Tag Archives: Foreclosure Prevention

Fannie Mae announced Wednesday that it is opening an extension of its Los Angeles Mortgage Help Center. The Los Angeles Mortgage Help Center serves the Inland Empire region as part of the GSE's nationwide effort to educate families about their options and tools for avoiding foreclosure.

The GSE announced that it will align requirements for mortgages with loan-to-value (LTV) ratios that are equal to or less than 80 percent with those for mortgages with LTV ratios greater than 80 percent. In addition, Freddie Mac said it is evaluating the Relief Refinance program by focusing on its Open Access offering and determining the best approach to maximize the program's reach.

Capital One agreed to pay approximately $12 million to settle a lawsuit alleging the bank did not uphold certain protections in the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA), the Justice Department announced Thursday.

The Aloha State recently passed three new bills related to mortgage servicing and mortgage origination. All three went into effect at the beginning of this month.

In hard-hit state Nevada, more than 60 percent of homeowners are underwater, and about one in 16 properties received a foreclosure notice in 2011, according to a 2012 Face of Foreclosure study released by the Nevada Association of REALTORS (NVAR). With negative equity and foreclosures seeming so commonplace in the state, the stigma of strategic default appears to be fading. ""This year's report shows it's more socially acceptable to strategically default on your mortgage,"" said NVAR President Blane Johnson. When surveyed on the topic, 51 percent of those who were foreclosed on said there is nothing wrong with strategic default as a financial decision while 36 percent said homeowners should not choose to strategically default.

In recent months, data from the Mortgage Bankers Association, Freddie Mac, Bankrate, and other firms has shown mortgage rates steadily falling, hitting new lows week after week in some measures. However, Capital Economics contends that there is actually little evidence to suggest that this activity is translating into heavier demand. While the Federal Reserve's Senior Loan Officer Survey reported rising demand for mortgage finance in the past three quarters, this increase in demand hasn't shown up in mortgage applications for home purchase, which have remained relatively flat.

Sen. Jeff Merkley(D-Oregon) announced a plan Wednesday to allow underwater homeowners to refinance at lower interest rates through the creation of a Rebuilding American Homeownership Trust. His plans call for a one-time trust he says is similar to the Homeownership Loan Corporation created during the Great Depression. As banks refinance underwater homeowners, the trust would purchase the loans from the banks. Meanwhile, the trust would receive funding from bond sales.

Following promising reports of sales in California's Southland Empire, DataQuick issued another release revealing that foreclosure activity is down in the state. According to the company's data, the number of California homes entering the formal foreclosure process dropped in the year's second quarter to its lowest level since early 2007.

Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Stockton) recently introduced a bill to speed up the short sale process by requiring subordinate mortgage lien holders to make a decision on a short sale within 45 days. McNerney's bill proposes that if the lender does not make a decision within the given time period, the short sale will be approved on the 46th day. The bill, titled Fast Help For Homeowners (FHFH) Act, received strong support from the ""National Association of Realtors.

A report released Thursday from AARP suggests that older Americans may not have escaped the foreclosure crisis unscathed, as some previously thought. The report, titled Nightmare on Main Street: Older Americans and the Mortgage Market Crisis, showed that many of the country's older citizens are taking their mortgage debt with them into retirement. Approximately 600,000 older homeowners were experiencing foreclosure, and another 625,000 were 90 or more days delinquent.