Tag Archives: Negative Equity

In addition to the $25 billion settlement between the five largest servicers and 49 states, Nevada's Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto reaped more for Nevada homeowners through an additional settlement with Bank of America. Masto won Nevada $750 million in relief for lien principal payments and short sales from BofA and $30 million for consumer protection efforts. That's on top of the $1.5 billion that will go to the state from the nationwide settlement reached with all five servicers.

Sen. Robert Menendez says the $25 billion settlement struck between federal and state officials and the nation's five largest mortgage servicers helps homeowners but is a long way from healing the grievous wounds left by the crisis. He has introduced a bill that would encourage lenders to reduce principal for underwater borrowers with a shared-appreciation modification.

Changes announced Friday to the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) are expected to extend relief to a larger share of struggling homeowners as well as renters. One of the key adjustments centers around principal reductions. To encourage investors to agree to the principal reducing modification currently available through HAMP, Treasury is tripling incentives for such restructurings, paying from 18 to 63 cents on the dollar, and extending this same incentive to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who have previously opted not to participate in HAMP's principal writedown option.

The ratings agency DBRS says mortgage servicers are going to continue to see ""much needed reform"" in 2012 as the industry moves to standardize the servicing business. The first go at such standardization will center around implementing the directives of regulators' consent orders, according to DBRS. The agency does expect the U.S. government to institute some of the REO programs currently being vetted, but doesn't foresee any tangible benefits in terms of loss recoveries until 2013.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) says as of June 30, 2011, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac held nearly 3 million first lien mortgages in which the borrower owed more on the loan that the home was worth. FHFA estimates principal forgiveness for all of these mortgages would require funding of almost $100 billion to pay down the loans to the value of the homes securing them. Members of Congress have questioned FHFA's reasoning for excluding principal forgiveness from the menu of loss mitigation tools available to the GSEs.

Americans have lost $7 trillion in home equity in the past five years, and nearly 12 million homeowners are currently underwater. The Progressive Policy Institute says these issues deserve just as much attention in the upcoming presidential election as the issue of unemployment, and in a January report, the institute offers a few suggestions to improve the housing market and ultimately, the economy at large, including shared appreciation mortgages and down payment savings accounts for first-time buyers.

The performance of private-label residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) continues to face many challenges in 2012, with the biggest risk posed by strategic defaults, according to Moody's. The ratings agency says the performance of loan pools backing outstanding RMBS has begun to stabilize, with delinquency levels flat or even dropping as a result of modifications and re-default rates declining. It's the threat of strategic default, particularly in the prime jumbo sector, that has Moody's analysts worried.

Treasury released a new report Monday highlighting results from the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). Nearly 910,000 homeowners have received a permanent HAMP modification, saving $9.9 billion in monthly mortgage payments. Officials say they will continue to press servicers to assist underwater borrowers and address second-lien issues. A total of 38,243 principal-reducing permanent HAMP mods have been granted, and 54,828 second-lien mods have been started under the federal program.

Unemployment and other economic difficulties have caused millions of homeowners to involuntarily default on their mortgages, but there are some borrowers who are induced to simply stop making payments because their property value has fallen and they owe more than their home is worth. According to a study commissioned by the Mortgage Bankers Association, oftentimes strategic defaulters are encouraged to walk away at the behest of so-called mavens, or prominent influencers within their social networks.

Fannie Mae has updated its Selling Guide to reflect the recently announced changes to the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP). Most of the revisions were previously disclosed in November, but there's one nuance that stands out. Fannie Mae has removed the ""reasonable ability to repay"" clause from the criteria for vetting borrowers for a new HARP loan. Analysts say the subjective ability-to-pay requirement was one of the significant hurdles to HARP refinancing.