real estate: Delinquencies Appear to be on a Downward Trend, maybe.... - 03/24/10 11:29 PM
The pace of new delinquencies has slowed during the winter months, according to a report by the valuation company, Lender Processing Services (LPS). The company believes that the trend is a reflection of the slowed pace of foreclosures due to HAMP and private loan modification programs.
With 7.5 million loans still in some stage of delinquency, we are far from economic recovery, even though the pace of new defaults seems to be slowing.
Further, the pipeline appears to be clogged as Lenders try to work out alternatives to foreclosure and deal with a growing number of delinquencies. Of loans delinquent for … (0 comments)

real estate: Only 170,000 Permanent Loans Under HAMP - 03/23/10 11:08 PM
The HAMP program issued one bit of good news: permanent loan mods were up 45% in January. The bad news is, this is just a miniscule amount of the 1.8 million homeowners who are behind in their payments in the U.S.
The total HAMP permanent loans processed during the month of January Were 170,000 according to the Treasury Department.
There are nearly another 92,000 awaiting the homeowner’s signature to move from trial to permanent loan.
Lenders have sent offers to 1.3 million homeowners to start the program, which is less than the government’s goal of reaching out to 3 to 4 … (3 comments)

real estate: HAMP Participants Find Credit Scores are Dropping - 03/22/10 10:17 PM
Many homeowners who tried to do the right thing by saving their home through a loan modification under the Home Affordable Modification Program are being startled by the news that their credit score has fallen by 100 points or so as a result.
What credit counselors say causes this drop is that during the three month trial period lenders mark payments as only partially made. This drops credit because the status is lower than that of someone who continued to make payments as originally agreed upon. Credit counselors and their clients say this is unfair, and certainly creates a surprise result … (2 comments)

real estate: Mortgage Foreclosure and Fraud Litigation is Way Up - 03/20/10 10:26 PM
The fourth quarter of 2009 saw a huge upsurge in court action taken against two types of defendants: homeowners with delinquent mortgages and alleged perpetrators of mortgage fraud. The statistics have been reported by Mortgagedaily.com for the period October 1- December 31, 2009. A total of 134 cases were tracked for the 4th quarter compared to 79 cases in the 3rd quarter of 2009.
Most of these cases were alleged instanced of loan modification fraud, which more than doubled compared to the third quarter. In addition, mortgaged-back securities fraud cases jumped by 300% over the previous quarter. Foreclosure lawsuits were up … (1 comments)

real estate: Price Reductions Occurring in Listed Homes - 03/19/10 10:44 PM
Trulia reports price changes on listed homes. Of 50 large city markets tracked by Trulia 19% of listings showed price reductions as of March 1 with the average reduction at 11% of list price.
Milwaukee had the highest percent of listed homes with price reductions at 33%, while Fresno and San Jose, CA had the lowest number of price-reduced listings at 12%. The biggest month-to-month drop in price reductions was experienced in Charlotte, NC, where in January 29% of homes had price drops and in February 21% experienced reductions.
Home price reductions are expected to surge again with the approach of … (3 comments)

real estate: Housing Prices Continue Decline - 03/18/10 10:31 PM
Integrated Asset Services (IAS) Housing Price Index (HPI) declined for a sixth straight month in January, a 2.3% decline overall.
IAS speculated that the decline was made worse by extreme weather in the Midwest. Illinois saw a decline of 4.9%, Missouri 4.4% and Minnesota 3.5%. The Northeast saw a drop of .5%, the South a drop of 2.2% and the West a price decline of 2.6%, just like the average decline of the Midwestern states.
The HPI is now down 30% from its high in mid-2007.
The shadow supply of foreclosed houses continues to be a concern to the economists at … (2 comments)

