Bankrate.com is full of useful information regarding mortgage rates and real estate advice. Competing against foreclosures is a reality of our current housing market, so the following is worth a read.
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Read the full article: http://www.bankrate.com/system/util/print.aspx?p=/finance/real-estate/home-selling-tactics-to-beat-the-deadbeats-1.aspx&s=br3&c=real%20estate&t=guide&e=1&v=1
Showing posts with label Foreclosure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Foreclosure. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Foreclosures plunge 27% - biggest drop on record
Again, good news is tempered by the uncertainty of the "shadow inventory," that mysterious number of foreclosures that may or may not be coming. Once again, unless you have the ability to predict the housing market's future (and if you did, you wouldn't need to read these articles), you need to buy what makes sense now and not what you think will happen in the future. Always feel free to ask me for clarification.----
By Les Christie, staff writer
March 10, 2011: 5:24 AM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Is our long national foreclosure nightmare ending?
The number of foreclosure notices filed in February dropped 14% compared with a month earlier and 27% compared with a year earlier, according to RealtyTrac.
That was the biggest year-over-year decline the company has ever recorded. But the improvement may be exaggerated, according to RealtyTrac CEO James Saccacio, who traced some of the decline to the fallout over robo-signing issues.
"Allegations of improper foreclosure processing continued to dog the mortgage servicing industry and disrupt court dockets," he said. "The industry is in the midst of a major overhaul that has severely restricted its capacity to process foreclosures."
Another contributing factor was the harsh winter weather that covered much of the country during the month. That delayed some of the paperwork processing and the serving of notices of default, notices of auction sales and other filings.
There were still more than 225,000 filings during the month, or one for every 577 homes. The banks repossessed 64,643 homes from delinquent borrowers, down significantly from the peak of about 102,000 last September.
The foreclosure fall flew in the face of other housing market reports that made it clear that housing is far from being out of the woods. S&P/Case-Shiller reported that prices are going down, and Zillow, the real estate website, said nearly 30% of borrowers with mortgages owe more than their homes are worth.
Looking to the future, the 50 state attorney generals seem to be making progress in their pursuit of a financial settlement with the banks over the robo-signing mess.
"We believe some of the servicers have slowed foreclosures as they wait to see how the settlement talks play out," said RealtyTrack spokesman Rick Sharga.
Worst-hit states
Three of the four "Sand States," Nevada (one filing for every 119 housing units), Arizona (one in 222) and California (one in 239) held their places at the top of the list of hardest hit states. Utah is the new number four, followed by Idaho, Georgia and Michigan.
Florida (one in 472), however, has slipped down the list to number eight. Filings dropped more than 65% year-over-year.
Part of the reason for Florida's improvement may have been the fall-out from the robo-signing issue. Foreclosures involve court hearings in the Sunshine State and many cases have been delayed by judges.
"Judicial foreclosure states recorded the most severe drops in foreclosures," said Sharga.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
10 Foreclosure Hotspots
It’s never a good thing for one’s city to be included in any article naming cities with fast-growing rate of foreclosures. It’s also especially troubling when the picture that CNNMoney.com uses happens to be a house you’ve sold a couple times. Let’s start with that house—it’s a spectacular brick Second Empire house—a double house, actually, built that way in 1873. In 2006, both sides of the house were for sale. I had the left side of the house listed and another agent had the right side of the house listed. My clients (and now very good friends) saw both sides and decided to buy the right side of the house. We had a long negotiation with the owners and finally got about $100k off the purchase price. The market was still hot at that time and we thought that was a pretty good discount. I don’t have to tell you that the market turned south, but they’re still in the house and love it. Naturally, they would have liked to have paid less. As for my left side of the house, as the market turned, we were not able to find a buyer, despite a number of price reductions. Finally, in late 2008, we had a good offer--$735k. At the time, the seller owed about $755k. He had been making $4000 monthly payments on an empty house for two years, so that’s another $100,000 that he ate. He asked the bank if they would accept the offer as a short sale. The bank took about six months to respond to the short sale request, and eventually the buyers lost interest and moved on. And then the bank said they wouldn’t eat the $20k. So my seller stopped making his $4000 payments. We continued taking offers, which the bank continued ignoring. And nearly a year later, in early 2010, the bank finally took the property back. When it was listed in early spring of 2010, the asking price was $565,000. Naturally, I had a list of people who were interested, and I quickly got it under contract at full price. So the bank ate nearly $200,000 and devalued the property. Of course, CNNMoney happened to have used a stock Savannah photo, and couldn’t possibly know the story behind this house, but I do. And it’s the incompetence of the banks that put them in bad positions to start with. On a totally different note, the paragraph describing Savannah’s foreclosure market does mention that homes like this in the Landmark Historic District are not really causing the foreclosure jump. The sub-$100k houses are coming on the market, and the article is right—it’s investor stuff. And we need to look at the bright side of this article—there are indeed great deals to be had for buyers. In fact, I happen to have just gone under contract on one of those foreclosures, the restoration of which may be part of this blog in the future. Looking for a good deal? As always, feel free to contact me.View the CNNmoney.com article: http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2011/real_estate/1102/gallery.latest_foreclosure_hotspots/index.html?hpt=C2
Friday, December 17, 2010
Foreclosures Show Biggest 5-Year Drop as Process Slows
Published: Thursday, 16 Dec 2010 | 7:19 AM ET
By: Joseph Pisani
CNBC News Associate
Foreclosures activity fell dramatically in November, showing the biggest drop in more than five years, mostly due to a temporary freeze on foreclosures and the holiday slowdown, a report released Thursday said.
Foreclosures fell 21 percent in November from the previous month and 14.4 percent from the year before, according to foreclosure tracking web site RealtyTrac.
Both percentage drops are the highest recorded since RealtyTrac began publishing its reports in 2005. But the drop isn't due to a recovery, RealtyTrac said.
“Part of the decrease can be attributed to a seasonal drop of 7 to 10 percent that typically occurs in November," said RealtyTrac CEO James Saccacio in the report.
The other reason for the decrease is the foreclosure freeze earlier this fall, which continues to slow down the foreclosure process, even though most banks have resumed foreclosures.
"Fallout from the foreclosure robo-signing controversy forced lenders and servicers to hit the pause button on many foreclosures while they scrambled to revamp their internal procedures and revise or resubmit questionable paperwork,” said Saccacio.
A separate report released this week from Moody's said that this year's foreclosure freeze will delay the time it takes to foreclose on a property in 2011 by three months.
"We expect that foreclosure activity in December will remain artificially low, but not as low as November," said Rick Sharga, senior vice president at RealtyTrac. "Foreclosure activity rates will accelerate during the first quarter of 2011 as the lenders and servicers catch up on these delayed proceedings."
RealtyTrac said that one in every 492 American household received a foreclosure notice in November, totaling 262,339 properties, the lowest that number has been since February 2009. (Foreclosure notices are defined as a default notice, auction sale notice or bank repossession.)
Bank repossessions, the final step in the foreclosure process after a home fails to sell at auction, fell 28 percent in November from the previous month and dropped 12 percent from a year ago. In all, 67,428 homes were repossessed by banks in November, a sharp drop from September when bank repossessions topped 100,000 for the first time.
