Tag Archives: Foreclosure Prevention

Representatives from both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac upheld the companies' practice of assessing penalties against servicers who fail to meet defined timelines for processing foreclosures. Speaking at a mortgage banking conference in Dallas last week, GSE execs stressed that clearly the best outcome for both Fannie and Freddie is to keep the borrower in their home, but when that's not possible, it's critical that servicers complete the foreclosure process in a timely manner to clear bad loans from the pipeline.

About 885,000 borrowers have received permanent loan modifications so far this year, according to October data from HOPE NOW. The voluntary alliance of mortgage industry participants announced last month that the industry had completed 5 million modifications since 2007. October saw almost 80,000 proprietary and HAMP modifications. Sixty-plus day delinquencies declined 6 percent between September and October, and foreclosure sales fell 5 percent. Foreclosure starts, however, rose by 7 percent.

Lender Processing Services (LPS) has added additional functionality to its MSP loan servicing platform that the company says will help servicers better track and manage loans belonging to military service members. LPS' Military Service Relief (MSR) workstation adds 30 fields to MSP to allow servicers to identify and process loans protected under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA), while providing stop-gap measures to guard against foreclosing on military personnel.

Servicers for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have completed almost 2 million foreclosure prevention actions for the two companies since they went into conservatorship in 2008, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency's (FHFA) third-quarter report released Wednesday. More than half of these actions have been loan modifications, and of the remainder, about 676,500 have kept homeowners in their homes. About 269,700 were short sales or deeds-in-lieu of foreclosure.

The U.S. Treasury said Wednesday that it will continue to withhold incentives from JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America for modifications, short sales, and deeds-in-lieu completed through government programs. JPMorgan is the only servicer participating in Treasury's Making Home Affordable program that was determined to need ""substantial improvement"" in complying with program guidelines during the third quarter. Bank of America moved up a notch on the assessment scorecard to needing only ""moderate improvement.""

Foreclosures are going to go up before they go down, according to Craig Nickerson, president of the National Community Stabilization Trust. Nickerson says estimates put foreclosure tallies at 850,000 this year, as high as 1.5 million in 2013, and then back to the levels we're at today by 2015. With all these distressed properties potentially making their way to an already stressed marketplace, Nickerson, along with a panel of industry professionals at the inaugural MPact Conference advocated for bulk short sales to investors and nonprofits.

Three government agencies are combining efforts to address mortgage modification scams through a joint task force. With the announcement of the task force, the participating agencies -- the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and the Treasury Department -- released a consumer fraud alert to ensure homeowners understand that only their mortgage servicer has discretion to grant a loan modification.

Data released by Lender Processing Services (LPS) Thursday shows mortgage delinquencies are continuing to decline, now nearly 30 percent below their January 2010 peak. Loans in the process of foreclosure, on the other hand, are steadily rising. LPS says foreclosure inventories reached an all-time high at the end of October, making up 4.29 percent of all active mortgages. The average days delinquent for loans in foreclosure extended as well during the month, setting a new record of 631 days since last payment.

Disenchanted with the lack of progress made after a year of negotiations between state attorneys general and the nation's five largest mortgage servicers, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley has split from the pack and filed her own individual lawsuit. Coakley is suing Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, Citi, and GMAC for what she says were ""illegal foreclosures."" The suit also names Mortgage Electronic Registration System, Inc. (MERS) and its parent company as defendants.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac announced temporary eviction moratoriums on all single-family homes and two-to-four unit properties over the holidays. Both companies will enforce the moratorium from December 19 through January 2. The suspension will not affect the pre- or post-foreclosure processes. Servicers may continue the administrative processes involved in foreclosures, but evictions will be delayed until after the start of the new year.