real estate: Jumbo Loan Default Rate Escalates - 03/16/10 10:42 PM
Serious delinquencies of jumbo loans ($417,000 in most areas and $729,750 in certain high-priced markets) were higher for the 32nd month as of January according to Fitch Ratings, a credit rating organization. These 60 day+ late loans jumped to 9.6% of the residential mortgage-backed securities market compared to 9.2% in December. This trend has been in place since 2007 and nearly tripled in 2009.
In California, which holds 44% of the jumbo loans, the delinquency rate was 11.3% in January and expected to climb. Jumbo prime loan delinquency rates also rose in Florida, New Jersey, New York and Virginia. Fitch officials … (0 comments)

real estate: Appraisers Oppose Use of BPOs for Short Sale Valuation - 03/15/10 10:34 PM
Three national appraisal groups led by the Appraisal Institute have written to the Treasury Department in opposition to the HAFA guidelines that allow use of BPOs to price Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives program short sales. The coalition of appraisers believe that BPOs make fraud more likely in HAFA short sale deals and puts consumers and lenders at greater risk of receiving inaccurate valuations.
The Appraisal Institute and its peer groups believe all short sale valuations should conform to the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice. The brokers and real estate agents who complete BPOs are generally not specially trained to meet … (3 comments)

real estate: Top 10 Highest-Paid Cities in the World - 03/14/10 10:31 PM
Swiss bank UBS recently released its tri-annual Prices and Earnings report revealing which of the 73 surveyed cities in the world had the most purchasing power (in terms of the local costs of goods) after taxes were deducted from the average hourly pay. Forbes Magazine further analyzed the data and listed the top 100 highest-Paid cities in the world. While this data isn't all that useful in practical terms, it's always interesting to see the facts and figures and how we fit into the global picture. Here are the top ten cities according to this data.
1. Zurich, Switzerland: Net pay … (4 comments)

real estate: Foreclosure Overhang Inhibits Home Appreciation - 03/13/10 12:08 AM
Barclays Bank has weighed in on the crystal ball gazing activity of predicting how much further the housing market will decline. The bank believes as long as there is a large stockpile of bank-owned and pre-foreclosure property, the values cannot rise appreciably in most markets, although the risk of a steep decline goes away with each passing month of housing sales growth.
Nationally, Barclays says that home prices will drop another 4 to 5% before hitting bottom. The benefit of the home modification program has been that it has slowed the number of homes going into foreclosure so that the remainder … (1 comments)

real estate: Ocwen a Winner in Loan Modification Arena - 03/10/10 09:23 PM
Ocwen is gaining a reputation as one of the most aggressive lenders when it comes to offering programs for loan modification under the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP).
Ocwen’s rate of converting trial modifications to permanent ones is 10 to 20 times higher than other lenders, and the new loans are more sustainable than those devised by the competition. Ocwen’s HAMP re-default rate is under 5%, while the industry average is 19 to 34%.
Ocwen’s president, Ronald M. Faris, has testified to Congress that principal write downs should be a part of the HAMP process. He also recommends that under performing … (2 comments)

real estate: Fannie Mae to Buy Back Delinquent Loans - 03/09/10 09:40 PM
Between 150,000 and 200,000 seriously delinquent mortgage backed security (MBS) loans will be purchased by Fannie Mae in March. As of December 31, 2009 it was thought that there were $127 billion in loans that were at least 120 days late that were eligible for this program. Fannie Mae will continue to buy 120 day late loans in subsequent months until they have made a significant dent in the problem of bank insolvency caused by these late loans.
Fannie Mae will need at least $100 billion over the next few months for this program in order to make the difference it … (0 comments)

real estate: HUD Unveils a Loan Modification Scam Reporting Site - 03/09/10 09:02 AM
HUD has a new website, Preventloanscams.org, to build a data base of shady loan modification practices and reported scams. The database will allow non-profit agencies trying to help homeowners to identify problems across regional lines. In the past HUD could not share such data with non-profits.
The database was planned and created by HUD in partnership with the Loan Modification Scam Prevention Network and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
Homeowners who believe they have been victimized can fill out a complaint online.
 
