Posts Tagged ‘refinance’

Week In Review: DeMarco Doesn’t Get It; Scheiderman Sues Banks over MERS; Swiss Bank Charged with Tax Evasion

Friday, February 3rd, 2012

Thanks to RJ Matson and the St. Louis Post Dispatch for this wonderful cartoon! It sums up our feelings quite nicely.

Freddie Mac’s Regulator ‘Completely Puzzled’ by Allegations of Conflict

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.

Eddie, as Donald Trump would say, You’re Fired!

Schneiderman Suing Banks For ‘Deceptive And Fraudulent Foreclosure Practices’

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Mortgage Storm Continues to Pound, Send Help to #Florida Homeowners

Sunday, September 25th, 2011

Florida real estate has more than hurricane season to worry about. We said it once, and we will say it again, drowning Florida homeowners need help!

The whirlwind of mortgage debt continues to spin above the heads of many homeowners and the federal government needs to aggressively step in. A recent New York Times lead editorial highlights just that. As the clouds begin to disappear the link between the housing market and the economy becomes clear; the economy cannot get better until the housing crisis is resolved.

Continue Reading…

Air Supply for Underwater Homeowners? Roy Oppenheim Says Too Little Too Late

Saturday, September 11th, 2010

Oppenheim Reviews Obama’s FHA Short Refinance Program and What it Means to Florida Homeowners

Fort Lauderdale, Florida – September 11, 2010 – First loan modifications, then short sales…now it’s the short refi. Officially known as FHA Short Refinance Program, it’s the latest band-aid in Obama’s bailout plans aimed at resuscitating Florida’s underwater homeowner facing foreclosure.

Introduced this week, the FHA Short Refinance Plan offers aid to people who owe more than their mortgage is worth. Will it bring life back to the real estate market and stimulate the economy? This is the question market analysts and legal bloggers like Florida Attorney Roy Oppenheim are debating.

One of the biggest dangers facing the housing market is the glut of underwater homeowners who could default if their financial situations or home prices worsen. About 11 million borrowers, or 23% of households with a mortgage, were underwater as of June 30, according to CoreLogic Inc. That number is expected to double next year.

“This is a much needed program, but just might be a case of too little, too late,” says Oppenheim who continues to help Florida homeowners navigate through the tides of the real estate market. “Servicers will not be highly motivated and sometimes inclined to steer towards foreclosure.” In addition the program, at best, is designed to help about four million homeowners according to the U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Website.

The FHA Short Refinance option is targeted to help people who owe more on their mortgage than their home is worth—also known as being ‘underwater’—because select local markets saw large declines in home values. Unlike the first two waves of bailouts, the short refinance program is aimed at homeowners who are NOT currently behind on their mortgages.
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Obama’s Report Card on His First 100 Days as President

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009

With about 6 million folks going to lose their homes to foreclosure this year, I have been repeatedly asked what kind of grade I give the Obama administration in addressing the foreclosure crisis during the first 100 days. I would say a B or B-. Let me explain.

On the one hand, there has been some improvement in the overall credit markets and we are seeing a lot more refinances at historically low interest rates. However, only about 2 in ten families will qualify to refinance this year. That means a whopping 80% will have to proceed on a different course.

The so called “mortgage modifications” so far have been a failure. 50% of all modifications end up in foreclosure. That is the current number. Because the servicers have little control over their obligations to their investors, it is cheaper and safer for them to foreclose.

Short sales have gone way up and it seems that the servicers are more likely to agree to a short sale than a modification where the investor takes a crew cut!

I have always described the “Obama plan” as a three legged stool:

  1. Refis;
  2. Modifications; and
  3. the threat of bankruptcy judge telling the lender that the principal amount of the loan is being reduced or “crammed down” their throats due to the decrease in the property values.

Of course, to date the third leg of the stool does not exist since it got hung up in the Senate. That will not likely change due to the lobbying done by the banking industry. Ironically, it appears that some of the very tax payer bailout money is now being used to pay expensive Washington lobbyists to keep this bill from coming to the Senate Floor. How ironic! Thus it appears that the long sort after weapon that foreclosure defense attorneys were awaiting is remaining elusive and will continue to hinder our ability to get better results in our loan modification negotiations.

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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

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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Today’s NYT Foreclosure Policy Editorial; My Thoughts Exactly

Friday, March 6th, 2009

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President Obama Speaks about the Economic Crisis as Lost Promissory Note Defense to Foreclosure Tops Google Searches

Wednesday, February 25th, 2009

The President made it abundantly clear last night that one of the bailout’s fundamental purposes is to help troubled homeowners who need to refinance their homes, thereby preventing foreclosure. Yet one of the most popular Google searches yesterday concerned one’s ability to delay or stave off a foreclosure by demanding the foreclosing bank produce the original Note.

In fact the other day in the same chamber where the President spoke, Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur from Ohio begged residents throughout the US to not just walk away from their foreclosed homes, but to fight and hire a “good lawyer” that can go up against the Wall Street attorneys! The video is circulating the internet like wildfire and the related search terms have hit the top of the Google Chart. See the video for yourself.

I was flawed to see a Congresswoman advocating our hypothesis or thesis on the floor of the United States Congress! Nothing feels better than a little positive reinforcement. The issue of lost notes and lost mortgages is a fundamental constitutional issue concerning due process and jurisdiction.


So as President Obama tries to tackle energy independence, education and healthcare… all at once, the public is trying to figure out how to keep their families from losing their homes to foreclosure since the President has little to offer those folks in the stimulus package for now. So… it is for the time being up to the lawyers to fight this battle. As the President noted, as Americans, we are up to the challenge.


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