But despite the decline, bank repossessions for the year have already broken 2009’s record, with 980,000 properties repossessed in 2010 so far.
Among the individual states, Nevada had the highest foreclosure rate for the 47th consecutive month, with one in every 99 households receiving a foreclosure notice in November. (Nevada also has the highest unemployment rate in the country.)
Utah had the second highest rate with one in every 221 households receiving a foreclosure notice. Following Utah were California (one in every 233 households), Arizona (one in every 262 households) and Florida (one in every 267 households). (See the 10 states with the highest foreclosure in our slideshow.)
Vermont had the lowest foreclosure rate in the nation, with one in every 31,262 households receiving a foreclosure notice.
© 2010 CNBC.com
View original article: http://www.cnbc.com/id/40681328
Blogger Matthew Allan is a specialist in Savannah Real Estate, focusing on Savannah's downtown historic districts, including the Landmark Historic District, Victorian Historic District, Thomas Square Historic District, Starland Historic District, Baldwin Park, and Ardsley Park Historic District.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Trouble in Paradise
Trouble in paradise—our plans to build a new house at 102 W 31st may be in jeopardy. Our title search has come back and it’s not looking good. I suppose this would be a good time to discuss the concept of title to a property, which is not unlike title to a car, which most of us have experience with. Think of title as your proof of ownership, which passes from owner to owner when you sell your car or property. Think of buying a new car, in which your title is also brand-new, or even a used car, where you probably only have one or two people before you. But property title can be a little more complicated, especially in a historic district, because of the extended age of the house. Now throw in an issue like we’re experiencing at 102 West 31st, where the current owner bought it at a tax sale, meaning the previous owner had delinquent taxes and the county sold the property to pay those delinquent taxes. Now you see why your mortgage company wants you to create an escrow account with them, so THEY can pay the taxes to make sure they are current. Your property taxes take priority over your mortgage payments in terms of delinquency—in other words, you might be current on your $200,000 mortgage, but if the taxes aren’t paid, the county can take that property, leaving the bank stuck with your $200,000 mortgage, and unlike a foreclosure, without the right to sell the property. It doesn’t happen that often, because usually the mortgage company will pay the taxes and then foreclose upon the house, anyway, because not paying the taxes is a violation of the mortgage, but just know it’s out there. More likely, a property that has no mortgage, especially a piece of vacant land like this, has no bank overseeing tax delinquencies, and eventually, someone gets tired of paying this tax bill and the property changes hands.
The problem we’ve run into is that having the county take the land from you doesn’t mean there were not any title issues before. So let’s say you are in possession of a will that says Aunt Edna is leaving you the house. But Aunt Edna changes her mind and leaves it to Cousin Joe. That ticks you off, so you file a legal suit using the copy of the will as evidence. Now you need a court date and a judgment of some sort, deciding who has the right to the property. And if the judge decides you have the legal right, not Cousin Joe, then Joe may be forced to sell the property or write you a check to settle your interest.
So with all these risks, how do you protect yourself? Well, for starters, most properties don’t have these issues, because you have a title search done as part of your due diligence. You pay someone to go to the courthouse to search the records for anything that’s recorded against the title. Now, all that means is that if someone actually went to the courthouse and legally recorded it, making it of legal record, then there is proof. But if someone has Aunt Edna’s will stuffed under the mattress, and never recorded it, there’s a potential issue. So, if the title is reasonably clean, a title insurance company steps in and says, OK, we will insure this title, and if that will does appear, we’ll defend your interest in the property. If you can purchase title insurance, what’s the issue with 102 West 31st? Well, just like Allstate doesn’t want to insure a driver with 10 accidents, if the title search has brought up a number of issues, the title insurance company may not want to insure. Now, you could still buy the house, going into it with your eyes open, knowing that you’re not protected, and maybe you do. BUT, when you go to sell the property, you have to find another risk-taker willing to buy without the title insurance. Because just because you bought the place, held it for 20 years, and had no problems, it doesn’t mean that will, or some sort of contract written on a napkin, couldn’t rear its head and force you into a legal action to defend your property. And as you know, legal actions are expensive.
And thus, we have a problem. Stay tuned.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Foreclosure mess prompts call for stress tests
As everyone knows, I’ve given up making predictions on the near-term future of real estate, and am continuing to make purchases that make sense for my own purposes, as well as advising clients to do the same. My investors and I have three projects in the works—the next two skinny lot Victorian District new construction projects I’ve been discussing, and a small cottage in the Landmark Historic District that we just put under contract and plan to renovate. More on that later. Anyway, we’ve been successful, but maybe news like the following will ultimately make us look like idiots. Or, maybe we’ll continuing being successful while others sit on the sidelines.
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By Ben Rooney, staff reporter
November 16, 2010: 8:20 AM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- A Congressional watchdog group said Tuesday that U.S. banks should undergo stress tests to determine whether or not they have enough money to absorb losses that could stem from investigations into their foreclosure processes.
The Congressional Oversight Panel, created by Congress in 2008 to review the Treasury Department's response to the financial crisis, issued a 125-page report detailing recent allegations that banks and loan servicers filed thousands of inaccurate documents in foreclosure cases across the country.
While the report acknowledged that the scope and the consequences of controversy remain unknown, the panel warned that the financial system could be at risk if the allegations of "robo-signing" are proven to be true.
"If documentation problems prove to be pervasive and, more importantly, throw into doubt the ownership of not only foreclosed properties but also pooled mortgages, the consequences could be severe," the report said.
The worry is that banks will be forced to buy back mortgages that had been bundled and sold in the $7.6 trillion market for Residential Mortgage Backed Securities, or RMBS. That could result in severe losses for the banks and destabilize the still-fragile financial system, according to the report.
Bank of America has already come under fire from some big institutional investors, including the Pacific Investment Management Company and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which have accused the bank of mishandling $47 billion in home loans.
In addition, attorneys general from all 50 states have launched investigations into banks' foreclosure practices.
Still, the report noted that concerns about robo-signing could be overblown, and the panel's chairman told reporters Monday that he doesn't yet know the full impact of the problem.
"It could turn out to be nothing, or it could turn out to be a big deal," said Senator Ted Kaufman, D-Del. "We're not at the stage yet were we have all the info we need to determine how bad it's going to be," he added.
To assess banks' vulnerability, the panel called on regulators to subject banks to stress tests to gauge whether their financial health is sound enough to withstand losses that could result from the controversy under a worst-case scenario.
The Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department conducted stress tests on banks in 2009 amid the financial crisis. But those tests offer "limited reassurance that major banks could survive further shocks in the months and years to come," the report said.
The panel also took issue with statements from the Treasury Department suggesting that the robo-signing problem does not currently pose a threat to the financial system, saying such assertions "appear premature."
In response, a Treasury official said in a statement that the agency is working closely with 11 other federal regulators to investigate the issue, but "they have not found evidence to date of a systemic threat to the broader financial system."
"We strongly believe that the reported behavior within the mortgage servicer industry is simply unacceptable, and servicers who have failed to follow the law must be held accountable," said Treasury spokesman Mark Paustenbach.
