Posts Tagged ‘mortgage modification’

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Oppenheim Law Argues for “Meaningful Principal Reduction” in The Miami Herald

Friday, January 29th, 2010
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MiamiHerald

In case you didn’t hear, the Obama administration announced changes for requirements of paperwork and documents regarding the Making Home Affordable on Thursday, hoping to improve the success rate and communication between homeowners and lenders.

While this bureaucratic decision may indeed help a few more modifications squeeze through the banks clenching hands, ultimately, the change that is needed for South Florida homeowners requires substantial principal reduction on underwater mortgages.

Oppenheim Law has been arguing for over a year that there are too many mortgages valued greater than the actual market worth in South Florida, and merely lowering interest rates and extending the life of loans will not do enough to solve the Florida foreclosure problem.

To read my thoughts on the latest Home Affordable Modification Program changes, check out the entire Miami Herald article, “Home-loan aid altered” in the Oppenheim Law News Room.

From the trenches,

Roy

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Posted in Florida foreclosures, Florida Law News, Florida real estate, Foreclosure Defense, Loan Modification, Roy Oppenheim, The Miami Herald | 1 Comment »

Obama Administration Implements New Guidelines to Assist Short Sales

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009
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While mortgage modifications continue to be a huge problem for the Obama administration, they seem to be following the advice of the geeks at the Federal Reserve and from the folks in the “Trenches“. (See WSJ Article). You are eligible to do a short sale if (1) you have a government backed loan (Fannie, Freddie, VA, etc.), (2) its your primary residence, (3) you have been turned down for a modification, and (4) you have had the property listed at market price. That means you may get $1,500 from the government upon closing and you get to Walk Away! No Deficiency! Learn more about alternatives to foreclosure and defenses to foreclosure at our seminar tomorrow night at 6:00 p.m.

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Posted in Florida real estate, Florida short sales, Loan Modification | 2 Comments »

The New Normal… NYT Reports: Expect Four Million More Foreclosures Despite Obama’s Mortgage Modification Policy

Friday, October 9th, 2009
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In today’s New York Times (10/9/09) the lead story in the Business section is: “In Trial Phase, Mortgage Bills Fall for 500,000. Is that supposed to be good news or news at all? I am not sure. I guess it depends on whether you think the glass is half full or half empty.

The reality is that by now the Obama administration had anticipated (or promised) about 5 million modifications: not 10 percent of that number!

So the real news is that Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s and one of the top real estate prognosticators in the US is fully anticipating another 4 million foreclosures, as reported in the article today. Now I call that News. That’s right four million! Thus, one can expect at least 35% of those foreclosures to occur right here in Florida.

Further Peter Goodman, the NYT’s reporter failed to actually discuss the percentage decrease that occurs s in modifications or whether there was material principal reduction to date. Well I will tell you: the average successful mortgage modification is between 20%-22%. Little if any principal is reduced. Thus we can anticipate that many of these half million modifications will become part of the 4 million in foreclosure. In fact, based on prior studies, modifications without principal reduction lead to foreclosure half the time.

So don’t expect real estate values to start increasing any time soon as long as folks keep losing their homes. Yes, the economy is no longer in free fall and things are better than last fall: Stock market is rising, retail sales have stopped falling and job losses are decreasing. However, until people are employed and can afford their houses payments again and there are meaningful principal reduction or forbearance of underwater equity nothing much will change. The folks who brought us this mess: the politicians and regulators in Washington, the “bright minds” on Wall Street and the banks, will have to first realize that keeping people in their homes is better for them and for the rest of us too. Welcome to the New Normal.

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Posted in Florida foreclosures, Florida Law News, Foreclosure Defense | 2 Comments »

The Florida Supreme Court Task Force on Residential Mortgage Foreclosure Cases speaks out: Chastises Banks and Banks’ Attorneys.

Monday, August 17th, 2009
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Today, the Florida Supreme Court Task Force on Residential Foreclosure Cases issued their final report. While the report is over 50 pages in length, they are making a number of very important recommendations that should help Florida homeowners.

Specifically, they are requiring mandatory mediation for all homestead property in every county in the State of Florida. Right now, only a few counties including Miami Dade and Palm Beach County have mandatory medication. The report states that in those counties where there has been mandatory mediation, approximately 75 percent of all cases are settled in mediation. Further, the Task Force is recommending that there be pre-suit mediation in order to reduce the clogging of the court system. The Task Force is also requiring that the banks– not the borrowers— pay for the mandatory mediation.

The Report also mentioned that mortgage modifications are becoming more effective. In fact, they mention that in those loans that have recently been modified, there has been a drop in the re-default rate by 31 percent. Further, they indicated that loan modifications overall increased 55 percent from the fourth quarter of 2008 to the first quarter of 2009 and increased 173 percent over the past year.

