With short sales gaining in popularity, it comes as no surprise that two companies recently announced strategic partnerships with National Quick Sale, a short sale technology company based in Jacksonville, Florida. The company's two newest partners are REA Accelerated Marketing Group and Epic Real Estate Solutions.
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As part of a coordinated plan to help as many homeowners as possible prevent foreclosure and stay in their homes, HOPE NOW, the industry-created alliance of mortgage servicers, investors, counselors, and other mortgage market participants, recently announced that it has expanded the HOPE LoanPort through its housing counselor partners in 25 states and more than 100 cities.
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Existing-home sales fell 7.2 percent from December to January but were still above year-ago levels, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported Friday. NAR's chief economist, Lawrence Yun said the monthly decline was discouraging and raises concern about the strength of a recovery.
NAR's analysis shows there are currently 3.27 million existing homes available for sale. At the current sales pace, this represents a 7.8-month supply of backlogged homes.
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Moody's Investors Service projects the national rate of underwater homeowners could reach 50 percent by early 2011. Florida's All Statewide Property Corporation says it has found a solution to this dilemma by forming satellite limited partnerships to by bulk mortgages from lenders and reducing principal balances to current market values.
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The FDIC has requested comments from the industry on a new regulation that would limit safe harbor protections for assets, including mortgages, which have been securitized by failed banks. FDIC officials say the rule would return some confidence to the tenuous secondary market, but industry trade groups argue that it could have a counter effect of creating "substantial uncertainty" for investors and stifle an important financing channel.
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According to a recent article written by Andrew Jakabovics, an associate director for housing and economics at the Center for American Progress, the Federal Housing Finance Administration's (FHFA) house price index (HPI) is a reminder that local markets behave differently over time, which strongly affects both lenders' and insurers' profitability, or lack thereof.
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Howell Haunson of the Atlanta-based real estate closing law firm Morris|Hardwick|Schneider (M|H|S) was recently presented with the Partners in Education Instructor of the Year Award from the Georgia Associaiton of Realtors (GAR). This marks the second consecutive year that Haunson has received this award.
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In an announcement Friday, Freddie Mac said effective September 1, 2010, it will no longer buy or securitize interest-only mortgages, including initial interest fixed-rate and adjustable-rate mortgages. The GSE reported earlier in the week that interest-only and Alt-A loans collectively accounted for 44 percent of its credit losses in 2009.
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President Obama and his administration are floating an idea to prohibit lenders from foreclosing on a home unless the borrower has been considered for the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). The proposal would also halt any foreclosures already in process once a borrower has been accepted into the trial phase of the program.
A Treasury spokesperson confirmed that a foreclosure ban is under consideration, but stressed that it is one of many ideas on the table and has not been approved yet.
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In an effort to improve its property search and map display, national real estate brokerage Zip Realty, Inc. has partnered with Maponics, LLC, a provider of neighborhood boundary data. ZipRealty, says the alliance will give prospective homebuyers better search results and local mapping data.
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U.S. house prices declined modestly in the fourth quarter of 2009, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency's (FHFA) seasonally-adjusted purchase-only house price index (HPI), which was calculated using home sales price information from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac-acquired mortgages.
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Santa, Ana California-based First American Document Solutions, a member of the First American Corporation and a single point of access to a large land records database, recently announced that it has enhanced its online title policy and document retrieval capabilities.
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The debate over the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continues to heat up. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) released an unpublished proposal to DS News this week that advocates converting the two GSEs into government-chartered, non-profit corporations.
Fannie and Freddie's own supervisory agency acknowledges that operating in conservatorship is not a long-term solution for the two companies, but the administration says it will not unveil its plan for the GSEs until 2011.
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Georgia-based Altisource Solutions, Inc. has broadened its mortgage service offerings to include REO asset management operations. This recent expansion extends the company's real estate disposition and closing services to include oversight and coordination of the entire REO transaction lifecycle.
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The administration's Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) is set to expire June 10. It's a central component of the government's foreclosure prevention efforts and is currently one of the only mortgage relief programs to help underwater borrowers.
With the sunset date looming, several industry trade groups have joined forces to urge officials to extend HARP for another year, and they say a decision needs to be made quickly to prevent foreclosures on creditworthy borrowers.
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Reversing a long historic trend, mortgage default risk for consumers with high FICO scores now exceeds their credit card default risk, Minneapolis-based FICO recently reported. The provider of analytics and decision management technology said this disturbing revelation creates unknown risk in lenders' credit portfolios, as well as counter-intuitive trends in consumer behavior.
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The industry has its eyes peeled for any indication that we've turned the corner on the housing crisis, and for good reason - markets around the country have been battered by plummeting property values, mounting foreclosures, and neighborhoods riddled with vacant homes. Any sign of recuperation is a welcome reprieve. But the experts at Lender Processing Services (LPS) caution that declaring the recovery has taken hold may be premature.
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For the first time in three weeks, interest rates for 30-year fixed mortgages averaged more than 5 percent, Freddie Mac reported Thursday.
According to Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey, the rate for 30-year fixed mortgages for the week ending February 25, 2010 averaged 5.05 percent with an average 0.7 point, inching up from last week when it averaged 4.93 percent.
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Ocwen's Paul Koches offers insight into the industry's slow pace when it comes to mortgage modifications. Koches says the assumption that servicers make more money from foreclosures than modifications just isn't true. He explains the operational and technical obstacles that can hamper the modification process and offers concrete imperatives that could streamline and accelerate the loan modification drive.
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In an effort to better market its foreclosed property listings, Lansdale, Pennsylvania-based Keystone Asset Management, a national provider of comprehensive REO, default management, and property valuation services, recently partnered with Irvine, California-based RealtyTrac, Inc.
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