The report also raised concerns that the controversy could undermine the Treasury's main foreclosure prevention program, the Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP. Panel members are concerned that some servicers dealing with Treasury may have no legal right to initiate foreclosures, which may call into question their ability to grant modifications or to demand payments from homeowners.
However, the Treasury noted that HAMP is intended to help eligible homeowners before they enter the foreclosure process.
View original article: http://money.cnn.com/2010/11/16/real_estate/congressional_oversight_panel_bank_foreclosures/index.htm
Blogger Matthew Allan is a specialist in Savannah Real Estate, focusing on Savannah's downtown historic districts, including the Landmark Historic District, Victorian Historic District, Thomas Square Historic District, Starland Historic District, Baldwin Park, and Ardsley Park Historic District.
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By Ben Rooney, staff reporter
November 16, 2010: 8:20 AM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- A Congressional watchdog group said Tuesday that U.S. banks should undergo stress tests to determine whether or not they have enough money to absorb losses that could stem from investigations into their foreclosure processes.
The Congressional Oversight Panel, created by Congress in 2008 to review the Treasury Department's response to the financial crisis, issued a 125-page report detailing recent allegations that banks and loan servicers filed thousands of inaccurate documents in foreclosure cases across the country.
While the report acknowledged that the scope and the consequences of controversy remain unknown, the panel warned that the financial system could be at risk if the allegations of "robo-signing" are proven to be true.
"If documentation problems prove to be pervasive and, more importantly, throw into doubt the ownership of not only foreclosed properties but also pooled mortgages, the consequences could be severe," the report said.
The worry is that banks will be forced to buy back mortgages that had been bundled and sold in the $7.6 trillion market for Residential Mortgage Backed Securities, or RMBS. That could result in severe losses for the banks and destabilize the still-fragile financial system, according to the report.
Bank of America has already come under fire from some big institutional investors, including the Pacific Investment Management Company and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which have accused the bank of mishandling $47 billion in home loans.
In addition, attorneys general from all 50 states have launched investigations into banks' foreclosure practices.
Still, the report noted that concerns about robo-signing could be overblown, and the panel's chairman told reporters Monday that he doesn't yet know the full impact of the problem.
"It could turn out to be nothing, or it could turn out to be a big deal," said Senator Ted Kaufman, D-Del. "We're not at the stage yet were we have all the info we need to determine how bad it's going to be," he added.
To assess banks' vulnerability, the panel called on regulators to subject banks to stress tests to gauge whether their financial health is sound enough to withstand losses that could result from the controversy under a worst-case scenario.
The Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department conducted stress tests on banks in 2009 amid the financial crisis. But those tests offer "limited reassurance that major banks could survive further shocks in the months and years to come," the report said.
The panel also took issue with statements from the Treasury Department suggesting that the robo-signing problem does not currently pose a threat to the financial system, saying such assertions "appear premature."
In response, a Treasury official said in a statement that the agency is working closely with 11 other federal regulators to investigate the issue, but "they have not found evidence to date of a systemic threat to the broader financial system."
"We strongly believe that the reported behavior within the mortgage servicer industry is simply unacceptable, and servicers who have failed to follow the law must be held accountable," said Treasury spokesman Mark Paustenbach.
The report also raised concerns that the controversy could undermine the Treasury's main foreclosure prevention program, the Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP. Panel members are concerned that some servicers dealing with Treasury may have no legal right to initiate foreclosures, which may call into question their ability to grant modifications or to demand payments from homeowners.
However, the Treasury noted that HAMP is intended to help eligible homeowners before they enter the foreclosure process.
View original article: http://money.cnn.com/2010/11/16/real_estate/congressional_oversight_panel_bank_foreclosures/index.htm
Blogger Matthew Allan is a specialist in Savannah Real Estate, focusing on Savannah's downtown historic districts, including the Landmark Historic District, Victorian Historic District, Thomas Square Historic District, Starland Historic District, Baldwin Park, and Ardsley Park Historic District.
Friday, November 5, 2010
What the election means for foreclosures and robo-signing
Tuesday's elections could bring changes on the foreclosure front in a number of ways. First, it could impact future legislation and stimulus money targeting the housing market. It can also, as this article discusses, cause some hiccups in the prosecution of state cases currently in progress since certain attorneys general involved in those cases lost their elections. The Fed also announced this week that they will be pumping more money into the economy. That could be a good thing, or it could be a bad thing. I guess what we've learned the last couple years is not to make predictions. In the meantime, I continue to look for a house for my family. It just seems like a good time to buy with prices and mortgage rates being so attractive.
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By Charles Riley, staff reporter
November 5, 2010: 5:50 AM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The state attorneys general have been pressing the banks hard over the past month, questioning them over foreclosures and falsified legal paperwork. But Tuesday's election could impact that effort.
All 50 state attorneys general agreed to jointly pursue the issue, but half of their 12-member executive committee now find themselves in their last months of service. Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, New York and Ohio will all have new attorneys general come January.
Most prominent in that group is Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, who had filed suit against Ally Financial, alleging that the bank and its employees had signed and filed false affidavits in foreclosure cases, a practice commonly known as robo-signing.
Cordray lost his reelection bid to Republican Mike DeWine, who has not yet declared whether he intends to pursue the issue.
"After [Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller], Cordray was the single most visible attorney general in this effort," said Peter Swire, a law professor at Ohio State and former special assistant for economic policy at the White House.
Robo-signing: Just the start of bigger problems
Despite the loss of Cordray and other AGs, Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said the investigation will continue.
"While some members of the multistate group, including a few executive committee members, will change political leadership in January, these changes do not affect the work we are now doing at the staff and leadership levels," Miller said in a statement. "This is a bipartisan and united effort with a clear mandate to put a stop to improper mortgage practices."
Miller added that it is his job to conduct the investigation "methodically and quickly," but it is unclear how much the group can accomplish in the next two months with membership in flux and the new AGs trying to get briefed on all aspects of their new jobs.
Cordray, however, expects the new group will continue moving forward.
"It will change in the sense that new people will replace former people," Cordray said. "But I would be surprised if that changed anything material. We already had 50 [attorneys general] signed on across the aisle, and every last one merited it important."
James Tierney, director of the National State Attorneys General Program at Columbia University, agrees.
"It means nothing. AGs come and go all the time," Tierney said. "That's just the nature of the beast. ... If a new attorney general says 'I'd rather go after meth labs, and not foreclosures,' that's O.K."
But it may make Miller's role more pronounced. "Miller will be a key decision maker. He has already been convening meetings with lenders," said Swire. "He is still in office, and with the other changes to the executive committee, he is the center of attention."
View original article: http://money.cnn.com/2010/11/04/real_estate/ohio_attorney_general/index.htm
Blogger Matthew Allan is a specialist in Savannah Real Estate, focusing on Savannah's downtown historic districts, including the Landmark Historic District, Victorian Historic District, Thomas Square Historic District, Starland Historic District, Baldwin Park, and Ardsley Park Historic District.
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By Charles Riley, staff reporter
November 5, 2010: 5:50 AM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The state attorneys general have been pressing the banks hard over the past month, questioning them over foreclosures and falsified legal paperwork. But Tuesday's election could impact that effort.
All 50 state attorneys general agreed to jointly pursue the issue, but half of their 12-member executive committee now find themselves in their last months of service. Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, New York and Ohio will all have new attorneys general come January.
