Loss Mitigation

The Arizona Department of Housing (ADOH) announced last week that it has received $683,060 to support the continuation of the state’s foreclosure prevention counseling efforts. The much-needed boost will enable an existing network of 13 community-based organizations across Arizona to provide continued assistance to homeowners in danger of foreclosure, ADOH said in a press statement.

West Palm Beach, Florida-based Ocwen Financial Corporation, one of the nation’s largest servicers of subprime mortgages, has reported solid success with its program to modify substantial numbers of troubled loans in a way that avoids redefault, and keeps borrowers in their homes and loans performing for investors.

Fannie Mae announced a series of actions this week designed to help borrowers and loan servicers get an early jump on potential mortgage problems and prevent unnecessary home foreclosures among the more than 18 million single-family loans owned or guaranteed by the government-sponsored enterprise (GSE).

Birmingham, Alabama-based Regions Financial Corporation says that even in today’s challenging economy and housing market, its proactive home retention strategy has allowed the company to maintain a foreclosure rate of less than one percent for residential first mortgages.

Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director James B. Lockhart submitted the agency’s first report to Congress yesterday detailing actions FHFA and the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) are taking to prevent unnecessary foreclosures.

The national law firm McGlinchey Stafford PLLC has unveiled a solution it says will make mortgage loan modifications efficient and seamless for financial institutions facing the prospect of large-scale processing demands.

HOPE NOW, the private sector alliance of mortgage servicers, counselors, and investors whose mission is to prevent foreclosures and keep homeowners in their homes, yesterday announced that the mortgage industry prevented 225,000 foreclosures in October.

Jacksonville, Florida’s USAffordable Home LLC recently introduced what it is calling a breakthrough product designed to preserve homeownership for those struggling to make their mortgage payments.

New Jersey’s Society for the Preservation of Continued Homeownership (SPOCH), a non-profit group which facilitates favorable mortgage loan workouts, has selected Walnut Creek, California-based National Loan Auditors (NLA) to administer forensic loan audits.

The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) has unveiled a plan to refinance billions of dollars of at-risk mortgages using funding from the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The initiative is aimed at helping credit union members preserve their homeownership by funneling federal loans to credit unions through the Central Liquidity Facility (CLF), the lending arm of the NCUA, the administration explained in a press statement earlier this week.