OREGON REAL ESTATE ROUND TABLE

Category: Foreclosure

  • 66% of homeowners who seek foreclosure counseling cite job losses for trouble, Craig Wolf, Poughkeepsiejournal.com


    Two-thirds of the people seeking foreclosure -prevention counseling in the major local program say it was their loss of jobs or income that got them in trouble.

    And the majority of people counseled did not have subprime mortgages, but conventional, fixed-rate mortgages, according to Hudson River Housing Inc., a Poughkeepsie-based nonprofit.

    The group said its count of counseled homeowners has exceeded 1,500 since beginning the program in 2008.

    Mary Linge, director of home ownership and education, said that 66 percent of homeowners currently cite loss of jobs and reduced income as primary reasons they face foreclosure.

    In foreclosure, a lender who isn’t being paid takes possession of the property.

    Of those who have recently sought services, 79 percent have conventional loans, compared with 43 percent in late 2008 when the program began, Linge said.

    “The foreclosure crisis is now largely being driven by economic pressures, not bad mortgage products,” Linge said.

    Recent research by the Poughkeepsie Journal found that foreclosure filings in state Supreme Court rose in 2009 by nearly 20 percent over 2008. For the first seven months of this year, filings are on course to show a further 10 percent increase.

    Hudson River Housing has received three federal grants totalling $308,602 for counseling people through the Hudson Valley Foreclosure Prevention Services.

    Linge said the National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling program that has funded her group has done research on results nationally.

    Homeowners who got counseling were 60 percent more likely to avoid losing their homes than people who did not seek help. Clients were more likely to get a loan modification and, on average, saved $454 a month on mortgage payments.

    Reach Craig Wolf at cwolf@poughkeepsiejournal.com or 845-437-4815.

  • Communities Get First Shot at Foreclosed Homes, By Gregory Korte, USA TODAY


    Major mortgage lenders will now give state and local governments the right to buy foreclosed properties before they go on the market, giving them “a leg up” on speculators who have often thwarted local redevelopment efforts, Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan announced Wednesday.

    The First Look program will give communities a 48-hour heads up on foreclosed properties and the ability to buy them at a 1% discount, Donovan said. The effort is intended to help improve the $7 billion Neighborhood Stabilization Program, he said.

    “First Look is good for our housing market because it will bring much-needed speed” to the sale of bank-owned homes, Donovan said. Data show that vacant homes are more than three times more destructive to neighboring home values than those early in the foreclosure process.

    USA TODAY reported in July that more than $1 billion in Neighborhood Stabilization Program funds were unspent two years after Congress authorized the program. Short staffing and confusion over rules were partly to blame, but local governments also said lenders wouldn’t deal their foreclosed properties.

    Often, cities can’t move as quickly as private companies in buying homes especially in highly visible areas or where they’re trying to assemble multiple properties in a land bank.

    “You can’t be successful in neighborhood stabilization unless you control all the pieces on the chess board,” said Craig Nickerson, president of the National Community Stabilization Trust, which runs the clearinghouse.

    The participating mortgage lenders account for 75% of foreclosed homes, Donovan said. They include Bank of America, Chase, Citibank, Wells Fargo and Freddie Mac.

    The banks won’t offer all their foreclosures. “We’re not going to run all our inventory through this engine,” said Steven Nesmith, senior vice president of Ocwen Financial Corp. He said about 20% will be offered to governments and non-profits.

    The plan might come too late to help communities involved in the first round of funding. Many have just days to write contracts or risk losing their federal funding. In all, 143 communities have less than a month to spend their federal money. If they don’t, the Department of Housing and Urban Development will freeze their unused funds as much as $354 million nationally and could take the money back.

    Palm Bay, Fla., has until Friday to spend its $5.2 million, and might fall $200,000 short. “Just with our purchasing requirements, we do not move as quickly as the private sector,” said David Watkins, the city’s growth management director.

    “If First Look had been available from the beginning, he said, “we might be at least three or four months ahead of where we are now.”

  • Them Be Fightin’ Words: The Fight Over Foreclosure Fees, by PAUL JACKSON, Stopforeclosurefraud.com


    For the law firms that manage and process foreclosures on behalf of investors and banking institutions, what’s a fair legal fee? What’s a fair filing fee? Should fees to outsourcers be prohibited? And just how much money should it really cost to process a foreclosure?

    As I write this, the answer to these and other questions are being fought out in the trenches, in an out-of-sight but increasingly heated battle involving Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the law firms that specialize in creditor’s rights, default industry service providers, and various private equity interests.

    It’s a complex fight that many say will ultimately shape the way U.S. mortgages are serviced over the course of the next decade — and perhaps beyond. It’s also a debate that promises to spill over into how loans are originated and priced.

    “No aspect of the U.S. mortgage business will go untouched by the outcome of this current debate,” said one attorney I spoke with, on condition of anonymity. “This is the single most important issue facing mortgage markets today, and will even determine how securities are structured in the future.”

    How foreclosures are managed

    Typically, a foreclosure involves legal and court filing fees — it is, after all, a legal process involving the forced transfer of a property from a non-paying borrower to secured lender. But the foreclosure process also typically involves a host of other associated fees, including necessary title searches, potential property insurance, homeowner’s association dues, property maintenance and repair, and much more.

    Many of these fees are ultimately tacked onto the “past due” amounts tied to a delinquent borrower — and done so legally. Much like when a credit card becomes past due and the interest rate kicks into high oblivion, consumers looking to catch up on their delinquent mortgage payments must also make up the difference in additional fees in order to successfully do so.

    Legal fees in the foreclosure business, however, aren’t what you might think. Instead of billing hourly for most work, as most attorneys in other fields would do, attorneys that specialize in processing foreclosures are paid on a flat-fee basis, using pre-determined fee schedules.

    Thanks to the market-making power of the GSEs, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — both of whom publish allowable fee schedules for every imaginable legal filing and process in the foreclosure repertoire — the entire foreclosure process has been reduced to a set of flat fees.

    And not even negotiated fees, at that. For firms that operate in the field of foreclosure management, the GSE allowable fees amount to a take-it-or-leave-it menu of prices.

    “For us, it doesn’t matter who the client is, even if it isn’t Fannie or Freddie,” said one attorney I spoke with, under condition of anonymity. “We know we’re only going to be able to claim whatever that flat fee schedule they set says we can claim, since other investors tend to employ whatever the GSE fee caps are.”

    Fannie and Freddie as housing HMOs? In the foreclosure business, that’s pretty much what it amounts to.

