News

Katie Van Hook has been promoted to business development manager for Continental REO Services, Inc. She has four years' experience working as a closing coordinator for the company. Prior to joining Continental REO, Van Hook worked in closing and escrow positions for JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. and Fidelity National Title Company. She also has experience in loan processing.

Short sales are being used more frequently by homeowners, lenders, and investors to avert a foreclosure, and industry data released this week shows that these pre-foreclosure transactions are being pushed through at a faster pace. Freddie Mac says its short sales have risen from about 4 percent of completed workouts in 2000 to nearly 14 percent in 2010. The GSE warns that with the increase in short sale transactions comes an increase in fraud. It's become the top priority for Freddie Mac's fraud investigation unit.

Word on the street is the administration is sizing up a new program that would provide millions of homeowners with new, lower interest, lower payment mortgages. The initiative would allow borrowers with loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to refinance at today's rates, even if they are in negative equity or have bad marks on their credit. Two Columbia business professors say such a move would save homeowners an average of $350 a month and pump an extra $118 billion into the economy.

Among the ongoing court cases surrounding the right of Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems' (MERS) to foreclose homes, one case out of California has been elevated to the Supreme Court. A San Diego foreclosure attorney filed a petition with the Supreme Court last week asking for a review of a California appellate court's decision that affirmed MERS' right to foreclose. This is the first case to be elevated to the Supreme Court, according to the attorney for the homeowner.

Econohomes is an Austin, Texas-based company that buys distressed REO properties in bulk and operates an online marketplace to get these homes back into the hands of owner-occupants and investors. The company is looking to make it easier for Hispanic buyers to get into the game. Econohomes is now offering bilingual services and Spanish-language online information to assist the Hispanic community with real estate transactions, both first-time homebuyers and property investors.

In its August 2011 Budget and Economic Outlook update, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicts the government will spend $35 billion less on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2011 than in 2010. The CBO estimates it will spend $5 billion on the GSEs in 2011 after having spent $40 billion last year. The CBO says the decrease is mostly due to lower projections in losses for the GSEs in upcoming years. This updated 2011 estimate is $6 billion lower than the CBO's previous estimate.

Mortgage rates moved higher this week off the previous week's record lows as Treasury bond yields rose and other housing data showed improvement. One anomaly was the 5-year adjustable-rate mortgage, which declined one-tenths of a percentage point to set a new all-time low. The 30-year fixed rate rose to 4.22 percent, while the 15-year rate came in at 3.44 percent.

HOPE LoanPort has announced a partnership with the state of Maryland and GMAC Mortgage to deliver a direct-to-consumer foreclosure mediation portal. GMAC is funding development of the portal and will be the first mortgage servicer to use it. The portal, scheduled to go live in October 2011, will be the first statewide program in the nation to allow homeowners and servicers to exchange documents electronically prior to foreclosure mediation.

A2Z Field Services, a provider of property inspection, preservation, and REO market-ready services nationwide, has announced the promotion of Amie Sparks to SVP of operations. Sparks is responsible for all aspects of national operations, including management of three HUD Field Services Management (FSM) contracts, which were awarded in June 2010 and renewed in June 2011.

Short sales shot up 19 percent between the first and second quarters, with 102,407 transactions completed during the April-to-June period, according to RealtyTrac. Over the same timeframe, a total of 162,680 bank-owned REO homes sold to third parties, virtually unchanged from the first quarter. RealtyTrac's study also found that the time to complete a short sale is down, while the time it takes to sell an REO has lengthened. Discounts on both types of distressed properties increased last quarter.