The Task Force also took great issue with a number of tactics that have been used by the banks’ attorneys. Specifically, in relevant part, the Task Force stated: “A leading plaintiff’s lawyer and a major plaintiff’s law firm have been the subject of a public reprimand and sanctions due to untruthful filings with the courts. Judges continue to see affidavits of amounts due and owing signed by law firm employees, and cost affidavits charging very high service of process fees for process serving firms owned by the law firm principals. To some extent, it is fair to be concerned whether the press of the caseload is interfering with a judge’s ability to police the conduct of the firms before them in these usually uncontested, unopposed foreclosure cases.”
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Posted in Florida foreclosures, Florida Law News | 7 Comments »

White House is Prodding Mortgage Servicers to Modify More Loans

Monday, July 13th, 2009
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It looks like mortgage servicers are going to woodshed for deliberately not modifying mortgages and allowing foreclosures to sore! its about time! Here is the letter that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan sent to 25 mortgage-servicing firms last week:

“We are writing to you as a participant in the Administration’s Making Home Affordable (MHA) program. As you are aware, the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) under MHA is designed to help responsible but at-risk homeowners modify their mortgages in order to lower their monthly payments to sustainable levels and avoid foreclosure. This program is a critical part of our collective effort to stabilize the housing market and promote economic recovery.

Since we published our detailed guidance, we have started to see a significant ramp-up in the number of trial modification offers and trial modifications underway. However, much more progress is needed. There appears to be substantial variation among servicers in performance and borrower experience, as well as inconsistent results in converting trial modification offers into actual trial modifications. We believe there is a general need for servicers to devote substantially more resources to this program for it to fully succeed and achieve the objectives we all share.

In order to assess our progress under the program and improve the speed of implementation, we request that you designate a senior liaison, with whom you have regular contact and who is authorized to make decisions on behalf of you as CEO, to work directly with us on all aspects of MHA. We will invite this person to meet with senior Treasury and HUD officials on July 28 to discuss full implementation of the program. To prepare for that meeting, we ask that your liaison send us a letter by July 23, detailing specific steps that your organization will take towards effective implementation and compliance. Similarly, we invite you or your liaison to provide suggestions on ways that we can improve program design.

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Posted in Florida foreclosures | 1 Comment »

Change is in the Air: White House Holds first Passover Seder and Obama takes on Role as Mortgage Broker in Chief

Friday, April 10th, 2009
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Today, as many of my friends celebrate Good Friday and I continue to celebrate Passover, my office is a virtual ghost town. So I actually had a moment to take stock on changes that are occurring in our collective lives. First and foremost it is just hard to believe that the White House held a Passover Seder last night. http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/09/obama-to-host-seder-dinner/ The Seder is the ceremonial meal whereby Jews retell their miraculous story of their departure from Egypt while having a rather long ceremonial meal conducted in a certain order. In some ways the Passover story can serve as an allegory for the Obama Administration in that just over a year ago it would have seemed that only by a “miracle” would we be sitting here right now with our first African American President.

President Obama Hosts First Ever Passover Seder at the White House

President Obama Hosts First Ever Passover Seder at the White House

Further, as someone deeply entrenched in the real estate economy, as a foreclosure defense lawyer and owner of Weston Title, I would never have envisioned a sitting President calling on homeowners to refinance their homes. And yesterday that is exactly what the President did! http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123932215927307049.html The President explained the low interest rate climate created by the Bailout and how families can actually create their own stimulus of the economy by pumping back the money they save through refinancing– directly into the economy.

But even before the President gave his three cheers to mortgage refinancing, we have been seeing an up tick in activity in the real estate market in general and in terms of banks contacting us to help them close their refinances. In fact, earlier in the week, I thought for a moment it was Christmas when all the phone lights on my office phone were lit up like a Christmas Tree. I had to use my cell phone to call out of the office.

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Posted in Florida Law News, Real Estate Closings | No Comments »

Spot Light on Real Estate Bail Out Workshop

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009
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Watch WSVN Tomorrow for Insider Information on Short Sales, Mortgage Modification & Refinancing

@WSVN’s Daisy Rodriquez spearheads a story on what options homeowners have when it comes to their personal real estate bailout. The Channel 7 News team came to my office on Monday to get my legal perspective on South Florida’s foreclosure crisis and homeowner bailout advice.

While not everyone is in foreclosure, there’s no doubt that a good majority of homeowners have issues; whether it be upside-down on loan to value, mortgage rate adjustments spinning payments out of control, short sale red tape and banking nightmares, or just treading through the simple option of refinancing when the comps are getting killed by neighbor foreclosures.

Reality check: Florida is ranked the second highest foreclosure state in the U.S. and Fort Lauderdale a staggering No. 6 nationwide, there is no shortage of homeowners who need a bailout plan.

What can you do? Watch the segment on WSVN’s Channel 7 http://www.wsvn.com/ scheduled to air tomorrow, Thursday, April 2, 2009.

Or come to my free workshop and get personalized answers.

What: Homeowner Bail Out Workshop
Where: 2500 Weston Road, Suite 404, Weston, Florida.
When: April 2, 2009, 6:00 to 7:00 PM
Cost: Free with Advanced RSVP to roy@gate.net or 954.384.6114

Unless the number of Florida foreclosures slows, the economic crisis in our nation will worsen. However, the good news is, distressed homeowners can take action to avoid or delay foreclosure. They just need to be armed with the right information – and the right Florida legal expertise.
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Posted in Florida foreclosures, Florida Law News | No Comments »

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