    But beyond determining the legal fee schedule for much of the multi-billion dollar default services market, the GSEs also largely determine who gets their own foreclosure work. Both Fannie and Freddie maintain networks of law firms called “designated counsel” or “approved counsel” in key states marked with significant foreclosure volume — and they either strongly suggest or require that any servicers managing a Fannie or Freddie loan in foreclosure refer any needed legal work to their approved legal counsel.

    Each state will have numerous designated counsel — sometimes as many as five law firms — but in practice, attorneys say, two to three firms end up with the lion’s share of each state’s foreclosure work. In states hit hard by the housing downturn and foreclosure surge, like Florida, the amount of work can be substantial.

    “The GSEs can force a servicer to use their designated counsel, especially if timeline performance in foreclosure management is out of some set boundary,” said one servicing executive at a large bank, who asked to remain anonymous. “It’s usually easiest to simply use their counsel on their loans, even if we don’t see that firm as best-in-class.”

    With the vast majority of the mortgage market now running through the GSEs, and much of what’s left of the private market following the guidelines Fannie and Freddie establish, it should come as no surprise to find that a few law firms in each state end up with the majority of the foreclosure work, sources say.

    The rise of the ‘foreclosure mills’

    Being designated as approved counsel by Fannie Mae and/or Freddie Mac does carry risk. Just ask Florida’s David Stern, who has seen his burgeoning operation pejoratively branded a ‘foreclosure mill’ by consumer groups, dragged through the press for both alleged and real consumer misdeeds, and facing numerous investor lawsuits surrounding the operation of DJSP Enterprises, Inc. (DJSP: 3.22 -1.23%) — the publicly-traded processing company tied to the law firm.

    While Stern’s operation may win the award for ‘most susceptible to negative publicity,’ how the law firm operates is far from unique in the foreclosure industry.

  • Redefault Rates Improve for Recent Loan Modifications, Conference of State Bank Supervisors, csbs.org


     

    State Foreclosure Prevention Working Group August 2010

    Memorandum on Loan Modification Performance

    Introduction and Summary of Key Findings For over two years, the State Foreclosure Prevention Working Group,

    Our data indicate that some recent loan modifications are performing better than loan modifications made earlier in the mortgage crisis. Loans modified in 2009 are 40 to 50 percent (40% – 50%) less likely to be seriously delinquent six months after modification than loans modified at the same time in 2008. This improvement in loan modification performance suggests that dire predictions of high redefault rates may not come true. This positive trend suggests that increased use of modifications resulting in significant payment reduction has succeeded in creating more sustainable loan modifications.

    In addition, recent modifications that significantly reduce the principal balance of the loan have a lower rate of redefault compared to loan modifications overall. The State Working Group believes that servicers should strategically increase their use of principal reduction modifications to maximize prospects for success. Only one in five loan modifications reduce the loan amount; in fact, the vast majority of loan modifications actually increase the loan amount by adding servicing charges and late payments to the loan balance.

    Finally, while loan modifications have consistently increased over time, the numbers of foreclosures continue to outpace loan modifications. Nearly three years into the foreclosure crisis, we find that more than 60% of homeowners with serious delinquent loans are still not involved in any loss mitigation activity. Furthermore, with the significant overhang of seriously delinquent loans, the State Working Group anticipates hundreds of thousands of foreclosures will occur later this year absent additional improvements in foreclosure prevention efforts.

    1 has collected delinquency and loss mitigation data from most of the largest servicers of subprime mortgages in the country. This memorandum looks at trends in loan modifications of nine non-bank mortgage companies servicing 4.6 million loans across the country as of March 2010. 

    Overview

    This memorandum analyzes data submitted by nine servicers providing longitudinal data on loan modification performance. Since the inception of monthly data collection in October 2007, these nine servicers have completed over 2.3 million foreclosures as compared to 760,000 loan modifications. As of March 31, 2010, these servicers report 778,000 borrowers seriously delinquent (60+ days late on mortgage payments).

    Impact of HAMP Program on Loss Mitigation Pipeline

    As shown in Chart 1, permanent loan modifications dipped in the Spring and Summer of 2009 as servicers transitioned to the federal Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). The HAMP program requires a three month trial period. Accordingly, loans that would have been modified immediately in the middle of last year were instead placed into trial repayment plans, which should have become permanent after three months of successful payments from homeowners. For a variety of reasons, servicers have struggled to transition trial plans into permanent loan modifications. As shown in Chart 2 below, it appears that servicers have begun to work through the backlog of trial plans needing conversion to permanent modifications, but servicers’ conversion ratio is still far short of pre-HAMP levels.

    Despite the increase in trial modifications, more than six out of ten (62.5%) seriously delinquent borrowers were not involved in any form of loss mitigation efforts. The biggest failure of foreclosure prevention efforts continues to be the inability to engage homeowners in meaningful loss mitigation efforts in the first instance. Beyond the usual factors driving borrower non-response, some reasons for the low involvement of struggling homeowners include mixed messages communicated to struggling homeowners regarding foreclosure and loss mitigation opportunities, a lack of transparency in loss mitigation options and process, inconsistent and confusing information provided to homeowners during the process, poor customer service delivery, and long delays in the modification process.

    Type of Modification

    The vast majority of loan modifications now involve some reduction in the homeowner’s monthly payment. Of loan modifications tracked by the State Foreclosure Prevention Working Group in the first quarter of 2010, 89.3% involved some reduction in payments, including 77.6% that significantly decreased payments (i.e. decreased by more than 10%). This data is consistent with data for the large national banks covered by the OCC and OTS mortgage metrics report.

    While payment reduction is now commonplace, the State Working Group remains concerned over the absence of loan modifications significantly reducing outstanding loan balances. In the first quarter of 2010, only 13.7% of all modifications reported to the State Foreclosure Prevention Working Group involved principal reductions greater than 10%; in fact, 70.4% of loan modifications

    increased the unpaid principal balance.3 With home price declines of 30% since 20064 and almost 25% of all homeowners with a mortgage owing more than their home is worth,5 the failure to meaningfully reduce principal limits the success of current foreclosure prevention efforts. The HAMP program has recently introduced a principal reduction alternative to its standard waterfall to give servicers the option of prioritizing the reduction of principal; however, we believe the optional nature of this alternative and its inapplicability to GSE loans will likely significantly limit its impact in the HAMP program.

