December 2008

This “skate” story really hits home for me. I used to be one of those kids that would skate abandoned homes with pools throughout my childhood in my hometown of Anaheim, Ca. in the 1980′s.  Even though it wasn’t the most legal of [...]

Dec. 28 (Bloomberg) — IndyMac Bancorp Inc., which failed in July after a run on its deposits, is close to being sold by the government to private equity and hedge fund firms, the New York Times reported, citing people briefed [...]

Craig agreed to pay $30,000 and to share title on her house to a foreclosure rescue company. The company said it would use equity in her house to pay off her debts, and that her credit would be repaired. After [...]

I have always said that lenders targeted homeowners in the Golden State of California. The reason that lenders made more loan here is simple, more money per unit. Why set up operations in Alaska or New Mexico, when you can [...]

Hope Now, the mortgage industry’s alliance intended to help struggling homeowners, announced Monday it’s helped almost one-million home-owners get loan modifications this year. But, advocates for homeowners say the group is inflating its success. Homeowners who’ve tried, say it can [...]

Voluntary modifications by mortgage lenders are “too little, too late,” said Nicolas Retsinas, director of Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As mounting job losses cause foreclosure rates to rise, “we clearly need a more activist [...]

Many people wonder why lenders and mortgage servicers are not helping struggling homeowners as much as they should. Please read below and I’ll try and help you understand. I have been researching mortgage servicers and analyzing what they will and [...]

Rep. Maxine Waters, chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity and most senior member of the Financial Services Committee from the state of California, has introduced the Systematic Foreclosure Prevention and Mortgage Modification Act of 2008 (H.R. 7326). [...]

Choosing only 10 this year was next to impossible, but somehow we managed. Incidentally, we’d like to throw a special shout out to Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide for making this year’s list extra debacle-riffic. Thanks! – The Consumerist It’s nice [...]

Loan modifications are the talk of the town and a new service sector of business that is quickly getting a bad name for the few and the proud. When I see ads like the one below hit my Google alert [...]

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service today announced an expedited process that will make it easier for financially distressed homeowners to avoid having a federal tax lien block refinancing of mortgages or the sale of a home.If taxpayers are looking [...]

“However, just hours later, a Bank United spokesperson said the release was false and that the bank had no agreement in place or any intention to sign one.” Bank United spokeswoman said in regards to a fake press release issued [...]

The Justice Department Resolves Investigation Under Servicemembers Civil Relief Act of Homecomings Financial, LLC WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Justice Department today announced the resolution of its investigation of Homecomings Financial, LLC (Homecomings), under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act [...]

“While it may be sometimes tougher for us to sell a property when people are in it, we understand that lots of people are in tough situations right now,” said Chuck Greener, a Fannie Mae spokesman. “If a renter wants [...]

You obtain a mortgage modification on your own for free or without buying a book!I have proven over the last year and a half that homeowners can get a loan modification on their own. If you visit my forum, www.LoanSafe.org, [...]

The facts are the facts. I am not going to add much commentary to this damaging blog post because it is what it is. All I know is Angelo (Ex-Countrywide CEO) is gonna have some explaining to do to Mr.  Lewis (CEO for [...]

“And so here we are and we don’t have any systematic way to help homeowners to modify these loans,” Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said. “I’m not even going to cooperate with you anymore,” Waters said, turning to Chairman Barney Frank [...]

Many people in the media and our government are trying to figure out why loan modifications are not working and it is really quite simple to figure out. Yet, here we are almost two years into this foreclosure mess and [...]

It looks like Fannie Mae is finally implementing stronger loan modification methods and starting to progress with the foreclosure prevention times by implementing their new “Stream Lined Loan Modification Program” or (SMP). Read the Fannie Mae Guidelines here What does [...]

“While Wall Street firms can comfortably borrow billions at 2.28 percent of interest, their smaller counterparts have no such arrangement. Tens of thousands of small businesses will fail this year due to government inaction and lack of credit availability. With [...]

“Bill Frey of Greenwich Financial – Countrywide worked out an arrangement with fifteen state attorney generals for fraudulent lending practices and they’re handing the bill to bondholders. They plead guilty and they cut a deal on hundreds of thousands of [...]

“I just want to let the my readers and the world know that Wells Fargo, Wachovia (who they now own) and their mortgage servicing arm that they “try” and hide behind, American Servicing Company (ASC) is one the absolute worst [...]

Looks like the commercial mortgage arena will have a rough year in 2008. It is only the next logical foreclosure wave to hit the US and this tsunami may be the mother of all waves that drowns what’s left of [...]

“The loan modification buy back clause is on a secret Countrywide loan pool in which $122 billion worth of mortgages sold to investors from early 2004 to April of this year. The problem with the clause is that they are policing [...]

Investors filed a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan on Monday over the recent predatory lending settlement that Countrywide parent, Bank of America had agreed to in October with 11 state attorney generals. The lawsuit was filed [...]