Tag Archives: Housing Counseling

Chase has opened two new Homeownership Centers in North Carolina to provide one-on-one help for borrowers struggling with their mortgage payments - one in Fayetteville, near Fort Bragg and the second in Jacksonville, near Camp Lejeune. The company is staffing all of its Homeownership Centers near military bases with employees who have served in the military or military family members. Chase also recently set up Centers near bases in Texas and Virginia, and has plans for openings later this year in Tennessee and Washington.

Fannie Mae last week opened a mortgage help center in Sacramento, California, to provide free education and counseling services to struggling local homeowners with Fannie Mae-owned mortgages. The facility is Fannie Mae's 10th mortgage help center across the country. The GSE developed the center in partnership with NeighborWorks HomeOwnership Center Sacramento Region, which staffs the office, as well as with local community and elected officials and area mortgage servicers.

HUD has announced that it will distribute more than $10 million to housing counselors throughout the country. Grants have been awarded to 139 local counseling agencies and 23 housing counseling intermediaries. The funding is specifically earmarked to help distressed homeowners with mortgage modifications and other loss mitigation options, and to combat scams perpetrated by fraudulent foreclosure rescue companies. HUD says the grant money is unspent funding from its 2010 appropriation.

HOPE LoanPort announced Wednesday that Camillo T. Melchiorre will assume the role of president and CEO, effective September 1st. He replaces Larry Gilmore, co-founder of HOPE LoanPort and president and CEO since 2009, who has stepped down to pursue other opportunities. Melchiorre led the HOPE NOW Alliance Technology Committee that resulted in the creation of HOPE LoanPort and has served as a member of the board of directors since its inception.

HOPE LoanPort recently announced that the organization has now registered over 3,000 HUD-certified, nonprofit housing counselors in a little over a year of full operation. Counselors from more than 630 organizations in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico are now using the system to assist struggling homeowners. HOPE LoanPort is also upgrading its technology to comply with the Federal Housing Finance Agency's new guidelines for managing the GSEs' delinquent loans.

HOPE LoanPort has announced a partnership with the state of Maryland and GMAC Mortgage to deliver a direct-to-consumer foreclosure mediation portal. GMAC is funding development of the portal and will be the first mortgage servicer to use it. The portal, scheduled to go live in October 2011, will be the first statewide program in the nation to allow homeowners and servicers to exchange documents electronically prior to foreclosure mediation.

Lenders continue to battle the headwinds of high unemployment, a stalled economic recovery, and a backlog of bad loans from the heyday of the housing boom - all playing into a marketplace stressed with high levels of delinquencies and complex resolutions. But the underpinnings of a new age of creditworthy, financially savvy borrowers are beginning to take shape. The counseling agency CredAbility says its Consumer Distress Index has improved for three consecutive quarters.

Mortgage delinquencies declined 27 percent in the first half of 2011 compared to the first half of 2010, according to data from HOPE NOW. For the first half of 2011, the number of 60-day plus delinquencies was 2.7 million, down 1 million from the first half of 2010. Foreclosure sales also declined year-over-year for the period - down 25 percent. At the same time, the total number of foreclosure starts during the first six months of 2011 was 1.13 million, a decrease of 9 percent from the first six months of 2010.

Wells Fargo and the National Urban League have released the second edition of ""The Foreclosure Workbook: The Complete Guide to Understanding Foreclosure and Saving Your Home."" The resource offers information to aid homeowners behind on their mortgage payments. Through its affiliates that manage homeownership and foreclosure prevention programs, the Urban League will distribute about 7,500 copies of this latest edition to distressed homeowners across the country.

The Homeownership Preservation Foundation (HPF), an independent nonprofit dedicated to helping distressed homeowners avoid foreclosure, unveiled its new, redesigned website Wednesday. HPF operates the nationwide Homeowner's HOPE Hotline. Its new site now mirrors the assistance already available via phone, including step-by-step details on the foreclosure process, an overview of alternative lender solutions, and details on government mortgage relief programs.