    Redefault

    A loan modification does not guarantee that a borrower will be able to remain current on the mortgage. Even the best-designed loan modification has some risk of redefault; however, a loan modification that fails to address the borrower’s repayment ability and the factors underlying the default may set the homeowner up for failure. Redefault expectations are incorporated into the servicer’s decision whether or not to even offer a loan modification to a struggling homeowner. Therefore, loan modification performance is very important both for the long-run efficacy of the program as well as a factor in determining the universe of eligible borrowers. Some analysts have predicted redefault rates of 65% to 75%.

     

    6 The State Working Group is more optimistic. The reason for our optimism is that loans modified in 2009 are performing substantially better than those modified in 2008, as shown by Chart 4 on the next page.

     

    7 For example, 30.8% of loans modified between August and September in 2008 were seriously delinquent after 6 months, but only 15.3% of loans modified in August and September of 2009 were seriously delinquent after 6 months.8 That amounts to a 50% reduction in the redefault rate.9 The OTS and OCC report a similar reduction. In recent mortgage metrics reports, the OCC and OTS report that 48.1% of loans modified in the third quarter of 2008 were 60 or more days delinquent 6 months after modification,10 but that redefault rate fell by more than 40 percent (to 27.7%) for loans modified in the third quarter of 2009.11

    A comparison of five reporting servicers

     

    12 demonstrates how the improvement in redefault rate is evident even when controlling for the type of loan modification. For instance, the redefault rate at six months for loans with significant payment reductions fell from almost 31.4% for loans modified in August to September of 2008 to just 11.8% for loans modified in August to September of 2009, a more than 62% reduction. Similarly, the redefault rate for loans with significant principal reductions fell from 35.4% to 12.9%, over a 63% reduction. While there is understandable fear that loan modification programs may be overused and that they may become less effective in the effort to reach the maximum number of borrowers, our research suggest that servicers’ loss mitigation offers are becoming more successful for those borrowers that are able to secure a loan modification.

    Conclusion

    While servicer performance is still short of what is needed and the HAMP program has not been a silver bullet, we find that there has been some improvement in foreclosure prevention efforts.

    Loan modifications have increased, significant payment reduction is the norm, and loan modification performance is improving. The improved performance of recent vintages of loan modifications validates the policy of offering sustainable loan modifications. We encourage servicers and the Treasury Department to monitor this trend and to adjust redefault expectations in their models as evidence permits. If experience reflects lower redefaults than anticipated, revised adjustments will enable the HAMP and non-HAMP loan modification programs to reach more struggling homeowners.

    Despite the progress noted in this memorandum, the number of seriously delinquent loans moving toward foreclosure remains at near all-time highs. As servicers pass through the initial wave of successful HAMP-eligible borrowers, the State Working Group is concerned that many of the currently delinquent loans will accelerate into foreclosure in the second half of the year. The State Working Group believes that unnecessary foreclosures will occur without further efforts and resources of servicers to reach homeowners, and, where appropriate, to offer loan modifications with significant principal reduction. These unnecessary foreclosures will be a needless drag on the recovery of the housing market and will continue to delay a broader economic recovery.

     

     

     1. The State Working Group is more fully described in our first report from February 2008, available at: http://www.csbs.org/regulatory/Documents/SFPWG/DataReportFeb2008.pdf. The State Working Group currently consists of representatives of the Attorneys General of 12 states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, and Washington), three state bank regulators (Maryland, New York and North Carolina), and the Conference of State Bank Supervisors. Data analysis and graphs for this memorandum were prepared by Center for Community Capital, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

    2. For the first quarter of 2010, the OCC/OTS reports that over 87% of all loan modifications involve a payment reduction, with 72% reducing payment by more than 10%.

     

    See OCC and OTS Mortgage Metrics Report, First Quarter 2010 (Jun 2010) at p. 33, available at: http://www.occ.treas.gov/ftp/release/2010-69a.pdf.

     

    3

     

    This is generally consistent with results from the OCC/OTS metrics report. The OCC and OTS report that only 2% of modifications in the fourth quarter of 2009 involved principal reduction, while 82% included the capitalization of missed payments and fees, thereby increasing the amount owed. See OCC and OTS Mortgage Metric Report, infra note 2, at p. 26. The State Working Group notes with some surprise the decline in the percentage of loan modifications with principal reduction for the large national banks and thrifts between 4th quarter 2009 and 1st quarter 2010 (from 7% in 4Q 2009 to 2% 1Q 2010).

    4

     

    The S&P/Case-Shiller National House Price Index fell 32% from its peak in the second quarter of 2006. See S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices: 2009, A Year In Review (January 2010).

    5

     

    First American CoreLogic estimates that more than 11.3 million, or 24%, of all residential properties with mortgages, were underwater at the end of 2009. See Media Alert: Underwater Mortgages On the Rise According to First American CoreLogic Q4 2009 Negative Equity Data (February 2010), available at: http://www.loanperformance.com/infocenter/library/Q4_2009_Negative_Equity_Final.pdf

    6

    U.S. RMBS Servicers’ Loss Mitigation and Modification Efforts Update II, Fitch Ratings (Jun 16, 2010)

    7 For purposes of this memorandum, redefault is defined as 60+ days late or foreclosed.

    8 Due to limited data availability, August and September are the only months for which we have overlapping redefault rates specifically for 6 months after origination; however, a decline is evident with other cohorts. For example, the redefault rate at 9 months for loans modified in May and June fell from 37.4% in 2008 to 26.7% in 2009, a 29% reduction.

    9 The decline in default rate has been broadly consistent across all nine servicers. The range of redefault rates six month after modification was 17-46% for loans modified in August and September of 2008 and only 10-25% for those modified at the same time in 2009.

    10

    OCC and OTS Mortgage Metrics Report, Fourth Quarter 2009 (Mar 2010) at p. 34, available at: http://www.occ.treas.gov/ftp/release/2010-36a.pdf.

    11

    OCC and OTS Mortgage Metrics Report, infra note 2 at p. 36. 12 Note that the redefault rates of loan modifications with payment and principal reductions are based on the 5 (out of the 9 total) servicers who provided performance data on all types of modifications. The overall redefault rate for loans modified in August and September by these 5 servicers was 32.3% in 2008 and 15.2% in 2009.

     

    Conference of State Bank Supervisors

     

    http://www.csbs.org

  • Procrastination on Foreclosures, Now ‘Blatant,’ May Backfire, by Jeff Horwitz and Kate Berry, American Banker


    Ever since the housing collapse began, market seers have warned of a coming wave of foreclosures that would make the already heightened activity look like a trickle.

    The dam would break when moratoriums ended, teaser rates expired, modifications failed and banks finally trained the army of specialists needed to process the volume.