Most prominent in that group is Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, who had filed suit against Ally Financial, alleging that the bank and its employees had signed and filed false affidavits in foreclosure cases, a practice commonly known as robo-signing.
Cordray lost his reelection bid to Republican Mike DeWine, who has not yet declared whether he intends to pursue the issue.
"After [Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller], Cordray was the single most visible attorney general in this effort," said Peter Swire, a law professor at Ohio State and former special assistant for economic policy at the White House.
Robo-signing: Just the start of bigger problems
Despite the loss of Cordray and other AGs, Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said the investigation will continue.
"While some members of the multistate group, including a few executive committee members, will change political leadership in January, these changes do not affect the work we are now doing at the staff and leadership levels," Miller said in a statement. "This is a bipartisan and united effort with a clear mandate to put a stop to improper mortgage practices."
Miller added that it is his job to conduct the investigation "methodically and quickly," but it is unclear how much the group can accomplish in the next two months with membership in flux and the new AGs trying to get briefed on all aspects of their new jobs.
Cordray, however, expects the new group will continue moving forward.
"It will change in the sense that new people will replace former people," Cordray said. "But I would be surprised if that changed anything material. We already had 50 [attorneys general] signed on across the aisle, and every last one merited it important."
James Tierney, director of the National State Attorneys General Program at Columbia University, agrees.
"It means nothing. AGs come and go all the time," Tierney said. "That's just the nature of the beast. ... If a new attorney general says 'I'd rather go after meth labs, and not foreclosures,' that's O.K."
But it may make Miller's role more pronounced. "Miller will be a key decision maker. He has already been convening meetings with lenders," said Swire. "He is still in office, and with the other changes to the executive committee, he is the center of attention."
View original article: http://money.cnn.com/2010/11/04/real_estate/ohio_attorney_general/index.htm
Blogger Matthew Allan is a specialist in Savannah Real Estate, focusing on Savannah's downtown historic districts, including the Landmark Historic District, Victorian Historic District, Thomas Square Historic District, Starland Historic District, Baldwin Park, and Ardsley Park Historic District.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
The Foreclosure Story...Continued
The past couple weeks headlines have been filled with foreclosure, foreclosure, foreclosure. I'm sure you are aware that Bank of America, Ally Financial and JP Morgan Chase suspended foreclosures in 23 states a couple weeks ago. Since then, attorney generals in all 50 states have banded together to temporarily halt foreclosure proceedings nationwide to examine dig deeper into alleged "robo-signing" scandal. Then, as of Monday, October 18th, Bank of America has resumed foreclosure filings in 23 states.
It seems everyone has a dog in this fight...from an Illinois sheriff who says he won't enforce foreclosure evictions until he has proof those foreclosures were handled legally and properly, to a New York judge who "ordered lawyers handling foreclosures in the state for banks and servicers to sign a form verifying the procedure had been done properly" to families breaking back into their foreclosed home because they say the bank didn't have a right to evict them because they weren't behind on payments. The lawsuits are expected to takes years to be settled on the various cases, from the individual, to the large class-action suits we will certainly see against the banks.
And let's not forget that we are right in the middle of mid-term elections so the politicians are jumping on this bandwagon left and right. So who knows what's really going on these days. You cannot predict how this will all pan out, but you can be sure of this--mortgage rates are at all-time lows, prices are down, and there is available inventory. So, as I always say, if you find a house that makes sense, don't try to predict the future--make a purchase now if the payment makes sense, you like the house, and you're not planning on selling in the next year. That advice will never change, no matter where we are in the news cycle.
Blogger Matthew Allan is a specialist in Savannah Real Estate, focusing on Savannah's downtown historic districts, including the Landmark Historic District, Victorian Historic District, Thomas Square Historic District, Starland Historic District, Baldwin Park, and Ardsley Park Historic District.
It seems everyone has a dog in this fight...from an Illinois sheriff who says he won't enforce foreclosure evictions until he has proof those foreclosures were handled legally and properly, to a New York judge who "ordered lawyers handling foreclosures in the state for banks and servicers to sign a form verifying the procedure had been done properly" to families breaking back into their foreclosed home because they say the bank didn't have a right to evict them because they weren't behind on payments. The lawsuits are expected to takes years to be settled on the various cases, from the individual, to the large class-action suits we will certainly see against the banks.
And let's not forget that we are right in the middle of mid-term elections so the politicians are jumping on this bandwagon left and right. So who knows what's really going on these days. You cannot predict how this will all pan out, but you can be sure of this--mortgage rates are at all-time lows, prices are down, and there is available inventory. So, as I always say, if you find a house that makes sense, don't try to predict the future--make a purchase now if the payment makes sense, you like the house, and you're not planning on selling in the next year. That advice will never change, no matter where we are in the news cycle.
Blogger Matthew Allan is a specialist in Savannah Real Estate, focusing on Savannah's downtown historic districts, including the Landmark Historic District, Victorian Historic District, Thomas Square Historic District, Starland Historic District, Baldwin Park, and Ardsley Park Historic District.
From a Maine House, A National Foreclosure Freeze
By DAVID STREITFELD
Published: October 14, 2010
DENMARK, Me. — The house that set off the national furor over faulty foreclosures is blue-gray and weathered. The porch is piled with furniture and knickknacks awaiting the next yard sale. In the driveway is a busted pickup truck. No one who lives there is going anywhere anytime soon.
Nicolle Bradbury bought this house seven years ago for $75,000, a major step up from the trailer she had been living in with her family. But she lost her job and the $474 monthly mortgage payment became difficult, then impossible.
It should have been a routine foreclosure, with Mrs. Bradbury joining the anonymous millions quietly dispossessed since the recession began. But she was savvy enough to contact a nonprofit group, Pine Tree Legal Assistance, where for once in her 38 years, she caught a break.
Her file was pulled, more or less at random, by Thomas A. Cox, a retired lawyer who volunteers at Pine Tree. He happened to know something about foreclosures because when he worked for a bank he did them all the time. Twenty years later, he had switched sides and, he says, was trying to make amends.
Suddenly, there is a frenzy over foreclosures. Every attorney general in the country is participating in an investigation into the flawed paperwork and questionable methods behind many of them. A Senate hearing is scheduled, and federal inquiries have begun. The housing market, which runs on foreclosure sales, is in turmoil. Bank stocks fell on Thursday as analysts tried to gauge the impact on lenders’ bottom lines.
All of this is largely because Mr. Cox realized almost immediately that Mrs. Bradbury’s foreclosure file did not look right. The documents from the lender, GMAC Mortgage, were approved by an employee whose title was “limited signing officer,” an indication to the lawyer that his knowledge of the case was effectively nonexistent.
Mr. Cox eventually won the right to depose the employee, who casually acknowledged that he had prepared 400 foreclosures a day for GMAC and that contrary to his sworn statements, they had not been reviewed by him or anyone else.
GMAC, the country’s fourth-largest mortgage lender, called this omission a technicality but was forced last month to halt foreclosures in the 23 states, including Maine, where they must be approved by a court. Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and other lenders that used robo-signers — the term caught on instantly — have enacted their own freezes.
