Tag Archives: Top News Stories from 2010

Neighborhoods across the country are riddled with empty bank-owned homes and unoccupied foreclosures that erode neighboring property values and open the door for blight and criminal activity. The nation's glut of vacant REOs took center stage in Washington Wednesday. HUD announced a new nationwide REO ""First Look"" program, in partnership with the nation's largest mortgage lenders, and it was the first of a two-day Federal Reserve summit to examine the community impacts of foreclosed and vacant properties.

It looks like some would-be homebuyer tax credit recipients who were unable to secure a closing by the original deadline of June 30 may be in luck. Wednesday evening, just hours before the closing deadline for the widely popular tax credit was set to expire, the Senate unanimously approved legislation that pushes the closing date out an extra three months. If the bill is signed into law by President Obama, qualified buyers will have until September 30, 2010 to complete their closing.

Bank of America said Wednesday that its new mortgage program for certain underwater borrowers, which incorporates an earned principal forgiveness approach into the loan modification equation, has been implemented on schedule. The bank has already mailed out an initial round of letters notifying customers who may qualify. Upon review of these applications, the first trial offers for BofA's principal forgiveness program could find their way to distressed borrowers as early as the second half of June.

The deadline for servicer implementation of the administration's Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives (HAFA) program has arrived. HAFA aims to help homeowners who are unable to qualify for a loan modification by providing them with the option to pursue a short sale or deed-in-lieu. To encourage HAFA participation, the Treasury Department raised financial incentives. Borrowers are now eligible for $3,000 in relocation assistance, and servicers will receive $1,500 to cover administrative and processing costs for a short sale or deed-in-lieu completed under the program.

The administration unveiled major expansions to its foreclosure prevention plan Friday. The new policies include principal write-downs for underwater mortgages, an FHA negative equity refinancing program, temporary assistance for unemployed homeowners, and larger incentives for short sales and deeds-in-lieu. Treasury officials say the new program enhancements will better align efforts to meet President Obama's goal of helping 3 to 4 million borrowers save their homes.

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.

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.

The new Appraiser Independence requirements for Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans officially took effect February 15, 2010. Originally planned for a January 1 implementation, the enactment was delayed to provide the FHA and lenders with additional time to adjust systems to accommodate the changes. The new rules are similar the the GSEs' HVCC, and market participants are expecting the same type of pushback to surface.