Dave Rosenmarkle
Broker/Owner
Highland Realty
Arlington, VA  22208
703-538-2566
davidrose@mris.com
www.HighlandAgents.com

… (0 comments)

real estate: Administration Considers Halt to Foreclosures - 03/07/10 09:29 PM
The Obama Administration is considering further sanctions against Lenders who foreclosure before all Home Affordable Modification Program options have been explored. The HAMP guidelines strongly urge Lenders to look at all options before foreclosing, but falls short of requiring Lenders to examine every severely delinquent account one by one before sending out a Notice of Default. If the more stringent requirement is enacted Lenders would need to contact all borrowers who are 60 days or more late in order to determine eligibility for a HAMP modification or HAFA short sale.
The change would also require Lenders to stop all foreclosure activity … (2 comments)

real estate: Extreme Home Tear Down - 03/07/10 01:31 AM
A news broadcast in southwestern Ohio reported recently about a man who bulldozed his home rather than allow the bank to take his home after the bank failed to accept a Short Sale offer of $170,000 for the $350,000 home.
The homeowner, Terry Hoskins, hoped that his actions would help make banks “think twice” about taking away a person’s home.
The incident seems to have hit a nerve with many agreeing that Lenders must try harder to work with beleaguered homeowners, while others wondered what could possibly be accomplished by such an extreme act.
The incident underscores figures from First American … (3 comments)

real estate: Negative Equity Continues to Grow - 03/06/10 02:39 AM
Despite some slowing in the housing price decline in most markets, the number of mortgages that are now larger than the home value continues to grow. First American CoreLogic estimates the number of U.S. households with underwater mortgages as of the end of 2009 was 11.3 million, or 24% of all households with mortgages. Americans owe a combined $801 billion more than the value of their property.
Another 2.3 million households have less than 5% equity in their homes. Considering that many predict that home values will decline further in many markets, many of these mortgages will slip into the negative … (0 comments)

real estate: Qualifying for FHA Loan Will Get Tougher - 03/04/10 09:31 PM
In an effort to shore up its disappearing reserves, the Federal Housing Administration has issued new loan standards which will go into effect this summer. FHA is an important source of loans for first time homebuyers and those who have struggled to get credit scores into range to be able to qualify for a home loan. The tighter standards will affect the number of people who receive loans starting this summer.
Specifically, applicants will be expected to have
• Higher credit scores. FHA has not required a minimum score to date, but will require a minimum of 580 under the new … (2 comments)

real estate: Homeowners More Pessimistic About Home Value - 02/27/10 09:31 PM
Zillow has completed a survey which shows for the first time that Homeowners are no longer confident that their homes are going up in value. Only 20% believed their home had gone up in value, where, in fact Zillow shows about 28% of homes appreciated in the past year. For the first time since Zillow started surveying homeowner confidence, the level as a -2 showing that homeowners are actually more cynical than reality about the value of their homes.
Half of the surveyed home owners believed their homes had fallen in value, while 30% believed their home had stayed the same … (6 comments)

real estate: First American CoreLogic HPI Says Price Decline is Slowing - 02/26/10 11:32 PM
 
First American CoreLogic Home Price Index (HPI) tracks home prices in all U.S. markets and basically concurs with Moody’s report that home prices are continuing to fall when considered nationally. The one silver lining the HPI reveals is that the decline is smaller and slower than before.
The December decline year over year was 3.7% compared to the 5.3% year over year decline the previous December. Even when distress sales are removed both years registered a decline in home values year over year—3% in December 2009 and 5% in December 2008.
The HPI is expected to drop another 4.4% through … (1 comments)

real estate: Moody’s Expects Continuing Home Price Decline - 02/25/10 09:41 PM
Moody’s Investors Service predicts another 8% decline in the housing market in many areas over the coming months. They blame the anemic Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) for failing to put a damper on foreclosure and the continuing escalation of foreclosure sales throughout the country for the continuing slide in home prices.
The national home price drop from peak to trough is expected to be 34%. The one bit of good news is Moody’s revised downward the expected total value decline. Previously Moody’s had predicted a 37% total decline. The bad news is, instead of the trough being reached in the … (4 comments)