Loss Mitigation

Vermont Attorney General William H. Sorrell announced Wednesday that Countrywide Financial Corporation, now a part of Bank of America, has entered into a settlement with his office to resolve claims concerning Countrywide's origination of home loans in past years. The agreement calls for Countrywide to pay $100,000, which will be disbursed to borrowers in the state whose Countrywide loans were foreclosed upon and used for general foreclosure prevention efforts.

Deflated in price and in purpose, the hotly debated Michigan arena rises to life again, thanks to globally targeted auction.

Altisource Portfolio Solutions announced Tuesday that First Associates, Inc. has implemented its REALRemit solution, an automated e-commerce invoicing and borrower payment portal, to manage accounts payable and borrower loan payments.

New data from HOPE NOW shows that servicers completed more than 95,000 loan modifications through their own proprietary programs in February. That's almost double the 52,000 modifications finalized under the government's Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) during the same month. The report also showed declines in the number of 60-day delinquencies and foreclosure starts and sales.

Federal regulators are warning that by the end of 2010, half of all commercial real estate mortgages will be underwater. Their biggest concern is that most of these souring loans are concentrated in mid-sized banks, making them especially vulnerable to failure. The Treasury secretary, though, says commercial real estate is a problem that can be managed, and news from the field supports his assumption, as lenders appear to be moving more aggressively to modify commercial mortgages and avert another default tsunami.

Various HOPE NOW servicers, including Bank of America, Chase, Citi, GMAC, Suntrust, Wells Fargo, and others, assisted more than 1,300 troubled borrowers during three homeownership preservation events held across the Pacific Northwest last week. According to HOPE NOW, 532 families attended the first of the three events, which was held in Portland, Oregon on March 23. And the two-day event in Bellevue, Washington on March 25 and March 26 saw an additional 796 homeowners.

Marshall & Ilsley Corporation (M&I), a diversified financial services corporation headquartered in Milwaukee, announced Monday that it has extended its foreclosure moratorium an additional 90 days - through June 30, 2010. The moratorium is on all owner-occupied residential loans for customers who agree to work in good faith to reach a successful repayment agreement, and it applies to applicable loans in all M&I markets.

First American CoreLogic estimates that the typical underwater homeowner will not begin to surface until late 2015 to early 2016. It's an even longer stretch for some of the most depressed markets, where the company says the typical borrower in negative equity may not experience positive equity until 2020 or later. Of the markets studied, the Washington D.C. area is expected to return to positive territory first, while homeowners in Detroit will have the longest duration of negative equity.

The Treasury Department's supplemental directives for the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) have placed increased requirements on lenders and servicers helping distressed borrowers. But Houston-based Stewart Lender Services (SLS), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Stewart Title Company, recently announced its ability to help national lenders and services comply with these directives in a timely, cost-effective manner.

The administration announced Monday that it is expanding its initiative to provide funding for state housing finance agencies to develop their own localized mortgage assistance programs. A second round of funding, totaling $600 million, will go to five additional states: North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, and South Carolina. Last month, $1.5 billion in aid was allocated to be divided between California, Nevada, Arizona, Florida, and Michigan.