holds lenders liable for the upkeep of vacant homes even if a default or foreclosure is pending and the borrower still holds the title. Lenders who fail to comply with the maintenance requirements for vacant properties prior to repossessing them could face misdemeanor criminal charges that carry a $1,000 fine and six months in jail. Las Vegas, considered the epicenter of the nation's housing crisis, has a foreclosure rate six times the national average.

Last month the Occupy Oakland movement announced its intention to occupy vacant properties. On Tuesday, Occupy Oakland was one of 25 local Occupy activist groups to observe a national 'Occupy Our Homes' day. Organizers say the movement is supported by thousands who will be standing up for their neighbors in a struggle ""against a system that places financial gain above the human need for shelter."" Occupy groups from Atlanta to Brooklyn to California made it clear that this is only the beginning of their fight against foreclosure.

About 885,000 borrowers have received permanent loan modifications so far this year, according to October data from HOPE NOW. The voluntary alliance of mortgage industry participants announced last month that the industry had completed 5 million modifications since 2007. October saw almost 80,000 proprietary and HAMP modifications. Sixty-plus day delinquencies declined 6 percent between September and October, and foreclosure sales fell 5 percent. Foreclosure starts, however, rose by 7 percent.

Lender Processing Services (LPS) has added additional functionality to its MSP loan servicing platform that the company says will help servicers better track and manage loans belonging to military service members. LPS' Military Service Relief (MSR) workstation adds 30 fields to MSP to allow servicers to identify and process loans protected under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA), while providing stop-gap measures to guard against foreclosing on military personnel.

Servicers for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have completed almost 2 million foreclosure prevention actions for the two companies since they went into conservatorship in 2008, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency's (FHFA) third-quarter report released Wednesday. More than half of these actions have been loan modifications, and of the remainder, about 676,500 have kept homeowners in their homes. About 269,700 were short sales or deeds-in-lieu of foreclosure.

The U.S. Treasury said Wednesday that it will continue to withhold incentives from JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America for modifications, short sales, and deeds-in-lieu completed through government programs. JPMorgan is the only servicer participating in Treasury's Making Home Affordable program that was determined to need ""substantial improvement"" in complying with program guidelines during the third quarter. Bank of America moved up a notch on the assessment scorecard to needing only ""moderate improvement.""

The current year will close with a 7 percent yearly decline in mortgage delinquencies, matching last year's decline, according to predictions released Wednesday by TransUnion. The percent of borrowers 60 days or more delinquent will fall to 5.95 percent by the end of the year, and will fall to 5 percent by the end of 2012, the credit bureau says. However, despite yearly declines, TransUnion's forecasters expect a slight rise in delinquencies through the first quarter of 2012.

Attorneys General Kamala Harris of California and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada have entered into a joint investigation alliance targeting mortgage servicers and perpetrators of mortgage fraud. The alliance will link their offices' civil and criminal enforcement teams in order to speed up investigations and prosecutions. The partnership forged between Harris and Masto illustrates the deep rifts that have developed within the attorney general camp over robo-signing settlement negotiations.

Home price predictions have traditionally been fairly straightforward, relying heavily on employment and income levels, according to Michael Sklarz of Collateral Analytics. However, the last cycle has posed challenges for analysts, Sklarz noted during a panel at the Five Star MPact Conference held in Dallas this week. Industry experts participating in the discussion stressed that national predictors - even if accurate - may not be relevant on a local basis.

Foreclosures are going to go up before they go down, according to Craig Nickerson, president of the National Community Stabilization Trust. Nickerson says estimates put foreclosure tallies at 850,000 this year, as high as 1.5 million in 2013, and then back to the levels we're at today by 2015. With all these distressed properties potentially making their way to an already stressed marketplace, Nickerson, along with a panel of industry professionals at the inaugural MPact Conference advocated for bulk short sales to investors and nonprofits.