    But the flood hasn’t happened. The simple reason is that servicers are not initiating or processing foreclosures at the pace they could be.

    By postponing the date at which they lock in losses, banks and other investors positioned themselves to benefit from the slow mending of the real estate market. But now industry executives are questioning whether delaying foreclosures — a strategy contrary to the industry adage that “the first loss is the best loss” — is about to backfire. With home prices expected to fall as much as 10% further, the refusal to foreclose quickly on and sell distressed homes at inventory-clearing prices may be contributing to the stall of the overall market seen in July sales data. It also may increase the likelihood of more strategic defaults.

    It is becoming harder to blame legal or logistical bottlenecks, foreclosure analysts said.

    “All the excuses have been used up. This is blatant,” said Sean O’Toole, CEO of ForeclosureRadar.com, a Discovery Bay, Calif., company that has been documenting the slowdown in Western markets.

    Banks have filed fewer notices of default so far this year in California, the nation’s biggest real estate market, than they did 2009 or 2008, according to data gathered by the company. Foreclosure default notices are now at their lowest level since the second quarter of 2007, when the percentage of seriously delinquent loans in the state was one-sixth what it is now.

    New data from LPS Applied Analytics in Jacksonville, Fla., suggests that the backlog is no longer worsening nationally — but foreclosures are not at the levels needed to clear existing inventory.

    The simple explanation is that banks are averse to realizing losses on foreclosures, experts said.

    “We can’t have 11% of Californians delinquent and so few foreclosures if regulators are actually forcing banks to clean assets off their books,” O’Toole said.

    Officially, of course, this problem shouldn’t exist. Accounting rules mandate that banks set aside reserves covering the full amount of their anticipated losses on nonperforming loans, so sales should do no additional harm to balance sheets.

    Within the last two quarters, many companies have even begun taking reserve releases based on more bullish assumptions about the value of distressed properties.

    Now there is widespread reluctance to test those valuations, an indication that banks either fear they have insufficient or are gambling for a broad housing recovery that experts increasingly say is not coming.

    Banks did not choose the strategy on their own.

    With the exception of a spike in foreclosure activity that peaked in early-to-mid 2009, after various industry and government moratoriums ended and the Treasury Department released guidelines for the Home Affordable Modification Program, no stage of the process has returned to pre-September 2008 levels. That is when the Treasury unveiled the Troubled Asset Relief Program and promised to help financial institutions avoid liquidating assets at panic-driven prices. The Financial Accounting Standards Board and other authorities followed suit with fair-value dispensations.

    These changes made it easier to avoid fire-sale marks — and less attractive to foreclose on bad assets and unload them at market clearing prices. In California, ForeclosureRadar data shows, the volume of foreclosure filings has never returned to the levels they had reached before government intervention gave servicers breathing room.

    Some servicing executives acknowledged that stalling on foreclosures will cause worse pain in the future — and that the reckoning may be almost here.

    “The industry as a whole got into a panic mode and was worried about all these loans going into foreclosure and driving prices down, so they got all these programs, started Hamp and internal mods and short sales,” said John Marecki, vice president of East Coast foreclosure operations for Prommis Solutions, an Atlanta company that provides foreclosure processing services. Until recently, he was senior vice president of default administration at Flagstar Bank in Troy, Mich. “Now they’re looking at this, how they held off and they’re getting to the point where maybe they made a mistake in that realm.”

    Moreover, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have increased foreclosures in the past two months on borrowers that failed to get permanent loan modifications from the government, according to data from LPS. If the government-sponsored enterprises’ share of foreclosures is increasing, that implies foreclosure activity by other market participants is even less robust than the aggregate.

    “The math doesn’t bode well for what is ultimately going to occur on the real estate market,” said Herb Blecher, a vice president at LPS. “You start asking yourself the question when you look at these numbers whether we are fixing the problem or delaying the inevitable.”

    Blecher said the increase in foreclosure starts by the GSEs “is nowhere near” what is needed to clear through the shadow inventory of 4.5 million loans that were 90 days delinquent or in foreclosure as of July 31.

    LPS nationwide data on foreclosure starts reflects the holdup: Though the GSEs have gotten faster since the first quarter, portfolio and private investors have actually slowed.

    “What we’re seeing is things are starting to move through the system but the inflows and outflows are not clearing the inventory yet,” he said.

    Delayed foreclosures might be good news for delinquent borrowers, but it comes at a high price.

    Stagnant foreclosures likely contributed to the abysmal July home sales, since banks are putting fewer homes for sale at market-clearing prices.

    Moreover, Freddie says a good 14% of homes that are seriously delinquent are vacant. In such circumstances, eventual recovery values rapidly deteriorate.

    Defaulted borrowers were spending an average of 469 days in their home after ceasing to make payments as of July 31, so the financial attraction of strategic defaults increases.

    One possible way banks are dealing with that last threat is through what O’Toole calls “foreclosure roulette,” in which banks maintain a large pool of borrowers in foreclosure but foreclose on a small number at random.

    O’Toole said the resulting confusion would make it harder for borrowers to evaluate the costs and benefits of defaulting and fan fears that foreclosure was imminent.

    http://www.americanbanker.com/issues/175_165/foreclosures-modifications-california-1024663-1.html

  • Multnomahforeclosures.com: Updated Notice of Default Lists


    Multnomahforeclosures.com was updated today (August 24th, 2010) with the largest list of Notice Defaults to date. With Notice of Default records dating back over 2 years. Multnomahforeclosures.com documents the fall of the great real estate bust of the 21st centry. The lists are of the raw data taken from county records.

    It is not a bad idea for investors and people that are seeking a home of their own to keep an eye on the Notice of Default lists. Many of the homes listed are on the market or will be.

    All listings are in PDF and Excel Spread Sheet format.

    Multnomah County Foreclosures

    http://multnomahforeclosures.com

  • Foreclosure rate soars in suburbs, Steve Law, Portland Tribune


    While Portlanders continue to be plagued by home foreclosures, the number of distressed homeowners is spiking even faster in the suburbs these days.

    Foreclosure actions filed against homeowners in upscale Lake Oswego mushroomed 20 percent the first six months of this year, compared with the same period last year, and rose 10 percent in jobs-rich Hillsboro, according to RealtyTrac Inc., an Irvine, Calif., real estate data services company. RealtyTrac counted nearly 300 Lake Oswego properties socked with foreclosure actions from January through June and more than 500 Hillsboro properties.

    Foreclosures also shot up at a rate faster than Portland in suburban Oregon City, Milwaukie, Tigard, Tualatin, Sherwood and St. Helens.

