News

Chase is continuing its eight-city tour to provide targeted, face-to-face mortgage assistance for borrowers who may be facing foreclosure. From Friday, July 23 to Friday July 30, a team of the bank's loan advisors will be setting up shop in downtown Washington, D.C. at the Mayflower, Renaissance Hotel to counsel struggling homeowners and help them find the right solution for their financial situations.

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) recently named Kathy Marquardt AVP of commercial servicing and council coordinator. This appointment will become effective August 9, 2010. In her new role, Marquardt will serve as MBA's expert on commercial real estate loan servicing issues, and she will coordinate all commercial business activities.

A federal investigation has exposed ties between Fannie Mae executives and Countrywide's controversial ""Friends of Angelo"" VIP loan program. Documents subpoenaed by Rep. Darrell Issa revealed that 27 former employees at the government-sponsored mortgage company received 153 subsidized, low-cost loans through the Countrywide program - a program that Issa says existed to buy friends in critical government and industry positions affecting the company's business interests.

Interthinx has expanded its risk services to collateral valuation. In an effort to change the way appraisals are analyzed, the company recently launched Interthinx Review Appraisal Services - an appraisal review service that leverages the company's expertise in fraud analytics and helps lenders mitigate the risk of investor buybacks due to collateral valuation issues. To provide these services to its national client network, Interthinx combined its appraisal team with the technical expertise of the Appraisal.com platform developed by ACI.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. (FINRA) has fined Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. $7.5 million for negligently misrepresenting delinquency data in connection with the issuance of subprime securities. The independent securities regulator found that Deutsche Bank misstated and underreported the percentages of mortgages that were delinquent in the prospectus supplements of six subprime residential mortgage backed securities (RMBS) issued in 2006, worth approximately $2.2 billion.

Sales of existing homes fell further in June but still remained notably higher than year-ago levels, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported Thursday. According to NAR's study, existing-home sales came in at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.37 million units in June, down 5.1 percent from May. However, sales were still 9.8 percent higher than the same period last year. June marked the second consecutive month-to-month drop in sales numbers, as housing inventory rose to an 8.9-month supply.

Renters who find themselves indirect victims of foreclosure were not forgotten in the financial reform legislation. The Dodd-Frank bill will extend the Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act (PTFA) through the end of 2014. PFTA provides renters whose landlords have lost their properties to foreclosure the right to stay in the home for 90 days after the foreclosure or through the term of their lease. The legislation also includes a provision that requires the HUD secretary to develop a program to refinance troubled multifamily mortgages.

After holding mostly steady last week, mortgage rates resumed the journey downward this week to hit new record lows. Two industry reports released Thursday pointed to weakening confidence in the strength of the economy as the source of the week-to-week drop. According to Freddie Mac's survey, 30-year fixed-rate mortgages are now averaging 4.56 percent. Rates for 15-year fixed mortgages also fell to an average of 4.03 percent.

The new financial reform legislation provides an additional $1 billion for HUD's Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) - a nationwide initiative aimed at alleviating the effects of the foreclosure crisis on communities that are riddled with abandoned properties. In some cities, take a drive down any one street and you'll find three or more homes that have been boarded up and in some cases, commandeered by squatters and turned into havens for criminal activity. NSP was launched to address this very issue by allowing local and state government's to take back their cities and eliminate blight.

The number of foreclosures started by lenders in Massachusetts during the month of June decreased from a year earlier, the second straight month that petitions to foreclose have declined, according to a new report by the Boston-based research firm the Warren Group. But despite the drop in foreclosures initiated, the number of completed foreclosures more than doubled from a year earlier as lenders there work through heavy backlogs.