Tag Archives: Loan Modification

Fannie Mae announced the opening this week of two facilities in Florida to provide free education and counseling services to struggling homeowners - the Tampa Mortgage Help Center and the Jacksonville Mortgage Help Center. Available to borrowers with Fannie Mae loans, the centers offer one-on-one consultations with experienced housing counselors to review mortgage loans and financing options, explain the range of options available, and help borrowers apply for loan workouts and other alternatives to foreclosure.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reached a settlement this week with two companies and three individuals, who are now banned from the mortgage relief services business and must pay $2.2 million in assets for consumer refunds. The FTC filed the proposed consent order in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. The move is part of the federal agency's efforts to thwart scams targeting homeowners seeking mortgage relief.

Four fair housing organizations have released their findings of a year-long undercover investigation of 80 loan modification companies, which reveal a host of corrupt practices scammers employ to target homeowners in distress. According to the report, 55 percent of loan modification companies required an upfront fee to start work or a low initial fee to conduct minimal work, such as reviewing loan documents. Twenty-four percent advised or encouraged homeowners to stop making mortgage payments or stop contacting their lenders.

Mortgage servicers had been completing over 100,000 loan modifications per month since late 2009, but that streak came to an end in February. HOPE NOW reports that 87,083 homeowners received permanent loan modifications - through both proprietary and government programs - during the month of February. That's about 14 percent fewer than the previous month and the first time the organization's modification tally has fallen below the 100K mark in nearly a year and a half.

The California-based NID Housing Counseling Agency now requires its counselors to use HOPE LoanPort as the primary tool for submitting home retention applications to mortgage servicers. HOPE LoanPort, developed by the HOPE NOW Alliance, is a Web-based tool that streamlines home retention applications on behalf of borrowers at risk of foreclosure.

CitiMortgage Inc. has been hit with a class action lawsuit for allegedly denying borrowers a permanent loan modification through the government's Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). The complaint was filed with a U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania on behalf of homeowners in the state who have entered into a trial modification plan, made all payments as required, and complied with CitiMortgage's requests for documentation, but have not received or have been denied a permanent HAMP mod, according to the lawsuit.

Although the Treasury Department has vowed to hold mortgage servicers publicly accountable for their adherence to Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) guidelines, some senators want to go one step further. They have proposed establishing a new federal agency as a means of recourse for ""families who face foreclosure but believe their mortgage servicers are breaking the rules."" Legislators say if the bill passes, HAMP has the potential of reaching its original goal of helping 3 to 4 million homeowners.

The nation's largest mortgage servicers foreclosed on 95,067 homes during the fourth quarter of 2010, a 49 percent drop from the number of completed foreclosures during the previous quarter, according to a new report from two regulatory agencies. Newly initiated foreclosures also decreased but by a much smaller ratio of 8 percent. Because new foreclosures outpaced completed foreclosures, the inventory of foreclosures in process increased to 1,290,253, representing 3.9 percent of all serviced loans among the largest national firms.

Treasury has released a new report on the government's foreclosure prevention efforts. In addition to the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) numbers that are regularly recounted, new this month are details on short sales and second lien modifications. As of the end of February, 4,488 homeowners completed a short sale or deed-in-lieu under the Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives (HAFA) program. Another 10,177 borrowers have HAFA agreements in place. Second-lien modifications have been provided to 16,951 homeowners.

Genworth Financial, a mortgage insurer based in Richmond, Virginia, saved $6.6 billion in U.S. mortgages from foreclosure last year, according to the company's latest Foreclosure Prevention Scorecard. Compared to 2009, when the company saved $2.6 billion, that's an increase of more than 153 percent. Genworth says it provided nearly 40,000 workouts to distressed borrowers last year, saving each, on average, more than $195,500.