    “The foreclosure activity that is occurring in suburban markets in Oregon is unprecedented,” says Tom Cusack, a retired federal housing manager in Portland who continues to track the issue via his Oregon Housing Blog. “It’s affecting not just rural areas, not just inner-city neighborhoods, but suburban neighborhoods, probably more substantially than any time in the past,” Cusack says.

    From January through June, foreclosure filings grew 6.5 percent in the city of Portland, compared with a year earlier, and 8.5 percent in Portland suburbs, not counting Clark County, according to RealtyTrac data.

    In 10 different local ZIP codes — three in Portland and seven in the suburbs — foreclosure actions were filed against more than 2 percent of all properties the first six months of 2010.

    Dominating local market

    Realtors say a record number of foreclosures dominates the area housing market, depressing home prices but also attracting bargain-hunters looking for distressed properties.

    “Either you’re helping people get into them or helping get out of them,” says Fred Stewart, a Northeast Portland Realtor who operates a website listing foreclosed homes for sale in Multnomah County.

    Distressed properties account for “40 percent of the business right now,” says Dale Kuhn, principal broker for John L. Scott Real Estate in Lake Oswego.

    Every suburb is a unique real estate market, so it’s hard to generalize why some are experiencing more foreclosures now than before. In West Linn, for example, foreclosure filings were down the first six months of the year compared to a year earlier, while things are going in a different direction in its affluent neighbor to the north, Lake Oswego.

    Explanations vary

    One factor could be that many borrowers of modest means took out subprime loans, which were the first to go through foreclosure when those loans “exploded” and reset to much-higher interest rates. Working-class neighborhoods had the highest foreclosure rates in the early months of the Great Recession.

    “They got hit the hardest first,” says Rick Skaggs, a real estate broker at John L. Scott in Forest Grove.

    In the Portland area, an unusually high number of middle-class and affluent borrowers took out interest-only loans and Option ARM or negative-amortization loans. Option ARMs (adjustable rate mortgages) allowed the borrower to pay a minimum monthly mortgage payment — akin to a credit card minimum payment — while tacking more principal onto the loan. Option ARMs and other alternative loans took longer to unravel than subprime loans, and many are now winding up in foreclosure. And those mortgages were more common for more expensive properties.

    They were ticking time bombs, like subprime loans, but they had longer fuses, says Angela Martin, of the Portland public interest group Our Oregon.

    Stewart offers another reason for the surge in suburban foreclosures. He’s noticing a larger pool of buyers now for closer-in Portland neighborhoods, as people seek to avoid long commutes. People selling distressed properties in Northeast and Southeast Portland have more options to sell than someone saddled with an unaffordable mortgage in a suburb, Stewart says.

    Tables turned

    Recent state and national statistics also reveal a counterintuitive trend — affluent homeowners are going into foreclosure lately at a higher rate than others.

    Cusack recently analyzed data for Oregonians who took out traditional 30-year Federal Housing Administration loans since mid-2008. He found that the greater the loan amount, the greater the chances those became problem loans.

    “The default rate and the seriously delinquent rate were higher for higher-income loans,” Cusack says.

    Business owners and other affluent homebuyers who settled in suburban markets also had more resources available to hold onto their homes than lower-income homeowners, at least during the earlier stages of the Great Recession. That may explain why places such as Lake Oswego are seeing such an upsurge in foreclosures now.

    “If you paid a half-million for anything in Lake Oswego in 2007, you’re ‘under water,’ ” Stewart says. That’s the term for people who owe more on their mortgage than their home is worth.

    Portland bankruptcy attorney Ann Chapman, of the firm Vanden Bos & Chapman, is seeing an uptick in affluent clients coming to her office.

    They had been turning to pensions, savings and family money to hold onto their homes and businesses, Chapman says. But as the economic downturn grinds on, some clients see the best option as dumping their home and filing for bankruptcy reorganization.

    Affluent homeowners make a more sober assessment when they realize their homes aren’t going to be worth the mortgage amount for many years, she says. “They’re going to potentially be less emotionally involved when it comes to stopping the bleeding.”

    It’s often a different story for lower-income homeowners who hope to hold onto the only homes they’ve ever had, or hope to have. “They get blinded by their optimism or their paralysis,” Chapman says.

    Little relief in sight

    Many Realtors say it’s a great buyer’s market now for those who have steady jobs, because interest rates are low and prices have fallen so much. But don’t expect the onslaught of Portland-area foreclosures to end any time soon.

    “We are nowhere near the end if you look at the number of homeowners that will ultimately be at risk,” says Martin, citing a new study by the North Carolina-based Center for Responsible Lending. Based on that study, she figures Oregon is only halfway through the foreclosure crisis, in terms of the number of people affected by foreclosures.

    Skaggs says he wishes he could be more positive, but he doesn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. He just spoke with an investor last week who is about to walk away from five rental homes and let the bank take them back. Three of the homes are in the Beaverton area, one is in Bend and one is on the Oregon Coast.

    “I probably know at least 15 people that in the next month or two are going to walk away from their homes.”

    stevelaw@portlandtribune.com

    http://www.portlandtribune.com/news/story.php?story_id=128216600543594000

  • The Path to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Approval, Reoblogsite.com


    So, you have been a mortgage broker for a while now, and you think you are ready for the next step: approval by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as a Seller and Servicer, so you can service your own loans.

    In general, to be an approved Seller and Servicer for either FNMA or FHLMC, you are going to need to meet the following requirements: a corporate net worth of $500,000 to $1 million; adequate warehousing lines; three letters of reference; errors and omissions insurance and fidelity insurance; an excellent quality control program; and personnel experienced in all aspects of mortgage origination, processing, underwriting, funding and shipping, administration, service accounting and, of course, servicing itself.

    These are only general, minimal requirements, so let us take a more detailed look at the requirements and the process. I preface the following information with the understanding that the reader realizes that approval of a firm by FNMA or FHLMC is at their complete discretion and is, to a great extent, a judgment call based upon your total package and all the factors included in it. All requirements are subject to change.

    As far as FHLMC approval goes, net worth requirements are either $1 million or $500,000, depending upon whether you use the generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) net worth of $1 million, or the FHLMC definition of acceptable net worth ($500,000). Unfortunately, a lot of potential applicants are not aware of the $500,000 net worth possibility. Even a call to Freddie Mac still found the operator not aware of that option, and claiming $1 million was a hard, fast requirement to be approved.

