Article Archive for February 2012
By Carrie Bay | 02/29/2012
Pre-foreclosure short sales and sales of foreclosed REOs totaled 907,138 in 2011, RealtyTrac reported Thursday. These foreclosure-related transactions made up 23 percent of all residential sales in the U.S. last year, with short sales accounting for 9 percent and REOs accounting for 14 percent. Short sales increased more than 40 percent on a year-over-year basis in several states, including Michigan, Georgia, and Arizona. RealtyTrac expects short sales to continue to gain momentum in 2012 as lenders become more aggressive disposing of distressed assets.
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By Esther Cho | 02/29/2012
A nationwide recruiting agency announced its search for mortgage professionals in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in response to growing needs for mortgage industry professionals. Due to record-low interest rates, demand for services related to the mortgage industry has grown as homeowners look to refinance and potential homebuyers look to lock in mortgages at low rates.
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By Esther Cho | 02/29/2012
Stewart Title Guaranty Company announced the appointment of a new VP and agency services manager for New Jersey.
Michael F. Frederick was hired for the position and will be responsible for establishing new and supporting agency relationships within the state.
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By Esther Cho | 02/29/2012
California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris outlined the six parts in the proposed California Homeowner Bill of Rights during a press conference on Wednesday. The first part of the bill the California AG announced was the Foreclosure Reduction Act, which will address dual tracking issues. Other requirements in the bill include a $25 levy each time servicers record a notice of default, fines against owners of blighted property from $1,000 to $5,000 per day, and a $10,000 civil penalty for "robosigned" documents.
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By Mark Lieberman, Five Star Institute Economist | 02/29/2012
Overall economic activity continued to increase at a modest to moderate pace in January and early February, the Federal Reserve said in its periodic Beige Book, an anecdotal report of conditions in each of the 12 Federal Reserve districts. The report showed economic improvement varying across the country -- economic activity rose at a somewhat faster pace in the Philadelphia and Atlanta districts but growth was slower in New York. Minneapolis characterized the pace of growth as firm.
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By Esther Cho | 02/29/2012
LenderLive Settlement Services, a subsidiary of LenderLive Network Inc., announced the acquisition of MoKan Title Services LLC. MoKan, with offices located in Missouri and Kansas, offers title insurance coverage and services for residential and commercial lenders on new loans, refinancings, foreclosure-related actions and closings for REO transactions.
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By Mark Lieberman, Five Star Institute Economist | 02/29/2012
Real gross domestic product - the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States - increased at an annual rate of 3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported Wednesday. In its initial report on fourth quarter GDP, the BEA had said the nation's economy grew at a 2.8 percent pace. Economists had forecast no change in the "advance" GDP estimate issued last month.
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By Esther Cho | 02/29/2012
Fannie Mae reported a net loss of $2.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2011 on Wednesday, compared to a loss of $5.1 billion for the previous quarter. Fannie Mae also reported a 2011 yearly net loss at $16.9 billion, compared to $14 billion in 2010. Due to the company's net worth deficit, Fannie Mae will have the FHFA request $ 4.571 billion from the Treasury. The company is seeking to continue with collecting funds from Bank of America for outstanding repurchase requests for loans that did not meet underwriting requirements, according to the report.
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By Carrie Bay | 02/28/2012
The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) has seen its capital reserves quickly dissipate over the past few years amid a growing number of mortgage defaults and payouts on insurance claims. In an effort to bolster its capital cushion, the federal agency has announced a new premium structure for FHA-insured single-family mortgage loans. FHA will increase its annual mortgage insurance premium by 0.10 percent for loans under $625,500 and by 0.35 percent for loans above that amount. Upfront premiums will also increase by 0.75 percent.
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By Krista Franks Brock | 02/28/2012
Insistent that principal reductions are the best line of defense in loss mitigation, California Attorney General Kamala Harris is calling on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to halt foreclosures in her state while the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) considers whether principal reductions are an appropriate strategy for the GSEs. In a recent letter to FHFA Acting Director Edward DeMarco, Harris requested a "good-faith pause on foreclosure sales in California" while the FHFA continues to investigate the pros and cons of principal reductions.
