Archive for the ‘Loan Modification’ Category

Lies, Damned Lies, and Loan Modification Statistics

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

In another answer to “How successful are loan modifications?” First Federal of California reported its loan modification statistics. According to Housing Wire, “The national average for a 30-day delinquency rate on modified loans is 63.3%, whereas First Federal is 29.8% on loans adjusted in the Q108.”

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Loan Servicers Sloppiness Exposed

Saturday, March 21st, 2009

For quite some time, there have been complaints that the reason why so many homeowners have defaulted, and foreclosure levels are so high, is because “they don’t have enough skin in the game.” The theory is that homeowners who have put little-to-nothing down on their home purchase are more likely to default than those who’ve contributed a substantial down payment, because they have less to lose if their home goes to foreclosure. By extension, it is believed that those with larger down payments will exert more effort to avoid foreclosure and keep their homes.

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HOPE NOW Continues to Fudge Loan Modification Numbers

Wednesday, March 4th, 2009

HOPE NOW reported loan modification numbers just recently, and there’s been an interesting change. What’s been nice in the past is they’ve been relatively consistent in the numbers that they report, as well as how they report them. Previously, it’s been fairly easy to see if loan modification numbers were increasing, decreasing, or treading water.

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Obama’s Foreclosure Rescue Plan

Tuesday, February 17th, 2009

President Obama’s senior adviser David Axelrod was apparently on “Fox New Sunday” saying that his housing plan is “solid.” It’s unclear whether this plan will lead to permanent loan modifications, or if it’s a stopgap measure.

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HOPE NOW Reports Loan Modification Numbers

Saturday, January 31st, 2009

“HOPE NOW is a waste of time!” she exclaimed. Now granted, I don’t get calls from any of HOPE NOW’s satisfied “customers.” She goes on to tell me the usual story about HOPE NOW, and how they did very little to help her solve her problems. “All they did was take down my monthly budget numbers and pass them on to the lender. I never heard from them again.”

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Should You Prevent Foreclosure When You’re Underwater?

Sunday, January 18th, 2009

A very important consideration when you’re trying to prevent foreclosure is your loan-to-value ratio. This is the measure of what you owe on the home, versus what it’s worth.

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Columbia Profs Weigh in on Loan Modifications

Wednesday, January 14th, 2009

Three Columbia professors recently issued a proposal to prevent foreclosures through loan modifications. Their idea: pay the servicers an incentive to do them.

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Bankruptcy Cram-downs to Stop Foreclosure

Wednesday, January 7th, 2009

The solution du jour floating around in Congress is a proposed provision to allow mortgage cram-downs on personal residences through bankruptcy to stop foreclosure. Senator Dick Durbin has once again rolled out this proposed legislation. As usual, Democrats think it’s a stellar idea, while Republicans are outraged at the thought.There is a tremendous amount of confusion as to how this would work in practice. However, my goal here is not to write a treatise on bankruptcy cram-downs to stop foreclosure. Rather, I want to focus on how effective they would be in helping homeowners to stop foreclosure.

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HUD Shuts Down Program to Prevent Foreclosure

Wednesday, December 24th, 2008

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development will shut down the FHA Secure Refinance program at the end of this year. The program, which was supposed to help 240,000 sub-prime borrowers to refinance into fixed rate FHA loans, fell just a little short of its foreclosure prevention goal.

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FNMA Loan Modification Hypocrisy

Friday, December 19th, 2008

For all the talk of “we want to keep people in homes” and “we’re expanding the American Dream,” for all the big talk of the bozos in Congress who provide “oversight” of the GSE’s, numbers recently reported indicate that Fannie Mae is doing FEWER loan modifications, according to Housing Wire.

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