The era of the non-profit mortgage broker has begun and it looks like the non-profit armies are rounding up the troops for battle.

I know, I know, for profit loan officers and brokers are saying, “Yeah, right! They can’t do what we can do? They are not has smart as we are and how can they help anyone get a mortgage without having a 745 Beemer, Prada shoes and charging 4 points a loan?

Well, let me tell you something, non-profits can sell loans just like any for profit and I am sure that the client will not have to worry about being baited and switched, undisclosed kick backs, 3 year hard pre-pays and down right fraud.

I will be following this closely because I feel it is a definite viable alternative to the decade of mortgage decadence, greed and fraud that was perpetuated by the lending industry. Personally, I feel that there are some legitimate economic reasons for non-profit/government intervention in the mortgage markets and we don’t have to look far to see what the for profit lending industry has done to our economy and housing market thus far. Read the rest of this entry »

This has been bugging me for quite sometime now and I thought I would dedicate a blog post to voice how sickened I am by the fact that the very companies and people who have single handedly created this housing bubble and mortgage crisis are involved in the clean up process.

All these forums and seminars that are put on by local and state governments and are hosted by eager lenders and their representatives who now “help” struggling borrowers with the “very” toxic mortgage they sold them. 

I am sorry, but I do not want the same guy helping me and my family that just scammed, duped, swindled and sold me a ”lemon loan” and now this same doofus wants to help me fix the “bad loan” after he has pocketed his profits.

Screw that! Read the rest of this entry »

Countrywide Home Loans has cut a new deal with and organization that used to be a formidable foe, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. Apparanetly this new agreement, states that Countrywide will work with struggling h0homeowners and to try to manage payment plans for borrowers that are already behind in payments, regardless of which type of home loan they have.

Full details of the initiative will be disclosed later today. Initial plans to disclose the deal were postponed last month after Calabasas-based Countrywide agreed to be acquired by Bank of America Corp. for $4.1 billion in stock. Read the rest of this entry »

A group of homeowners is suing Homecomings Financial, a Bloomington-based loan servicer handling nearly 800,000 mortgages, accusing it of charging dubious fees as it processes homeowners’ monthly payments.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis, is the latest in a slew of legal actions around the country against mortgage lenders and the servicers who process payments for them since the crash of the subprime mortgage industry. Attorneys are seeking national class status.

Read the rest of this entry »

Clark County, Nevada and Riverside, California are leading the pack of counties in the country with the most foreclosures per zip code. This foreclosure contest will not put these counties in the hall of fame. But rather the “Foreclosure Hall of Shame.”

CNNMoney had just came out with the “Foreclosures: 100 worst hit zip codes” and I was amazed to see that these two counties dominated the list with the most foreclosures per zip code in these counties. Clark County had a total of 33 zip codes and Riverside County with 11 zip codes on the foreclosure list.

Now, what does a county do when they are faced with a foreclosure crisis? They do their best to try and solve the problem, like the great City of Riverside has just allocated $40,000 to help fight foreclosures. Yes, a whopping $40,000 to assist all Read the rest of this entry »

By Moe Bedard - I don’t really like to toot my own horn, but sometimes it is necessary to get the word out there. I am proud to announce my website at www.LoanSafe.org has helped 19 homeowners save their homes from foreclosure since it inception in August of 2007. It is quite an accomplishment from one man with “zero funding” and the support of other homeowners.

Read the rest of this entry »

In the past, no one really sued anyone over their mortgage. Hell, if you had a problem with your loan, you just refinanced right out of the bad loan and into a new one. No harm, no foul. Now, the home loan tides have changed and the tsunami of mortgage lawsuits have begun.

Federal laws like the Truth in Lending Act(TILA), The Home Ownership Equity Protection Act (HOEPA) the Real Estate and Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) are now being used by lawyers and homeowners to fight back against their lenders and servicers. These laws are also being used by smart lawyers and homeowners in the foreclosure process as an effective foreclosure defense tool and with great results.

Something as simple has reviewing your loan documents to identify violations of these laws can  help homeowners in their quest to save their homes from foreclosure. If these viloations are found on your mortgage, you may be entitled to significant monetary damages from your lender. 

Often, these damages can run in the tens of thousands of dollars. I personally have seen damages totalling upwards of $125,000 awarded to a homeowner who actually was foreclosed on and their home was sold at auction. This homeowner received Read the rest of this entry »

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — A proposal to bail out subprime mortgage borrowers who are at risk of foreclosure was floated at a Senate Banking Committee hearing Thursday.

Senator Chris Dodd, the committee chair, said he is working to create a Home Ownership Preservation Corporation, which would purchase mortgage securities that are backed by at-risk, subprime loans from lenders and investors.

This corporation would give these lenders and investors a better price for the securities than they would get if the properties backing them were put through foreclosure.

Additionally the loans on these properties would be restructured so that borrowers could afford the new payments and remain in their homes.

Read the rest of the CNN Story Here

DURHAM, N.C., Jan. 31 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Recently the Center or Responsible Lending (CRL) released an analysis showing that during the third quarter of 2007, mortgage lenders initiated foreclosures seven times more requently than they modified mortgages, and 13 times more frequently than they modified problematic adjustable-rate subprime loans. In addition, CRL estimated that under the Treasury Department’s voluntary plan, only 3% of homeowners (118,200) with adjustable-rate subprime mortgages are likely to receive a streamlined loan modification from their lender.

In a defensive rebuttal, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) disputes these findings. After considering their bjections, we at the Center unequivocally stand by our original analysis. Here are our specific responses to MBA’s arguments: Read the rest of this entry »

WASHINGTON — The pace of loan modifications on adjustable subprime mortgages is lagging, which could prompt regulatory action on the mortgage industry, U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair warned Thursday.

“Unfortunately, at this point, the available information seems to show that foreclosures continue at an unacceptably high level while true loan modifications are lagging,” Bair said in prepared testimony to the Senate Banking. “It is important that servicers demonstrate and document real progress soon or they invite regulatory and legislative action to supplement the industry’s actions.”

Citing an increase of more than 60 percent in foreclosures during the first three quarters of 2007 from a year earlier, Bair said mortgage servicers need to act more quickly to prevent a bigger wave of defaults over the next two years.

Read the rest of the Associated Press Story here