    Acceptable net worth is defined by FHLMC as GAAP net worth minus any of the following: goodwill, purchased servicing, capitalized excess servicing, investments in joint ventures, investments in limited partnerships, REO, property, plant and equipment, receivables from affiliates, investment in affiliates, other intangibles and other assets, and deferred taxes on capitalized excess servicing. Audited financial statements are to be provided as part of the approval package.

    One requirement that many still think is in force, but is not, is the requirement that a mortgage company be approved by HUD-FHA in order to be a FHLMC Seller and Servicer.

    Additional requirements include having an acceptable quality control program; Errors and Omissions insurance and Fidelity insurance of $300,000 minimum coverage; a business plan (specific and reasonable for short and long term strategies); three reference letters from investors; credit reports on managing executives; adequate experience in origination and sales; and experience in underwriting, administration, default management, REO servicing and investor accounting, and servicing. Servicing is usually the weak spot for mortgage companies. You must show that whether or not you use a sub-servicer, and you have staff with more than adequate ability and knowledge to handle servicing. FHLMC no longer says you need a specific amount of servicing on the books to be approved and, in fact, you can be approved with no servicing, but the stronger the package, the more likely you will be approved.

    If you are accepting Third Party Originated (TPO) loans, you also have to provide information on your standards and procedures for accepting and servicing them, since there have been so many problems with the history of these loans.

    In order to apply to FHLMC, you request an application package (call 800-Freddie) and follow the instructions completely. You will need to submit resumes, financial statements, credit reports, a business plan, various certifications, the approval you want, a list of parent or subsidiary companies, corporate liaisons in various corporate capacities, any legal problems with company or managing officers, a list of investors (including their reference letters), a list of your warehouse lenders, quality control program and questionnaire, number and quantity of loans originated and sold in the last two years, number and quantity of loans serviced plus your delinquency ratios, copy of insurance coverage and all other pertinent information you feel would help your package. There is a $1000 application fee.

    As far as FNMA is concerned, their requirements are very similar to those of FHLMC. There are differences, though, and as I list the general requirements (FNMA also can request any additional information it needs; the application package is a guideline and basis from which to work), any item that is different will be identified with an asterisk.

    You need a corporate net worth of at least $500,000, a quality control program, experienced personnel in all areas pertinent to the business, proof that the personnel have not had any problems when employed at other FNMA-approved entities, a servicing system in place (your own or sub-services), Errors and Omissions and Fidelity insurance (same dollar amounts), references, credit reports, history and scope of the business, list of any owner of five percent or more of the company, audited financial statements, estimated volume to be sold to FNMA during the first 12 months, and availability of all key personnel for an on-site interview with FNMA staff.

    In order to apply to FNMA, call the nearest regional office and request an application package. You will return the following information (some of it on their forms): areas you operate within; the approval you are applying for; any legal disclosures of problems with the company or personnel; narrative on history and scope of the company; resumes in same areas as FHLMC; investors you are currently servicing for; proof of Errors and Omissions and Fidelity coverage; financial statement; quality control program; FNMA Selling ad Servicing Contracts; estimated first 12 months sales volume; quantity and dollar amount of loans originated in the last three years; credit authorizations; number of employees in servicing and origination; liaison personnel in selling, underwriting, servicing and investor accounting; number and dollar amount of loans serviced; list of delinquencies; list of warehouse lines; and various certifications, along with a $1000 application fee.

    To summarize, if you have, or are willing to acquire, the net worth, the insurance and plenty of experienced personnel, and can show you have the corporate capacity to meet all of the approval requirements of FNMA or FHLMC, maybe you should consider becoming a Seller and Servicer. The mortgage business is in an improving cycle, with the housing market (new and resale) beginning to show signs of coming alive again. This may be your time. But remember, it is not right for everyone, so be sure the approvals and servicing would fit into your corporate goals.

    REOBlogsite.com
    http://www.reoblogsite.com/reo-management/the-path-to-fannie-mae-and-freddie-mac-approval.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

  • Oregon gets federal money to help unemployed avert foreclosures, Charles Pope, The Oregonian


    WASHINGTON — The Obama administration released $600 million Wednesday to help unemployed homeowners in Oregon and four other states avoid foreclosure.

    Oregon, where one in every 76 homes is facing foreclosure, qualifies for $88 million.The money will be used to help distressed homeowners.

    The money will be available to state housing authorities in Oregon, Ohio, South Carolina, Rhode Island and North Carolina “to support local initiatives to assist struggling homeowners in these five states that have high percentages of their population living in areas of economic distress due to unemployment,” the Treasury Department said.

    According to Treasury, the money will augment “targeted programs to expand options for homeowners struggling to make their mortgage payments because of unemployment, as well as programs to address first and second liens, facilitate short sales and/or deeds-in-lieu of foreclosure, and assist in the payment of arrearages.”
    State officials in Oregon estimate that up to 7,400 homeowners will be helped.

    Among other things, Oregon will:

    — provide funds to assist with loan modifications, including through principal reduction and arrearage payments.

    — provide up to six months of mortgage payment assistance for an unemployed borrower or a borrower experiencing other financial distress. Lenders or servicers would be required to match for up to an additional six months.

    — offer funds to ensure a successful modification or pay arrearages or other fees incurred during unemployment or financial distress once a homeowner has regained employment or recovered from that financial distress.

    — provide assistance to borrowers who participated in the state’s Hardest Hit Fund unemployed borrower program but did not subsequently regain employment in order to facilitate a short sale or deed-in-lieu of foreclosure. This assistance would be matched by lenders or servicers.

    In all, states estimate that approximately 50,000 struggling homeowners will receive aid.

    Wednesday’s announcement is only the latest in the Obama administration’s efforts to dent the foreclosure crisis.

    The money is part of the $2.1 billion is directing from its existing $75 billion mortgage assistance program to a total of 10 states. Each state designed its own plan. Treasury approved money in June for Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan and Nevada.

    In the latest package of aid, Ohio will receive $172 million — the largest amount of money. That could aid around 15,000 homeowners by helping borrowers pay their mortgage for up to a year while they search for jobs. It could also provide incentives for mortgage companies to reduce borrowers’ mortgage balances.

    North Carolina is receiving $159 million, and South Carolina is in line for $138 million while Rhode Island is receiving $43 million.

    http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2010/08/oregon_gets_federal_money_to_h.html

  • Multnomahforeclosures.com: Update with July 30, 2010 NOD Lists


    Multnomahforeclosures.com was updated today (July 31, 2010) with the largest list of Notice Defaults to date. With Notice of Default records dating back over 2 years. Multnomahforeclosures.com documents the fall of the great real estate bust of the 21st centry. The lists are of the raw data taken from county records.

