Print Features

With so many legal stipulations to bear in mind, deserted dwellings are anything but an open-and-shut case. As foreclosure resolution time frames swell, servicers and investors must maintain property preservation standards for longer periods of time. Properties at the highest risk of loss or damage are vacant properties. Vacancy presents a host of problems to servicers and investors in managing their foreclosure inventory. Paramount among those concerns is vandalism.

In light of their ineffectiveness in preventing another downturn in housing and their possible contribution to the slowness of the housing recovery, the question then becomes whether the imposition of penalties by the federal government, while "not insurmountable," is really in the best interest of the American consumer. Are they prudent or just petty?

In the housing industry, the only constant is change. In an economy that is still on the road to housing recovery and an industry that is still in a period of consolidation after the biggest financial downturn since the Great Depression, the best in the business are nimble on their feet and adaptable to the set of circumstances that is presented.

New regulations have the propensity to transform the mortgage industry into a system where servicers deliver, regulators protect, and consumers trust again. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) mortgage servicing regulations aim to do just that—get delinquent borrowers into loan modification plans and establish effective communication channels between the servicer and borrower to ultimately protect them from foreclosure.

Select Print Feature, originally appeared in the February 2013 issue of DS News magazine.   Suicide. Accusations of prosecutorial overkill fanned by political aspirations. Scores of homeowners perhaps unfairly evicted. All elements, surely, of a nightmarish made-for-TV movie, right? Unfortunately, ...

Select Print Feature, originally appeared in the December 2012 issue of DS News Magazine.   For get prices. Forget mortgage rates. The main driver of housing demand—according to three separate and distinct market studies—is confidence, primarily assurance that the value ...

 Select Print Feature, originally appeared in the September 2013 issue of DS News magazine. As new regulations take shape, one thing’s for certain: A clear, methodical response is key to tapering regulatory risk and preventing servicers from seeing red.   ...

  Select Print Feature, originally appeared in the May, 2013 issue of DS News Magazine. Can servicers and their partners in the field work through the many obstacles that come with fast-tracking vacant foreclosures? Several jurisdictions are considering legislation or ...

  Select Print Feature, originally appeared in the September 2013 issue of DS News Magazine.   Barney Frank served as a U.S. Congressman, representing the fourth district of Massachusetts, from 1981 to 2012 and occupied the chairman’s seat of the House Financial Services ...

Special Print Feature, originally appeared in the May 2013 issue of DS News Magazine.   By Jerry Alt The days of winging it are long gone for our universe of distressed assets and loss recovery—the result of a chain reaction that inexorably ...