Colorado lawmakers are hoping to mitigate the effects widespread foreclosures are having on local communities in the state.
This week, Gov. Bill Ritter signed into law a bill that he says will secure neighborhoods against abandoned properties that have fallen into foreclosure by cutting in half the minimum time frame for a foreclosure sale, as mandated by the state.
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Prudential Mortgage Capital Company, a commercial and multifamily mortgage finance business based in Newark, New Jersey, announced Friday that it has launched the Agency Gateway program, a new short term loan program for multifamily property owners seeking to refinance or acquire properties that do not currently qualify for a Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac permanent loan.
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Only 10 percent of the $41 billion of distressed commercial real estate from a year ago has been resolved and is no longer held by the lender, according to new data from the research firm Real Capital Analytics.
The company's analysis shows that securities trusts and domestic lenders have settled a comparably small portion of their distress from last year. Of those loans resolved, commercial mortgage-backed securities holders are more likely to have restructured the mortgages, while domestic banks are more likely to have foreclosed.
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In an announcement Friday, Fannie Mae said it is changing the eligibility criteria for purchasing and securitizing adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) products. For ARMs with an initial period of five years or less, Fannie Mae will require that borrowers be qualified at the greater of the note rate plus 2 percent or the fully indexed rate (index plus margin). The company said it created these new standards to protect homeowners from potentially dramatic payment increases and to help ensure that borrowers who hold these types of mortgages can sustain them beyond the initial interest rate period
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After two-and-a-half years, Seth Wheeler is resigning from his post as senior advisor for the U.S. Treasury Department. Wheeler, originally hired under former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, was a key architect in the administration's Home Affordable Modification Program.
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Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says servicers are failing in their efforts to modify loans.
Geithner told a Senate subcommittee that his office has received "countless frustrated phone calls" from borrowers, and is troubled by reports that servicers have foreclosed on eligible homeowners and repeatedly claim to have lost documentation. Geithner says Treasury is already conducting compliance reviews targeted at certain servicers and may withhold incentive payments.
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In an effort to further educate consumers about the home buying process, Calabasas, California-based Bank of America Home Loans has unveiled an enhanced online home loan guide that includes customized tools on budgeting, affordability, and choosing the right kind of loan. The enhanced site includes interactive tools and calculators, the ability to save worksheets and information for use at a later date, and a new local mortgage loan officer finder.
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The civil charges brought against investment bank Goldman Sachs for allegedly defrauding mortgage investors could turn criminal. Federal prosecutors with the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan are reportedly investigating the Wall Street fixture for possible criminal misconduct in dealings involving an investment vehicle and transactions related to subprime residential mortgages. Goldman Sachs and its executives continue to deny any wrongdoing.
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Despite the wide-spread impact the mortgage meltdown has had on the U.S. economy, today's borrowers continue to spend very little time researching their home loan, a recent Zillow survey found.
The survey of 2,729 adults, conducted on Zillow's behalf by Harris Interactive, found that borrowers are spending no more time researching a home loan today than they did in 2008.
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Weltman, Weinberg & Reis Co., L.P.A., a creditors' rights and collection service law firm based in Cleveland, recently announced that partner Larry R. Rothenberg was recognized as a Top Real Estate Lawyer in the Corporate Counsel Edition of _Super Lawyers_ magazine. At WWR, Rothenberg is the partner in charge of managing the foreclosure/eviction department of the firm's headquarter office.
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In a proposal submitted to the Treasury Department, the California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA) detailed how it plans to use $699.1 million in federal aid made available through the administration's Hardest Hit Fund.
According to the proposal, CalHFA will use the funds to implement four distinct programs, three designed to help California homeowners remain in their homes and one intended to help underwater homeowners transition out of their homes into more affordable housing.
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President Obama submitted his choices for three new Federal Reserve governors to the U.S. Senate Thursday. The nominations include: Dr. Janet L. Yellen, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco; Dr. Peter Diamond, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); and Sarah Bloom Raskin, commissioner of financial regulation for the state of Maryland.
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Two House Democrats have introduced a bill to create a "right to rent" for homeowners facing foreclosure. The bill would allow a family receiving a foreclosure notice to petition a judge to stay in their home as renters under a 5-year lease. The judge would appoint an independent appraiser to set fair market rental value, which would be allowed to rise with inflation.
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March marked another month of stabilization for the residential real estate market in Massachusetts. According to a report released Thursday by The Warren Group, a provider of real estate data in New England, both sales and prices of single-family homes and condos in the Bay State surged in March compared to a year earlier.
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"Mixed results" has been the predominant theme among industry studies the last couple of weeks. The latest report from Lender Processing Services held true to form.
The Florida-based company's analysis of the nation's home loan market indicates "modest improvements" in the number of nonperforming loans returning to current status and fewer new delinquencies. But the research firm says these steps forward are still overshadowed by a large pool of 7.39 million non-current and REO loans.
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Wells Fargo Securities announced Thursday that it has expanded its residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) platform to provide a full suite of advisory, structuring, research, distribution, and trading services to its residential origination and investing clients and to Wells Fargo Home Mortgage (WFHM).
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The Kansas City, Missouri-based default servicing law firm Martin, Leigh, Laws & Fritzlen, P.C. has announced the addition of four new attorneys to the firm: David Renovitch, William H. Meyer, Melinda J. Maune, and Shari Ashner Boppart.
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On Thursday, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) released findings of a new study indicating that subprime lending and subsequent resulting foreclosures contained a clear racial component not explained by objective underwriting criteria. According to the study, African American and Latino borrowers were more likely to receive a subprime loan and go into foreclosure than similarly situated white homeowners, controlling for credit risk and other borrower, neighborhood, and loan characteristics.
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Data released by RealtyTrac Thursday shows that cities in the typical foreclosure hot spots of California, Florida, Nevada, and Arizona once again accounted for the nation's 20 highest foreclosure rates in Q1. But it's their long track record of debilitating foreclosure numbers that have locked them into those rankings. RealtyTrac says many of the hardest-hit cities are actually posting significant declines from a year ago. Instead, foreclosure activity now is running rampant in cities outside the Sun Belt.
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Borrowers who refinanced in the first quarter of 2010 reaped the benefits of low interest rates. In fact, one-half of borrowers who refinanced their conventional loans during the first three months of this year lowered their mortgage interest rate by at least 16 percent, according to Freddie Mac's quarterly refinance report. In addition to lowering their interest rate, 72 percent of borrowers who refinanced in the first quarter kept their loan balance largely unchanged or reduced their loan balance outstanding as a result of the refinance.
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