    It is not a bad idea for investors and people that are seeking a home of their own to keep an eye on the Notice of Default lists. Many of the homes listed are on the market or will be.

    All listings are in PDF and Excel Spread Sheet format.

    Multnomah County Foreclosures

    http://multnomahforeclosures.com

  • MultnomahForeclosures.com Update: New Notice of Default Lists Posted


    Multnomahforeclosures.com was updated today with the largest list of Notice Defaults to date. With Notice of Default records dating back over 2 years. Multnomahforeclosures.com documents the fall of the great real estate bust of the 21st centry. The lists are of the raw data taken from county records.

    It is not a bad idea for investors and people that are seeking a home of their own to keep an eye on the Notice of Default lists. Many of the homes listed are on the market or will be.

    All listings are in PDF and Excel Spread Sheet format.

    Multnomah County Foreclosures

    http://multnomahforeclosures.com

  • Multnomah County Foreclosures


    It has been nearly 5 months since Multnomahforeclosures.com (http://www.multnomahforeclosures.com/) has been updated. As of July 6th, 2010 the site will be updated weekly again. Each week the Notice of Default lists for several counties in Oregon and Clark County will be posted. This information is public information and is provided to make it easier for real estate buyers and the professionals that serve them to develop opportunities in the Oregon market.

    Visit Multnomah Foreclosures, download the Notice of Default reports for free and help the Oregon Market grow!

  • Multnomah County Foreclosures Web Site Updated with New Lists


    Multnomahforeclosures.com was updated today with the largest list of Notice Defaults to date. With Notice of Default records dating back nearly 2 years. Multnomahforeclosures.com idocuments the fall of the great real estate bust of the 21st centry.

    All listings are in PDF and Excel Spread Sheet format.

    Multnomah County Foreclosures
    http://multnomahforeclosures.com

  • Oregon ended 2009 11th in nation for foreclosure, Portland Business Journal


    Lenders foreclosed on 34,121 Oregon homes in 2009, three times more than in 2007 and well ahead of national trends.

    According to year-end figures released late Wednesday by Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac Inc., there were 90 percent more foreclosure actions involving Oregon residences in 2009 than in 2008 and a whopping 303 percent more than in 2007, when the meltdown began.

    The picture wasn’t any better nationwide, with nearly 4 million foreclosure filings against 2.8 million U.S. properties, 21 percent more than 2008 and 120 percent more than 2007.

    The report showed that 2.2 percent of all U.S. homes or one in every 45 residences received at lease one foreclosure filing during the year.

    “As bad as the 2009 numbers are, they probably would have been worse if not for legislative and industry-related delays in processing delinquent loans,” said James Saccacio CEO of RealtyTrac. “After peaking in July with over 3621,000 homes receiving a foreclosure notice, we saw four straight monthly decreases driven primarily by short-term factors: trial loan modifications, state legislation extending the foreclosure process and an overwhelming volume of inventory clogging the foreclosure pipeline.”

    Nevada, Arizona and Florida had the nation’s highest foreclosure rates while California, Florida, Arizona and Illinois together accounted for half of all activity.

    Oregon ranked 11th, with 2 percent of all homes affected, or one in 47.

    Clackamas, Columbia, Deschutes, Jackson, Jefferson, Josephine and Yamhill counties had Oregon’s highest foreclosure ratings.

    Washington state ranked 24th, with 35,268 foreclosure actions, 132 percent more than in 2007.

    http://portland.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2010/01/11/daily33.html

  • Short Sale vs Foreclosure – EFFECT ON CREDIT, By Paul Dean, Evergreen Ohana Group


    I thought this information would be beneficial to know, when you are dealing with sellers on a Short Sale basis. Many consumer don’t realize the impact of a short sale on their credit. Read the attached article and commentary from our credit agency below. There are a couple KEY pieces:

    1. Foreclosure – lenders won’t do another loan for 4 yrs. (Bankruptcy is now 4yrs also)

    2. Short sale – if they keep payments current and their credit is relatively intact, and they do due diligence with the lender to determine how they will report the Short sale on their credit report (ie. “settled” is the best, Deed in Lieu is the same effect as a “foreclosure”) this will result is the least amount of damage to their credit rating. That also goes for a Notice of Default (NOD), even though a foreclosure process was started and the seller is able to sell the home prior to it actually going to foreclosure sale, this will be reported as “foreclosure in process” on their credit, which is treated as a “foreclosure” for credit scoring purposes.

    3. Oregon is not a deficiency State. Meaning that Oregon does not pursue the seller for any deficiency. The banks just take the loss, the seller’s credit is damaged, and that’s the end of it.

    4. The biggest advantage to sellers in a Short Sale is keeping payments as current as possible and getting the lender to reflect the account as “settled”. That will allow this borrower to secure another home loan sooner (maybe 2yrs), rather than if a foreclosure or NOD (4yrs) is reported on their credit.

    I think this is valuable information to share with your sellers.

    To Your Success,

    Paul Dean
    Principal
    Evergreen Ohana Group
    5331 SW Macadam Ave, Suite 287
    Portland, OR 97239

    Office: (503) 892-2800 Ext.11
    Fax: (503) 892-2803
    Email: pauld@evergreenohana.com
    Website: http://www.evergreenohana.com
    OR ML-21,WA 510-LO-33391, WA:520-CL-50385

  • Foreclosure leaders focused on 4 states in new metro list, Catherine Clifford, CNNMoney.com staff writer


    The 26 cities with the highest foreclosure rate in the nation are all located in four hard-hit states, with Las Vegas topping the list, according to a report released Wednesday.

    Metro areas in California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona topped the foreclosure filing list for the first quarter of 2009 in a report from RealtyTrac, an online marketer of foreclosed properties. A foreclosure filing includes default papers, auction sale notices and repossessions.

    Las Vegas had the highest rate of foreclosures of any city, with one in every 22 homes subject to a foreclosure filing in the first three months of the year. The rate of foreclosure filings was 4.5%, seven times the national average.

    Merced, Calif., had the second highest rate, with Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla., Stockton, Calif., and Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Calif., rounding out the top five.

    “The metro areas with the highest levels of foreclosure activity in the first quarter of 2009 paint a picture of concentrated problems in a relatively small number of hard-hit areas,” said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac, in a written statement.

    Foreclosure rates have been very high in the 4 key states throughout the bursting of the housing bubble, and so it was to be expected that cities from those states would pepper the top of the list.

    However, it was a surprise to see the list so top heavy, according to Rick Sharga, senior vice president at RealtyTrac.

