U.S. Foreclosure Settlement Muddies Outlook for Mortgage Relief
April 14, 2011 by Jack Collie · Leave a Comment
The foreclosure-abuse settlements announced yesterday
While the attorneys general proposed many similar terms last month, banking regulators didn’t include any requirements for lowering mortgage debt. That may hinder Iowa Attorney General Thomas J. Miller as he leads a group of state officials working with the administration to require lenders to evaluate loan cuts for some borrowers whose homes are worth less than their mortgages.
“I have always been pretty skeptical about the ability of principal reductions to get you much,” said Mark A. Calab
Modifications for loan payments are very hard to obtain these days.
April 12, 2011 by Jack Collie · Leave a Comment
The nation’s lingering housing foreclosure mess is too often about folks with McMansion-size aspirations and duplex paychecks, granite counter appetites and laminate budgets.
And when we hear that one of the nation’s hot spots for foreclosures is Prince William County, we nod knowingly, thinking of the vast tracts of huge new homes and the dreamers who drowned in them.
But the other day, I met some of the folks who lost their homes or are fighting with banks to try to keep them. And McMansion isn’t what comes to mind.
“We still have the ’80s carpet in the house; we never refinanced and remodeled. We really
A class action lawsuit began against BofA
April 5, 2011 by Jack Collie · Leave a Comment
Washington, DC: A class action lawsuit began against BofA claiming that homeowners who have mortgages with BofA and who had their payments on time were penalized by the bank, for inexplicable reasons.
The suit, filed on behalf of Ms. Ana C.
Record pay-off of mortgages by UK households
April 4, 2011 by Jack Collie · Leave a Comment
In an ominous development for house prices and spending on the high street, the Bank of England says that record amounts of money are being used by families to repay mortgages and to pay off other debts secured on their homes – with little new lending to first-time buyers to balance the depressing impact on the economy.
The Bank’s latest statistics on housing equity withdrawal show that British families paid off £7bn, net, of mortgage and other secured debt in the last three months of 2010 – the highest net repayment since records began in 1970. It marks an acceleration on the £6.6bn paid off between July and September.
The housing industry might be facing the biggest home buying opportunities in ages: the Millennials.
March 24, 2011 by Jack Collie · Leave a Comment
According to Wells Fargo, there are 51.5 million potential first time homebuyers born between 1979 and 1991, people born in between this year range are also knowned as the Millenials. Approximately 6 million more of these Millennials are making of these years the prime homebuying age.
For 3 consecutive years, the mortgage industry has been standing still in problems. Falsely written loans taken out by homebuyers who weren´t able to afford them which helped the rising of foreclosure levels, impacting servicers, who rapidly encounter themselves involved in investigations and brand new standards.
The result has been a growing shadow inventory of foreclosed homes that need to be sold.