The tragedy of foreclosure is that some homeowners may be able to stay where they are if their lenders are more interested in modification than eviction. Without a job, Mrs. Bradbury is not one of them. Her family, including her 14-year-old daughter and 16-year-old son, lives on welfare and food stamps.
“A lot of people say we just want a free ride,” Mrs. Bradbury said. “That’s not it. I’ve worked since I was 14. I’m not lazy. I’m just trying to keep us together. If we lost the house, my family would have to break up.”
It has been two years since she last paid the mortgage, which surprises even her lawyers.
“Had GMAC followed the legal requirements, she would have lost her home a long time ago,” acknowledged Geoffrey S. Lewis, another lawyer handling her case.
GMAC, which began as the financing arm of General Motors, has received $17 billion from taxpayers in an effort to keep it from failing and is now majority-owned by the federal government. A spokeswoman for the lender declined to comment on Mrs. Bradbury’s case because it was still being litigated.
John J. Aromando of the firm of Pierce Atwood in Portland, Me., the lawyer for GMAC and Fannie Mae, the mortgage holding company that owns Mrs. Bradbury’s loan, did not return calls for comment on Thursday.
Fannie Mae and GMAC, which serviced the loan for Fannie, have now most likely spent more to dislodge Mrs. Bradbury than her house is worth. Yet for all their efforts, they are not only losing this case, but also potentially laying the groundwork for foreclosure challenges nationwide.
“This ammunition will be front and center in thousands of foreclosure cases,” said Don Saunders of the National Legal Aid and Defender Association.
Just a few miles from the New Hampshire border, this slice of Maine does not have much in the way of industry or, for that matter, people. Mrs. Bradbury grew up around here, married and had her children here, and married for a second time here. Her parents still live nearby.
In 2003, her brother-in-law at the time offered to sell her a house on property adjacent to his. It was across from a noisy construction supply site. But it was ringed by maple, evergreen and willow trees, and who does not want to be a homeowner, especially when GMAC Mortgage will give you a loan for the entire purchase price and then another loan to improve the property?
“I was very happy,” she remembered. “It was a new beginning.”
But Mrs. Bradbury lost her job as an employment counselor in 2006 and did part-time work after that. Her husband, Scott, was in poor health and had other problems. He could not work as a roofer. She fell behind and got a modification from GMAC. It increased her monthly payments and provided no relief.
Finally, in late 2008, she stopped paying altogether, and GMAC asked a court to approve her eviction without a trial. By the summer of 2009, this removal was well under way when Mr. Cox picked up her file.
Mr. Cox, 66, worked in the late 1980s and early 1990s for Maine National Bank, a subsidiary of the Bank of New England, which went under. His job was to call in small-business loans. The borrowers had often pledged their houses as collateral, which meant foreclosure.
“It was extraordinarily unpleasant, but it paid well,” he said. “I had a family to support.”
The work exacted its cost: his marriage ended and a serious depression began. He gave up law and found solace in building houses. By April 2008, he said, he was sufficiently recovered and started volunteering at Pine Tree Legal.
By the time Mr. Cox saw Mrs. Bradbury’s case, it was just about over. Last January, Judge Keith A. Powers of the Ninth District Court of Maine approved the foreclosure, leaving the case alive only to establish exactly how much Mrs. Bradbury owed.
Mr. Cox vowed to a colleague that he would expose GMAC’s process and its limited signing officer, Jeffrey Stephan. A lawyer in another foreclosure case had already deposed Mr. Stephan, but Mr. Cox wanted to take the questioning much further. In June, he got his chance. A few weeks later, he spelled out in a court filing what he had learned from the robo-signer:
“When Stephan says in an affidavit that he has personal knowledge of the facts stated in his affidavits, he doesn’t. When he says that he has custody and control of the loan documents, he doesn’t. When he says that he is attaching ‘a true and accurate’ copy of a note or a mortgage, he has no idea if that is so, because he does not look at the exhibits. When he makes any other statement of fact, he has no idea if it is true. When the notary says that Stephan appeared before him or her, he didn’t.”
GMAC’s reaction to the deposition was to hire two new law firms, including Mr. Aromando’s firm, among the most prominent in the state. They argued that what Mrs. Bradbury and her lawyers were doing was simply a “dodge”: she had not paid her mortgage and should be evicted.
They also said that Mr. Cox, despite working pro bono, had taken the deposition “to prejudice and influence the public” against GMAC for his own commercial benefit. They asked that the transcript be deleted from any blog that had posted it and that it be put under court seal.
In a ruling late last month, Judge Powers said that GMAC, despite its expensive legal talent and the fact that it got “a second bite of the apple” by filing amended foreclosure papers, still could not get this eviction right.
Even the amended documents did not bother to include the actual street address of the property it was trying to seize — reason enough, the judge wrote, to reject the request for immediate foreclosure without a trial.
But Judge Powers went further than that, saying that GMAC had been admonished in a Florida court for using robo-signers four years ago but had persisted. “It is well past the time for such practices to end,” he wrote, adding that GMAC had acted “in bad faith” by submitting Mr. Stephan’s material:
“Filing such a document without significant regard for its accuracy, which the court in ordinary circumstances may never be able to investigate or otherwise verify, is a serious and troubling matter.”
It was not a complete loss for GMAC — Judge Powers declined to find the lender in contempt — but nearly so. GMAC was ordered, as a penalty, to pay Mr. Cox personally what he would have been paid for his work on the deposition and related matters had he been charging Mrs. Bradbury. That, he says, is $27,000.
The court’s ruling on GMAC’s “bad faith” is already being taken up by foreclosure defense lawyers around the country. Mr. Cox “did a remarkable job of proving the lenders not only rubber-stamped these loans on the front end, but they rubber-stamped them on the back end,” said Mr. Saunders of the legal aid group.
GMAC, which this week expanded its foreclosure freeze to the entire country, is not giving up on Mrs. Bradbury. It will try for the third time to evict her when the case goes to trial this winter.
If Mrs. Bradbury is not quite victorious, she is still in her house, and for her that is the only thing that counts. If she can get her pickup fixed, she will go back to looking for a job.
“I am not leaving,” she said this week, standing out on her front lawn, the autumn splendor spread all around her. “We have nowhere to go.”
Original article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/15/business/15maine.html?_r=1&emc=eta1
Published: October 14, 2010
DENMARK, Me. — The house that set off the national furor over faulty foreclosures is blue-gray and weathered. The porch is piled with furniture and knickknacks awaiting the next yard sale. In the driveway is a busted pickup truck. No one who lives there is going anywhere anytime soon.
Nicolle Bradbury bought this house seven years ago for $75,000, a major step up from the trailer she had been living in with her family. But she lost her job and the $474 monthly mortgage payment became difficult, then impossible.
It should have been a routine foreclosure, with Mrs. Bradbury joining the anonymous millions quietly dispossessed since the recession began. But she was savvy enough to contact a nonprofit group, Pine Tree Legal Assistance, where for once in her 38 years, she caught a break.
Her file was pulled, more or less at random, by Thomas A. Cox, a retired lawyer who volunteers at Pine Tree. He happened to know something about foreclosures because when he worked for a bank he did them all the time. Twenty years later, he had switched sides and, he says, was trying to make amends.