    “The concentration of troubled metro areas within the hardest-hit states, candidly, was even more severe than we expected it to be,” Sharga said. “The degree to which those four states dominated the rankings surprised even us.”

    New problem cities: Meanwhile, some metropolitan areas had a surge in foreclosures. Boise City-Nampa, Idaho, in 27th place, Provo-Orem, Utah, in 37th, and Charleston-North Charleston, S.C., in 51st were examples Sharga gave of areas that had particular strong gains in filings.

    Sharga said the rise of foreclosures in additional regions indicates new factors influencing the housing market as the recession drags on.

    “What we believe we are seeing is some of the areas with unemployment problems,” said Sharga. “These are people living paycheck to paycheck and, when the paycheck is gone, suddenly they can’t afford to make their mortgage payments.”

    The data for RealtyTrak’s metro area foreclosure report is collected from 2,200 counties across the nation, and those counties represent more than 90% of the U.S. population. Some 203 areas are covered by the report.

    Across the nation, foreclosure activity in the first quarter hit a record high, according to another RealtyTrac report issued last week. Total foreclosure filings reached 803,489 in the first three months of the year, the highest monthly and quarterly totals since RealtyTrac began reporting in January 2005.

    The national report also found that the worst of the foreclosures were centralized in a handful of worst-hit states. California, Florida, Arizona, Nevada and Illinois accounted for nearly 60% of the total foreclosure activity in the first quarter, with 479,516 properties received foreclosure filings in those states.

    http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Foreclosure-leaders-focused-cnnm-14996946.html

  • Multnomah County Foreclosure site updated


    New foreclosure reports listed on the multnomah county foreclosure web site. This week a new addition is the bank owned property lists (REO List) for the month of February 2009. This list consists of properties that were forcloused or deeded back to the lender in lew of foreclosure. Some of these homes are on the market but most are not. These lists will have the name and contact information (address) of the owners (lenders) of the property. Contacting the owners for status might allow an opportunity for you to purchase any of these properties in post foreclosure.

    Mulnomah County Foreclosures
    http://multnomahforeclosures.com/

    Fred Stewart
    President
    Stewart Group Realty Inc.
    fred@sgrealtyinc.com
    http://www.sgrealty.us/
    503-289-4970 (Phone)
    503-296-2336 (Fax)

  • Multnomah Foreclosures Web Site Updated: http://multnomahforeclosures.com/


    Multnomah County Forclosures (http://multnomahforeclosures.com) has been updated with the largest foreclosure list to date. There is also a new Mortgage Broker of the week listed. Brian Collins of Sound Mortgage.

    The foreclosure list for 10 other Oregon counties are also listed on the site this week.

    Multnomah County Foreclosures
    http://multnomahforeclosures.com

  • In Foreclosure? Say No To Fakes and Frauds


     

    It is amazing that just as we move out of an era of fraudulent loan officers, fake “Mortgage Planners” and Financial Trusted Advisers we are now being over run by a hoard of “Foreclosure Experts”.   Could these people be one in the same.  Just the times and the opportunities are different?

    When in foreclosure there are experts out there that can help you develop a plan of action.  These people are beholden in one way or another to the state of Oregon as in they have an ACTIVE Real Estate license, Mortgage Certificate or member of the Oregon Bar.  Bottom line, if they rip you off they it is harder for them to hide.   Your legal representatives and the state of Oregon can track them down and hold them accountable.

    It is never good to be in foreclosure.  But remember you only make the situation worse by not seeking the information you need to develop a plan of action.   Maybe you can not keep your home.  Maybe you should sell and buy another home on seller contract or lease option.  Maybe you can work something out with the lenders.  You have to treat foreclosure as an problem that can be solved and not the end of the world.

    Information is power and with right power anything and everything is possible.   Do rot sit in place, do not allow shame to prevent you from doing what you can to resolve the problem for you and your family.

    Lastly, do not listen to anyone that does not hold an Oregon License, Mortgage Certificate or member of the bar that promises to save your home or help you make your payments.  Those people have nothing to lose and everything to gain by gaining your trust.   If it sounds to good to be true….it is.  If it sounds like it is not legal….there is a good chance is it not legal.   If that little voice in the back of your head says hang up the phone…..hang up.   Use your common sence and reach out to people that can help provide you with real solutions.

    Well that is enough ranting.  Keep an eye on this blog.  Will be posting possible solutions to the problems you are facing.   If they work for you….great.  If they won’t help you in your situation, feel free to send me an email or post the question on this message board. 

     

    Fred Stewart
    President
    Stewart Group Realty Inc.

  • Mortgage Implode: Time to Get Your Bailout…The ‘Gimme Mine Coalition’


    2% Interest Only 5-year loans available again?!? Yes, but beware.

    -Home Owners and Mortgage professionals, this one is for you.

    I am a big advocate of mortgage modifications that include a fully documented re-underwrite and re-qualification of every borrower in America allowing a maximum of 28/36 debt to income ratios with market-rate 30-year fixed mortgages.

    Yesterday, the video camera was calling my name so I decided to go into more color on mortgage modifications.  Pass this video around to friends and family. Take matters into your own hands because it is obvious nobody will be riding to the rescue anytime soon.

    That being said, I do believe a large scale home owner bailout will come, but it will likely involve giving up present and future equity in your home.  Right now you do not need to do that.  You can even negotiate into the modification a better reporting of this event to the credit reporting agencies with some banks.

    In recent weeks I have seen banks get very aggressive including reducing principal balances to lower than the present home values and giving borrowers 2% interest only loans for five years.  Wachovia offered to buy down a friends mortgage to 2% on a 30-year fixed, however, they had to refi through FHA and carry a silent second for the principal balance reduction needed to get them to the FHA limit for the area.  This sounds great but I do not advocate a super low interest only rate without a principal balance reduction. Getting 2% today with no principal reduction just kicks the can down the road and will cause major troubles then.  Without a principal reduction you are still stuck unable to move or refi.

    I truly believe that there is a small window in time that exists right now where banks can’t handle any more foreclosures and you hold all the cards. The last thing the bank wants is another foreclosure and 65% write down.  If you play your cards right you can win and the bank can have a long-term customer paying her mortgage payment each and every month who will some day own the home. That is what it is all about.

    I also went into great detail on mortgage modifications on July 4th and I urge you re-read the posts. There is information in here you must know BEFORE taking on this task. You have to know what to ask for because banks are a ‘for profit’ business, which means decisions are not going to be in your best interest. – Best, Mr Mortgage