News

Short Sale Association of America (SSAA) has officially launched its short sale platform to real estate agents and brokers. With over 12 million U.S. homeowners upside-down on their mortgage, Jonathan Bowman, founder of SSAA, notes that the industry certainly has its worked cut out, but he says the resources provided his organization will empower agents at all levels of expertise to reach and effectively assist as many distressed homeowners as possible.

A recent report by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reveals interesting information regarding the foreclosure inventory of the hardest hit states. It is pretty well known that Arizona, Nevada, California, and Florida have been most affected by the foreclosure crisis. Together the four states make up 42 percent of the foreclosure volume in the United States. Despite this, NAR estimates it could take as little as seven months to clear the shadow inventory in some of the hardest hit states.

The nation's second largest mortgage company says early workouts are central to its game plan for 2011. This ""nip it in the bud"" mindset can be key to getting in front of delinquencies before they turn into lost-cause foreclosures, and Freddie Mac says it's making changes to the way it evaluates the performance of mortgage servicers in order to ensure problem loans are tackled early on and increase the odds of getting borrowers back to performing status. Namely, the GSE is pushing servicers to make contact with homeowners by the third day of delinquency.

Another lawsuit centered around mortgage securities backed by faulty loans may be brewing. The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) has threatened to sue four banks and investment firms unless they refund more than $50 billion for mortgage-related bonds that went bad. Goldman Sachs, Bank of America's Merrill Lynch unit, Citigroup, and J.P. Morgan Chase are named as the targets of NCUA's legal threats. The regulator says mortgage securities sold by these companies led to the collapse of five wholesale credit unions.

Rowell Auctions, Inc. has launched a new national Internet radio show that will educate listeners about property auctions. The show will feature top real estate and auction leaders from across the country, and will target potential bidders, real estate agents, sellers, and other auction firms. Stanley Tate, CEO of Tate Enterprises in North Miami, Florida and former head of Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC), was the first guest featured on the radio show's inaugural broadcast March 18.

BrokerPriceOpinion.com, a nationwide provider of client-customized valuation solutions, has named Chris McLain as its new director of business development. McLain will manage sales, re-seller relationships, strategic partnerships, and business development for BrokerPriceOpinion.com. He will be based in Gainesville, Florida, providing the company with an East Coast representative as it moves to accelerate growth initiatives in that region.

Performance of commercial real estate in the United States is bifurcated, according to Moody's Investors Service, with larger properties in major markets recovering value while distressed properties remain well off the peak. New research released by the credit ratings agency shows that prices on a sub-set of non-distressed properties, which have traded for more than $10 million, are down 19 percent from October 2007. Prices of distressed properties, on the other hand, have tumbled 54 percent since October 2007.

Woodward Asset Capital has announced plans to launch a new short sale technology application in April that the company says will prevent short sale fraud while reducing transaction times and netting lenders the highest possible sale price. Woodward explained that its new software, VerifiedShortSale, puts the mortgage servicer in control be being first to review every offer while ensuring a transparent process. It's modeled after the company's REO application, OfferSubmission.

The FDIC filed a lawsuit last week against three former Washington Mutual (WaMu) executives and two of their wives, alleging that they ran the bank into the ground in order to fatten their own wallets. The lawsuit says former WaMu CEO Kerry Killinger, former COO Stephen Rotella, and home loans president David Schneider focused on short-term gains to increase their own compensation, while encouraging risky mortgage lending when they knew the housing market was about to collapse.

After the House passed measures to terminate several federal foreclosure prevention programs, Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee stepped in with a measure of his own - a bill that establishes a grant program to fund efforts by state and local governments to provide mediation between homeowners and lenders in order to pursue alternatives to foreclosure. The mediation would postpone sheriff sales of owner-occupied residences until viable options to avert foreclosure have been explored.