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By Esther Cho | 02/28/2012
Potestivo & Associates, P.C., announced the promotion of associate attorney Keith H. Werwas to assistant VP and managing attorney for the Chicago office. Werwas began his career with the firm in 2009 and works with all aspects of default servicing including foreclosures, bankruptcies, and REO disposition.
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By Esther Cho | 02/28/2012
While the Case-Shiller indexes reported new lows for house prices for the end of 2011, responses from analysts are mixed when determining what the data means for home values in the long run. Experts representing Capital Economics, IHS Global Insight, and Standard and Poor’s assessed the implications of the data for the future. While Capital Economics believes the decline may come to an end after a few more months, others are expecting this trend to continue into 2012.
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By Esther Cho | 02/28/2012
During a Senate subcommittee hearing, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan was prodded with questions on investigation results regarding how many and what percentage of people actually suffered from wrongful foreclosures. As far as actual numbers, Donovan said there very few folks who actually lost their homes, but emphasized that what the organization did find were very significant and very pervasive errors that have real impacts on families.
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By Esther Cho | 02/28/2012
While the REO Rental Initiative was first supported by Capital Economics when first proposed last year, a report released by the analytics company stated that the news was disappointing upon the discovery that 85 percent of the REO properties to be sold were already occupied by tenants.
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By Esther Cho | 02/28/2012
South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley signed a bill to ban Wall Street Resale Fees, which require a percentage of the sale of a home to go to a third party. Carolina is the 38th state to sign the bill banning these fees, also known as Private Transfer Fees. The fees are added to home sale contracts by private third parties and typically require that over the next 99 years, a percentage, usually 1 percent of the sale of a home, be paid to the third party.
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By Mark Lieberman, Five Star Institute Economist | 02/28/2012
All three headline composites of the S&P/Case Shiller Index ended 2011 at new lows. The national composite fell by 3.8 percent during the fourth quarter of 2011 and was down 4.0 percent versus the fourth quarter of 2010. Both the 10- and 20-city composites fell by 1.1 percent in December over November, and posted annual returns of -3.9 percent and -4.0 percent versus December 2010, respectively. With these latest data, all three composites are at their lowest levels since the housing crisis began in mid-2006.
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By Esther Cho | 02/27/2012
First Guaranty Mortgage Corp. will join forces with the National Association of Real Estate Brokers (NAREB) to participate in the newly introduced, nationwide effort called the Homeowner's Assurance Program (HAP). HAP was created by NAREB, a trade group formed in 1947 by African American real estate professionals, to help re-stabilize urban communities impacted by the housing market crises.
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By Krista Franks Brock | 02/27/2012
Real estate-related debts are on the decline, as are overall delinquencies, according to a quarterly report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Debt maintained through mortgages and home equity lines of credit (HELOC) declined $146 billion during the fourth quarter of last year. Mortgages made up a majority of the decline – $134 billion – while HELOCs made up the remaining $12 billion. Also in the fourth quarter, the delinquency rate on consumer debt was reduced from 10 percent to 9.8 percent.
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By Carrie Bay | 02/27/2012
Fannie Mae has put a block of 2,490 REOs up for sale. It's the first pilot transaction of the federal government's Real-Estate Owned (REO) Initiative announced in August 2011, which aims to sell homes repossessed by government agencies to private investors for the purpose of turning the properties into rental units. The homes up for grabs are concentrated in the hard-hit metropolitan areas of Atlanta, Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and parts of Florida, and 85 percent of them are already occupied by tenants.
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By Esther Cho | 02/27/2012
Gateway Mortgage Group, a privately held mortgage company providing conventional, FHA and VA loans nationwide, announced the appointment of a new chief credit and compliance officer. With more than 25 years of senior level management experience, Molly Reed Davis holds the title and will be responsible for overseeing all compliance policies and procedures and managing credit relationships for the company.
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