I said after the foreclosure settlement was announced that banks had been given the green light to rev up their foreclosures engines, and in South Florida at least, I’m being proven right.
RealtyTrac’s numbers from last month show dramatic year-over-year increases in both new foreclosure filings (85%) and repossessions (39%) in Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade counties, compared to March 2011.
In Florida overall, new foreclosure cases were up 58 percent. Nationally however, new filings dropped 12 percent from last year, however they rose 7 percent from February.
Since the sunshine state has one of the largest foreclosure backlogs in the country, it really shouldn’t surprise you that the numbers skew so heavily against Florida.
The settlement has emboldened banks to become more aggressive in seeking to foreclosure, and the numbers certainly back that up.
More back and forth this week from Edward DeMarco, who despite announcing that principal reduction could save Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac 1.7 billion dollars, seems unwilling to venture far from his previous stance on loan modifications.
He said in a speech this week that a new analysis does show writing down the value of some underwater mortgages does have the potential to lower foreclosure rate and save both GSEs substantial money, but he’s still downplaying the significance of principal reduction.
While he has eased up on his previous refusals to even entertain the idea of modifications, he still seems fixated on the risk of strategic default, which he feels could wipeout any potential savings. (more…)
Banking officials, as a general rule, are old school. They are very resistant to change, and usually refuse to think outside of the box.
Over the years I’ve seen the banks hold little to no regard for the customers they serve. Their philosophy has essentially been ‘You can’t pay your mortgage, then out on your butt you go!’
Forget that they’ve screwed people, or caused the worst recession in 80 years.
Forget that homeowners often have good reasons for not being able to pay. Banks have had very little heart and even less common sense.
So I was blown away by Bank of America’s new test program, called “Mortgage to Lease”, which was unveiled this week. In a few select markets, BofA will give about 1,000 customers facing foreclosure the chance to stay in their homes by turning them into renters.
Bank of America will offer these borrowers the opportunity to have their mortgage debts forgiven, and instead of kicking them to the curb, BofA will lease these homes back to the borrower for up to 3 years for less than the market rental rate.
No more mortgage, no more property taxes or homeowners insurance! And people can stay in their homes! Imagine that!
Turning foreclosure properties into rentals is an idea I’ve long advocated. It only took Bank of America a few years to listen to me!
I was wondering why now, what finally turned Bank of America over to my way of thinking?
I could tell you that Bank of America’s small heart grew three sizes like the Grinch’s, but we all know that’s not true. (more…)
Bank of America to Reduce Principal For 200,000 Underwater Homeowners
First some good news, if you’ve got an underwater mortgage owned byBank of America.
BofA has come to a separate agreement with the US government to to help reduce some the fines it owes to the Housing and Urban Development Agency from last month’s huge settlement.
Bank of America has agreed to cut the principal of more than 200,000 underwater loans, and they are cutting them by an even larger amount than the other 4 banks. In exchange they’ll owe about $850 million less in fines.
If you’re a Bank of America customer (and the loan has to be owned by them, Fannie and Freddie loans don’t count) and you qualify, you will have the opportunity to cut your mortgage balance to your home’s current value.
The reductions will average more than $100,000,according to the Wall Street Journal.This is big news because the settlement only promises to reduce the principal of eligible loans to 125% of their current value.
Bottom line, that’s 200,00 homeowners who won’t be underwater anymore and will have a real chance of staying in their homes. But I wish the other banks would step up and follow Bank of America’s lead.
Now here comes the bad news, for Florida homeowners facing foreclosure. We could be seeing a return to the days ofFlorida’s infamous ‘rocket docket’ if the state legislature approves a one time $4 million stipend which will allow Florida’s court to hire more judges and case managers for the foreclosure courts. (more…)
The clock may have run out on this year’s Super Bowl (Way to go Giants!!) but there’s still a few minutes left in this year’s REAL grudge match, the Banks vs. the Attorney Generals.
It’s 4th and Inches, the score is tied, and it would be nice to avoid overtime.
Today we could learn whether the much-discussed robo-signing settlement with Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Ally Financial and CitiGroup will come to pass, and in what form.
With California AG Kamala Harris returning to the negotiating table, the deal looks closer than ever to being sealed. Harris, who represents the state with the largest amount of foreclosed homes, has rightfully been hesitant to sign off because her state has the most to gain, or lose, from this deal.