Suddenly, there is a frenzy over foreclosures. Every attorney general in the country is participating in an investigation into the flawed paperwork and questionable methods behind many of them. A Senate hearing is scheduled, and federal inquiries have begun. The housing market, which runs on foreclosure sales, is in turmoil. Bank stocks fell on Thursday as analysts tried to gauge the impact on lenders’ bottom lines.
All of this is largely because Mr. Cox realized almost immediately that Mrs. Bradbury’s foreclosure file did not look right. The documents from the lender, GMAC Mortgage, were approved by an employee whose title was “limited signing officer,” an indication to the lawyer that his knowledge of the case was effectively nonexistent.
Mr. Cox eventually won the right to depose the employee, who casually acknowledged that he had prepared 400 foreclosures a day for GMAC and that contrary to his sworn statements, they had not been reviewed by him or anyone else.
GMAC, the country’s fourth-largest mortgage lender, called this omission a technicality but was forced last month to halt foreclosures in the 23 states, including Maine, where they must be approved by a court. Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and other lenders that used robo-signers — the term caught on instantly — have enacted their own freezes.
The tragedy of foreclosure is that some homeowners may be able to stay where they are if their lenders are more interested in modification than eviction. Without a job, Mrs. Bradbury is not one of them. Her family, including her 14-year-old daughter and 16-year-old son, lives on welfare and food stamps.
“A lot of people say we just want a free ride,” Mrs. Bradbury said. “That’s not it. I’ve worked since I was 14. I’m not lazy. I’m just trying to keep us together. If we lost the house, my family would have to break up.”
It has been two years since she last paid the mortgage, which surprises even her lawyers.
“Had GMAC followed the legal requirements, she would have lost her home a long time ago,” acknowledged Geoffrey S. Lewis, another lawyer handling her case.
GMAC, which began as the financing arm of General Motors, has received $17 billion from taxpayers in an effort to keep it from failing and is now majority-owned by the federal government. A spokeswoman for the lender declined to comment on Mrs. Bradbury’s case because it was still being litigated.
John J. Aromando of the firm of Pierce Atwood in Portland, Me., the lawyer for GMAC and Fannie Mae, the mortgage holding company that owns Mrs. Bradbury’s loan, did not return calls for comment on Thursday.
Fannie Mae and GMAC, which serviced the loan for Fannie, have now most likely spent more to dislodge Mrs. Bradbury than her house is worth. Yet for all their efforts, they are not only losing this case, but also potentially laying the groundwork for foreclosure challenges nationwide.
“This ammunition will be front and center in thousands of foreclosure cases,” said Don Saunders of the National Legal Aid and Defender Association.
Just a few miles from the New Hampshire border, this slice of Maine does not have much in the way of industry or, for that matter, people. Mrs. Bradbury grew up around here, married and had her children here, and married for a second time here. Her parents still live nearby.
In 2003, her brother-in-law at the time offered to sell her a house on property adjacent to his. It was across from a noisy construction supply site. But it was ringed by maple, evergreen and willow trees, and who does not want to be a homeowner, especially when GMAC Mortgage will give you a loan for the entire purchase price and then another loan to improve the property?
“I was very happy,” she remembered. “It was a new beginning.”
But Mrs. Bradbury lost her job as an employment counselor in 2006 and did part-time work after that. Her husband, Scott, was in poor health and had other problems. He could not work as a roofer. She fell behind and got a modification from GMAC. It increased her monthly payments and provided no relief.
Finally, in late 2008, she stopped paying altogether, and GMAC asked a court to approve her eviction without a trial. By the summer of 2009, this removal was well under way when Mr. Cox picked up her file.
Mr. Cox, 66, worked in the late 1980s and early 1990s for Maine National Bank, a subsidiary of the Bank of New England, which went under. His job was to call in small-business loans. The borrowers had often pledged their houses as collateral, which meant foreclosure.
“It was extraordinarily unpleasant, but it paid well,” he said. “I had a family to support.”
The work exacted its cost: his marriage ended and a serious depression began. He gave up law and found solace in building houses. By April 2008, he said, he was sufficiently recovered and started volunteering at Pine Tree Legal.
By the time Mr. Cox saw Mrs. Bradbury’s case, it was just about over. Last January, Judge Keith A. Powers of the Ninth District Court of Maine approved the foreclosure, leaving the case alive only to establish exactly how much Mrs. Bradbury owed.
Mr. Cox vowed to a colleague that he would expose GMAC’s process and its limited signing officer, Jeffrey Stephan. A lawyer in another foreclosure case had already deposed Mr. Stephan, but Mr. Cox wanted to take the questioning much further. In June, he got his chance. A few weeks later, he spelled out in a court filing what he had learned from the robo-signer:
“When Stephan says in an affidavit that he has personal knowledge of the facts stated in his affidavits, he doesn’t. When he says that he has custody and control of the loan documents, he doesn’t. When he says that he is attaching ‘a true and accurate’ copy of a note or a mortgage, he has no idea if that is so, because he does not look at the exhibits. When he makes any other statement of fact, he has no idea if it is true. When the notary says that Stephan appeared before him or her, he didn’t.”
GMAC’s reaction to the deposition was to hire two new law firms, including Mr. Aromando’s firm, among the most prominent in the state. They argued that what Mrs. Bradbury and her lawyers were doing was simply a “dodge”: she had not paid her mortgage and should be evicted.
They also said that Mr. Cox, despite working pro bono, had taken the deposition “to prejudice and influence the public” against GMAC for his own commercial benefit. They asked that the transcript be deleted from any blog that had posted it and that it be put under court seal.
In a ruling late last month, Judge Powers said that GMAC, despite its expensive legal talent and the fact that it got “a second bite of the apple” by filing amended foreclosure papers, still could not get this eviction right.
Even the amended documents did not bother to include the actual street address of the property it was trying to seize — reason enough, the judge wrote, to reject the request for immediate foreclosure without a trial.
But Judge Powers went further than that, saying that GMAC had been admonished in a Florida court for using robo-signers four years ago but had persisted. “It is well past the time for such practices to end,” he wrote, adding that GMAC had acted “in bad faith” by submitting Mr. Stephan’s material:
“Filing such a document without significant regard for its accuracy, which the court in ordinary circumstances may never be able to investigate or otherwise verify, is a serious and troubling matter.”
It was not a complete loss for GMAC — Judge Powers declined to find the lender in contempt — but nearly so. GMAC was ordered, as a penalty, to pay Mr. Cox personally what he would have been paid for his work on the deposition and related matters had he been charging Mrs. Bradbury. That, he says, is $27,000.
The court’s ruling on GMAC’s “bad faith” is already being taken up by foreclosure defense lawyers around the country. Mr. Cox “did a remarkable job of proving the lenders not only rubber-stamped these loans on the front end, but they rubber-stamped them on the back end,” said Mr. Saunders of the legal aid group.
GMAC, which this week expanded its foreclosure freeze to the entire country, is not giving up on Mrs. Bradbury. It will try for the third time to evict her when the case goes to trial this winter.
If Mrs. Bradbury is not quite victorious, she is still in her house, and for her that is the only thing that counts. If she can get her pickup fixed, she will go back to looking for a job.
“I am not leaving,” she said this week, standing out on her front lawn, the autumn splendor spread all around her. “We have nowhere to go.”
