Loss Mitigation

Vicki Bott, HUD's deputy assistant secretary for single-family housing, is departing the federal agency, a HUD spokesperson has confirmed. Bott joined HUD in September 2009, just as the administration was knee-deep in ramping up and rolling out a host of programs to address the nation's raging foreclosure crisis. At HUD, Bott was responsible for the direction and management of all single-family Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgage insurance programs, including the disposition of repossessed homes.

Commerce Velocity, a member of the Fidelity National Financial family of companies, recently released its Loss Mitigation Borrower Portal. The portal supports the federal requirement instituted by regulators under the consent orders issued to servicers in April for communicating with borrowers via a single point-of-contact (SPOC). It also provides borrowers with a place to review the status of a loan, upload financial documents.

Ongoing deterioration in real estate markets and rising levels of distressed residential and commercial properties are areas of acute concern for officials at the Federal Reserve, as banks' performance and capital continue to be adversely affected. Renewed concerns have surfaced about the health of the mortgage market and home equity loans in particular, while high vacancy rates and declining rents still plague the commercial sector. The Fed says it will take time to make progress on the overhang of distress, and banks should expect continuing losses.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors and Wells Fargo Home Mortgage have joined forces to create a national alliance focused on foreclosure prevention, property disposition, homeownership promotion, and community development. The three-year initiative will address housing issues with strategies and outreach initiatives involving mayors and their constituents. With the challenges facing the nation, the parties say it is important that the private and public sectors work together on options that address cities' individual needs.

Underwater borrowers have become a focus of numerous industry surveys and analyses, and a growing concern for market participants due to the potential of negative equity to trigger default. A recent study by CoreLogic delved deeper into the statistics to examine the distribution of negative equity by default status. Aggregate negative equity among mortgage borrowers was $750 billion as of the end of last year. CoreLogic says 8 percent of that total balance involved mortgages that were in foreclosure.

MortgageKeeper Referral Services, the developer of a national database that connects financially strapped homeowners with qualified nonprofit and government agencies for assistance, has released its May Homeowner Needs Status Report. The company says more than 40,000 homeowner assistance referrals were issued last month - a 15 percent increase over April.

Indiana has enacted a new foreclosure law surrounding the state's pre-judgment mediation program, outlining changes related to borrower notification and loss mitigation documentation. Senate Bill 582 passed both chambers of the state Legislature by a near unanimous vote, with only one senator casting a nay, and was quickly signed into law by Gov. Mitch Daniels. The law becomes effective for all new residential foreclosure filings as of July 1.

A dozen U.S. senators are pooling their influence to persuade federal regulators to work with state attorneys general and other federal agencies to ""fix the broken foreclosure process,"" as the lawmakers put it. In a letter to the OCC, the senators stressed that the regulators' consent orders do not preclude states' efforts to hold servicers accountable for any wrongful foreclosures. In a separate move, lawmakers have tagged a servicing regulation bill on as an amendment to the larger economic development legislation making its way through Congress.

JPMorgan Chase has dismissed David Lowman, who ran the bank's mortgage operations. Lowman joined JPMorgan in 2006 from Citigroup as chief executive officer of the bank's Global Mortgage division. He was promoted just three months later to chief executive officer of Chase Home Lending, where he was responsible for home equity and default, as well as all of Chase's consumer real estate business. He came under fire soon after evidence surfaced of flawed foreclosure paperwork and illegal seizures of servicemembers' homes.

According to Sperlonga Data and Analytics, unpaid homeowners association (HOA) fees are a clear sign of potential mortgage default. Sperlonga has launched a new service, Loss Mitigation Association Surveillance (LMAS), which is designed to help mortgage servicers reduce risk after a loan modification by alerting lenders when a borrower is falling behind on HOA fees, which are historically difficult to track. With the new service, lenders can identify potential defaults or troubled modifications months before the borrower misses a mortgage payment.