Tag Archives: Foreclosure Prevention

According to the latest monthly housing scorecard from the Obama administration, the housing market has officially bottomed out, although ""recovery remains fragile."" With prices rising for 12 consecutive months as of October and sales on the rise as well, HUD's senior advisor on housing finance, Michael Berman said, ""[O]ur housing market is continuing to show important signs of recovery."" The government's Making Home Affordable Program has achieved more than 1.5 million loss mitigations and early delinquency interventions, according to the December report.

One of the biggest provisions of the QM rule is the newly set Ability-to-Repay rule, which demands that all new mortgages comply with basic requirements to protect consumers from taking on loans they can't repay. The rule does away with so-called ""no doc"" and ""low doc"" mortgages, requiring that all of a borrower's pertinent financial information must be supplied and verified. The Ability-to-Repay rule also stipulates that lenders base their evaluation of a consumer's ability to pay on long-term views, discounting ""teaser"" or ""starter"" rates typically used in the introductory period.

Nevada Attorney General (AG) Catherine Cortez Masto announced a new program to help homeowners in Nevada find state and federal assistance that might be available to them. The Home Again Nevada Homeowner Relief Program is a one-stop resource center that is accessed by calling 1-855-HLP-4-NEV (1-855-457-4638).

Even though the housing market is improving and mortgage delinquencies are declining, MortgageKeeper Referral Services reported a busy year. MortgageKeeper is the developer of a web-based data application that connects struggling homeowners with qualified nonprofit and government agencies.

Ten major mortgage servicers reached an agreement with federal regulators to pay more than $8.5 billion over alleged foreclosure abuses, the Federal Reserve announced in a release Monday. The agreement replaces the Independent Foreclosure Review process with a new framework allowing eligible borrowers to receive compensation more quickly. Of the $8.5 billion, $3.3 billion will go toward direct payments to eligible borrowers and $5.2 billion will be used to assist borrowers in other ways, such as through loan modifications.

Despite the steady increase in home prices in 2012, Fitch Ratings says it ""remains cautious"" in its outlook on home values. According to a report from the ratings agency, home prices have risen ""at their greatest pace since 2005,"" but in certain markets, technical factors rather than ""fundamentals"" acted as the driving force behind the price gains over the past few quarters. Fitch explained technical factors such as low mortgage rates, the tight supply of existing homes for sale, and weak levels of new home construction are leading to affordability and driving demand while ""offsetting weak fundamentals.""

In Q3 2012, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac completed about 134,200 foreclosure prevention actions, according to a report from the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA). Of that total, 62,500 foreclosure prevention actions were through loan modifications, and 38,000 were from short sales and deeds-in-lieu. Overall, since the start of their conservatorship in September 2008, the GSEs have completed 2.5 million foreclosure prevention actions.

Fewer homes were added to foreclosure inventory in November as short sales become a more common tool to prevent foreclosure, CoreLogic reported Thursday. Data from CoreLogic revealed 55,000 homes were lost to foreclosure in November. The figure represents a 23 percent decrease from November 2011 and a 6 percent decrease from October’s upwardly revised 59,000. Although foreclosure inventory is shrinking, the number of completed foreclosures is still high compared to pre-crises levels.

Tailwinds should continue for specialty servicers in 2013, according to a report from FBR. As large, traditional servicers become unwilling to service certain asset that require more attention, FBR says it believes about $600 billion to $700 billion in ""high-touch, credit sensitive assets"" will eventually make their way into the specialty servicing and sub-servicing sectors.

In the third quarter of this year, the overall percentage of mortgages that managed to stay current improved from last year, but declined slightly quarter-over-quarter, according to a report from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The report also found foreclosure activity ""remains elevated,"" but fewer properties entered the foreclosure process. In Q3, more home retention actions were also applied compared with home forfeiture actions (foreclosure sales, short sales, and deeds-in-lieu).