We were initially very hesitant to see this deal go through ourselves, but the time has come for it to put to bed.
Why?
Because we feel the deal in its current form does a lot. Does it help every single homeowner who’s underwater? Of course not. There is no deal that will.
But here is who it does help. The homeowners who have fought to keep their homes from day one, who were at the forefront of these legal challenges against the banks. Much of what we have learned about robo-signing and the lack of standing banks had to bring foreclosure, would not have come to light without these crusaders, and its time they got a reprieve.
In theory it also helps the responsible homeowners, the ones who paid their mortgages on-time and whose homes went underwater through no fault of their own. They too need to be rewarded. (more…)
If Edward DeMarco is puzzled by the outrage over the revelation that Freddie Mac was investing in securities that paid off if homeowners couldn’t refinance, then call us puzzled by his puzzlement. Either he’s a bold-faced liar or he is just plain dense. Does he really not get it?
DeMarco, the acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, had the gall to tell National Public Radio this morning that one of his major responsibilities was to make sure that Freddie Mac didn’t lose money. NPR, by the way, was one of the agencies that broke the story in the first place.
Eddie, you’re a now a government-run company. You were semi-private at one point, but now you are an arm of the government. You should be looking out for the homeowner, and that’s it. You can claim that these investments, which for all intensive purposes were betting against homeowners, were just routine financial transactions.
We ain’t buying it.
Freddie Mac was created solely to help ease up the mortgage market and make it easier for people to get into homes. Anything counter to that, which clearly these investments were, goes against your mission statement. We’re not interested in profit, we want to see more people in homes.
We’re finally starting to catch our breath, with the substantial amount of news we’ve seen come down the pipeline in the housing market this week.
President Obama’s State of the Union, and the apparent collapse of the federal government’s settlement with the banks have been our focus this week, and rightfully so. But there’s been lots of other stories that have crossed our desk this week, some big, some small, but all important.
Most of our attention has been on the President this week, but we’ve also been keeping our eyes of the Republicans as well. With the Florida GOP Primary just days away, the candidates have been descending on Florida as expected. Foreclosure, which has been long absent from the GOP discussion, has become a more focal issue this week.
Unfortunately, it feels like much of the talking points have focused on the candidates blaming each other for causing the housing crisis, and less on what they plan to do to fix it.
This excellent piece in The Street details all the remaining Republicans comments on foreclosure. They all have suggested a hands-off approach, and appear to be under the misguided notion that the market will correct itself on its own. Gingrich and Paul have made one-note villains out of the Dodd-Frank Actand The Federal Reserve, respectively.
Romney’spast comments about market correction have come back to haunt him as he tries to pass himself off as sympathetic to the homeowners’ plight. Frankly we don’t feel like any of the Republican candidates are looking out for the homeowners. (more…)
Now that the holidays are behind us and we’re well into the new year, news that will impact the foreclosure market in 2012 is starting to cross our desk. So what headlines were we talking about this week?
This week we blogged about the Federal Reserve finally coming around and looking out for the homeowners, instead of the banks. A 26-page white paper released by The Fed offered up their suggestions on how to fix the broken housing market. They also finally came to the conclusion that government MUST come down harder on lenders. Some of the ideas offered up by The Fed may be tough for Congress to swallow, but we believe they have a good chance of keeping more people in their homes.
We particularly liked the idea of turning more foreclosed and vacant properties into rental homes (so much better for the neighborhoods) and the need to offer principal reduction to more homeowners. Roy Oppenheim expands on this issue in his latest “From The Trenches” video.
Foreclosures were in steep decline across the country in 2011, including a 67 percent drop here in Broward County, according to RealtyTrac. Thanks to the ‘robo-signer’ scandal, lenders were suddenly much more careful about bringing foreclosure cases to the courts. While that is likely to continue in 2012, Roy Oppenheim told the Sun-Sentinel that things could start to pick up.
“It’s going to pick up, but it’s not going to be insane like it was,” he explained.
Palm Beach County also saw a significant drop last year, 58 percent, while Florida was down 63 percent, RealtyTrac reported. (more…)
Foreclosures, repos up from last year in South Florida