Original article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/15/business/15maine.html?_r=1&emc=eta1
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
The Foreclosure Story
There’s a new wrinkle in the foreclosure story (you know, that story about how it seems half the houses on the market are foreclosures, and how buyers are dragging their heels, waiting for more, and possibly better foreclosures, even while the 30-year mortgage rate hovers at 4% interest). Now a couple of the major banks have suspended foreclosure proceedings because it turns out some of the foreclosures may have been filed incorrectly, mostly due to the overwhelming volume of paperwork required to file the foreclosure. So if you have a stack of 100 papers and there’s a paragraph buried in there that technically shouldn’t be, the homeowner could go to court to contest the foreclosure. So, this will slow the tide of foreclosures. BUT, there is already what’s referred to as a “shadow inventory” of foreclosures, which are homes the banks have taken back but haven’t put on the market yet, so as not to flood the market with even more foreclosures and depress property values even further. Add the foreclosures that the banks are now suspending, to make certain the I’s are dotted and T’s are crossed, and who knows how many will eventually show up. On the other hand, maybe by the time they do hit the market, housing will be in a turnaround phase and those foreclosed homes hitting the market will be worth more. At this point, it’s anybody’s guess. For more background, see the three posts below.
Ritholtz: Slowing the Runaway Foreclosure Train
“Defective documentation has created millions of blighted titles that will plague the nation for the next decade"... Richard Kessler, an attorney in Sarasota, Florida, who conducted a study that found errors in about three-fourths of court filings related to home repossessions. The out of control foreclosure machinery has officially been brought into the shop for repairs.
The real estate financing industry appears to have brought the same technical expertise that allowed automated underwriting of mortgages to an automated foreclosure process: Structurally flawed, rife with errors, guaranteed to fail — and in need if an immediate overhaul.
As we have seen, homeowners without mortgages have lost their home to foreclosure.
That this legal impossibility actually occurred reveals the foreclosure process, especially in Florida (but other states as well)as little more than a legal conveyor belt, bereft of oversight, manned by parasitic law firms and overwhelmed bankers.
It is Lucy on the chocolate factory line, only with homes being repossessed instead of bon bons slipping by unwrapped.
This more than merely “flawed paperwork” — the entire process is problematic. It has reached such depths that numerous banks have voluntarily stopped foreclosures while they review their internal processes, and the methods used by local law firms they hire. Called Foreclosure mills, many of these firms employ illegal methods to their legal practices. They use robo-signers instead of reviewing documents reviewed by lawyers; they hire process servers with histories of fraud and criminality. In the pursuit of foreclosure profits, they have tried to turn the practice of law into a clerical act of foreclosure, repossession, and resale — consequences be damned.
We have continually argued all of the HAMP and foreclosure abatement programs are ultimately counter-productive, and benefit the banks, not the home owners. I have called for allowing the process to proceed naturally, letting prices fall to where they will. Further, We have never opposed the foreclosure process as a price discovery mechanism.
But what is going on in Florida and elsewhere is a national embarrassment. What is required here is a full blown investigation from the US Attorney’s office.
Published: Monday, 4 Oct 2010 | 4:03 PM ET
By: Barry Ritholtz
CEO, Director of Equity Research of Fusion IQ
View original article: http://www.cnbc.com/id/39506421
Blogger Matthew Allan is a specialist in Savannah Real Estate, focusing on Savannah's downtown historic districts, including the Landmark Historic District, Victorian Historic District, Thomas Square Historic District, Starland Historic District, Baldwin Park, and Ardsley Park Historic District.
The real estate financing industry appears to have brought the same technical expertise that allowed automated underwriting of mortgages to an automated foreclosure process: Structurally flawed, rife with errors, guaranteed to fail — and in need if an immediate overhaul.
As we have seen, homeowners without mortgages have lost their home to foreclosure.
That this legal impossibility actually occurred reveals the foreclosure process, especially in Florida (but other states as well)as little more than a legal conveyor belt, bereft of oversight, manned by parasitic law firms and overwhelmed bankers.
It is Lucy on the chocolate factory line, only with homes being repossessed instead of bon bons slipping by unwrapped.
This more than merely “flawed paperwork” — the entire process is problematic. It has reached such depths that numerous banks have voluntarily stopped foreclosures while they review their internal processes, and the methods used by local law firms they hire. Called Foreclosure mills, many of these firms employ illegal methods to their legal practices. They use robo-signers instead of reviewing documents reviewed by lawyers; they hire process servers with histories of fraud and criminality. In the pursuit of foreclosure profits, they have tried to turn the practice of law into a clerical act of foreclosure, repossession, and resale — consequences be damned.
We have continually argued all of the HAMP and foreclosure abatement programs are ultimately counter-productive, and benefit the banks, not the home owners. I have called for allowing the process to proceed naturally, letting prices fall to where they will. Further, We have never opposed the foreclosure process as a price discovery mechanism.
But what is going on in Florida and elsewhere is a national embarrassment. What is required here is a full blown investigation from the US Attorney’s office.
Published: Monday, 4 Oct 2010 | 4:03 PM ET
By: Barry Ritholtz
CEO, Director of Equity Research of Fusion IQ
View original article: http://www.cnbc.com/id/39506421
Blogger Matthew Allan is a specialist in Savannah Real Estate, focusing on Savannah's downtown historic districts, including the Landmark Historic District, Victorian Historic District, Thomas Square Historic District, Starland Historic District, Baldwin Park, and Ardsley Park Historic District.
Bank of America suspends foreclosures
America's largest servicer, Bank of America, has suspended foreclosures cases in 23 states in order to amend any faulty affidavits, Richard Simon, a spokesman for the country's largest lender told HousingWire.
It is the third bank to officially suspend foreclosures and admit to signing affidavits without a knowledge of the documents or a notary present. The personnel who signed these documents quickly are now referred to as "robo-signers." Ally Financial, formerly GMAC Mortgage and JPMorgan Chase are believed to have already suspended foreclosures for similar reasons.
"We have been assessing our existing processes. To be certain affidavits have followed the correct procedures, Bank of America will delay the process in order to amend all affidavits in foreclosure cases that have not yet gone to judgment in the 23 states where courts have jurisdiction over foreclosures," Simon said.
Regulators and state attorneys general offices have demanded meetings, reviews and even moratoriums on foreclosures from both Ally Financial and JPMorgan Chase. The same reaction can be expected for Bank of America.
As of March, BofA's servicing portfolio totaled 13.7 million mortgages for an unpaid principal balance of roughly of $2.1 trillion, according to Moody's Investors Service.
An executive at a third-party mortgage company told HousingWire that the threat of these faulty affidavits would go beyond foreclosures and even the disqualification of the homebuyer tax credit for some, according to a HousingWire report earlier. The entire recovery in the housing market could be at risk. The unnamed source requested not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.
"The entire economy will be hurt by these extensions. I can understand that they appear to be in the best interest of the consumer, but we continue to delay the impact of the financial restabilizing or the finanicial rebalancing of our economy. We're putting borrowers in homes without making mortgage payments, and at the end of the day the taxpayers are the ones picking up the tabs for this stuff," the executive said.
Neither Wells Fargo or Citigroup have confirmed a foreclosure suspension as they review their documents.
Friday, October 1st, 2010, 4:09 pm
by JON PRIOR
View original article: http://www.housingwire.com/2010/10/01/bank-of-america-to-delay-foreclosures
Blogger Matthew Allan is a specialist in Savannah Real Estate, focusing on Savannah's downtown historic districts, including the Landmark Historic District, Victorian Historic District, Thomas Square Historic District, Starland Historic District, Baldwin Park, and Ardsley Park Historic District.
It is the third bank to officially suspend foreclosures and admit to signing affidavits without a knowledge of the documents or a notary present. The personnel who signed these documents quickly are now referred to as "robo-signers." Ally Financial, formerly GMAC Mortgage and JPMorgan Chase are believed to have already suspended foreclosures for similar reasons.
"We have been assessing our existing processes. To be certain affidavits have followed the correct procedures, Bank of America will delay the process in order to amend all affidavits in foreclosure cases that have not yet gone to judgment in the 23 states where courts have jurisdiction over foreclosures," Simon said.
Regulators and state attorneys general offices have demanded meetings, reviews and even moratoriums on foreclosures from both Ally Financial and JPMorgan Chase. The same reaction can be expected for Bank of America.
As of March, BofA's servicing portfolio totaled 13.7 million mortgages for an unpaid principal balance of roughly of $2.1 trillion, according to Moody's Investors Service.
An executive at a third-party mortgage company told HousingWire that the threat of these faulty affidavits would go beyond foreclosures and even the disqualification of the homebuyer tax credit for some, according to a HousingWire report earlier. The entire recovery in the housing market could be at risk. The unnamed source requested not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.
"The entire economy will be hurt by these extensions. I can understand that they appear to be in the best interest of the consumer, but we continue to delay the impact of the financial restabilizing or the finanicial rebalancing of our economy. We're putting borrowers in homes without making mortgage payments, and at the end of the day the taxpayers are the ones picking up the tabs for this stuff," the executive said.
Neither Wells Fargo or Citigroup have confirmed a foreclosure suspension as they review their documents.
Friday, October 1st, 2010, 4:09 pm
by JON PRIOR
View original article: http://www.housingwire.com/2010/10/01/bank-of-america-to-delay-foreclosures
Blogger Matthew Allan is a specialist in Savannah Real Estate, focusing on Savannah's downtown historic districts, including the Landmark Historic District, Victorian Historic District, Thomas Square Historic District, Starland Historic District, Baldwin Park, and Ardsley Park Historic District.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Is this good or bad--US Foreclosures Fall, Bank Repossessions Hit Record High
So, once again I will be the agent who is actually honest and takes the permasmile off his face and shares the bad news. And the good news, which is that buying opportunities will continue to make themselves available--and we know that interest rates are ridiculously low. If you wanted to play a 7-year housing recovery curve, you could lock into a 7-year mortgage at 3.75% right now. That's just nuts. The bad news is that if you're selling your house, you are going to continue to have lots of competition--and some of those will be foreclosures. And those foreclosures are going to be less expensive than your house in a lot of scenarios. So you need to price right the first time and not get caught in a downward spiral. As always, feel free to ask me your questions or have your friends ask. I'm here to help, even if you might not like the answers.
US Foreclosures Fall, Bank Repossessions Hit Record High
The national foreclosure rate continued to fall in May from the previous month, according to a new report released Thursday.
However, bank repossessions reached a record high during the same month, a sign that lenders are focusing on their backlog of foreclosure inventory before tackling new distressed loans, according to foreclosure database website RealtyTrac, which released the report.
View the original article here: http://www.cnbc.com/id/37599834
Blogger Matthew Allan is a specialist in Savannah Real Estate, focusing on Savannah's downtown historic districts, including the Landmark Historic District, Victorian Historic District, Thomas Square Historic District, Starland Historic District, Baldwin Park, and Ardsley Park Historic District.
US Foreclosures Fall, Bank Repossessions Hit Record High
However, bank repossessions reached a record high during the same month, a sign that lenders are focusing on their backlog of foreclosure inventory before tackling new distressed loans, according to foreclosure database website RealtyTrac, which released the report.
“What it looks like is that the lenders are focusing on processing the delinquent loans they already have rather than initiating new foreclosures,” said Rick Sharga, senior vice president of RealtyTrac. “They’re managing inventory to prevent a free fall in home prices.”
Foreclosure activity dropped 3.27 percent in May from the previous month, and was up 0.45 percent from May 2009. In all, 322,920 properties generated a foreclosure notice. One in every 400 homes in America received a foreclosure notice in May. (Foreclosure notices are defined as a default notice, auction sale notice or bank repossession.)
Bank repossessions (known as real estate owned properties or REOs) hit a record high in May for the second month in a row. Lenders repossessed a total of 93,777 properties during the month, a 1 percent increase from the previous month’s record and a 44-percent jump from May 2009. All 50 states reported a year-over-year increases in REOs, according to RealtyTrac.
So far this year, the U.S. foreclosure rate has been falling slightly on a month-to-month basis. And in April, RealtyTrac reported a year-over-year decline in the foreclosure rate for the first since the firm began reporting data in 2005. RealtyTrac still projects that over 3 million homes will receive a foreclosure notice over the course of this year, said Sharga.
The ten states with the highest foreclosure rates were little changed from the previous month. According to the RealtyTrac report, Nevada remains No. 1 with one in every 79 properties in the state getting a foreclosure notice, five times the national rate.
Arizona ranked second with one in every 169 households receiving a notice, followed by Florida (one in 174 households), California (one in 186 households) and Michigan (one in every 223 households.)
Vermont had the lowest rate, with one in every 16,454 properties receiving a foreclosure notice.
© 2010 CNBC.com
View the original article here: http://www.cnbc.com/id/37599834
Blogger Matthew Allan is a specialist in Savannah Real Estate, focusing on Savannah's downtown historic districts, including the Landmark Historic District, Victorian Historic District, Thomas Square Historic District, Starland Historic District, Baldwin Park, and Ardsley Park Historic District.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
The Best US Cities to Buy a Foreclosed Home
I remember in the mid-2000s, when real estate was hot, I was looking at various cities--Salt Lake City, El Paso, and Baltimore come to mind--for investments. I wound up in historic downtown Savannah, but I still love to see these reports. The grass isn't necessarily greener in Cincinnati, which shows up on this list, or Pittsburgh, or Syracuse, but you can get wonderful old homes cheap. The tradeoff is you have to deal with the cold weather.
Click here for a slide show of the best US cities to buy a foreclosed home according to CNBC.
Blogger Matthew Allan is a specialist in Savannah Real Estate, focusing on Savannah's downtown historic districts, including the Landmark Historic District, Victorian Historic District, Thomas Square Historic District, Starland Historic District, Baldwin Park, and Ardsley Park Historic District.
Click here for a slide show of the best US cities to buy a foreclosed home according to CNBC.
Blogger Matthew Allan is a specialist in Savannah Real Estate, focusing on Savannah's downtown historic districts, including the Landmark Historic District, Victorian Historic District, Thomas Square Historic District, Starland Historic District, Baldwin Park, and Ardsley Park Historic District.
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