December 2010

As the U.S. mortgage crisis continues to affect thousands of American homeowners, the Federal Trade Commission is working to cease numerous mortgage relief service scams that prey on consumers behind in their mortgage payments or facing foreclosure. Bogus operations falsely [...]

(Source: NY Times) – NEW statistics provide a glum holiday-time snapshot of the real estate market: shrunken sales pace, bloated inventory and a “shadow inventory” of foreclosed homes looming menacingly in the background.

FOUR DEFENDANTS CHARGED IN MANHATTAN FEDERAL COURT WITH $3 MILLION MORTGAGE FRAUD SCHEME NEW YORK FBI – PREET BHARARA, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and JANICE K. FEDARCYK, the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New [...]

(By Karen Wise of Probublica) – The Obama administration has been increasing its support for programs to induce banks and others to trim loan balances for homeowners that owe more than their homes are worth. Here’s an overview of the [...]

(By Karen Wise of Probublica) – The Obama administration has been pushing for banks and investors to cut mortgage balances for homeowners who owe more than their home is worth. But the regulator for the biggest investors of them all [...]

(Source: The Virginian-Pilot) Norfolk, Va. – The law of supply and demand says that as more people want to buy something, the price will rise until supply catches up. Inversely, as the supply of something rises, prices will fall until [...]

(Source: Money Marketing) – GMAC-RFC will transfer the administration of its mortgage assets from third-party servicer HML to an in-house servicing team in the second quarter of next year. HML currently services the firm’s UK mortgage book, worth around pound [...]

(Source: The Palm Beach Post) – Foreclosure filings plummeted in November, showing the biggest declines nationwide since 2005 as the robo-signing fracas forced lenders to pause and review flawed or possibly fraudulent paperwork. The nationwide drop of 21 percent in [...]

(Source: Detroit Free Press) DETROIT -  Last spring in the waning days of the first-time homebuyer tax credit, Stephen Ploski, 24, made an offer on a foreclosed home in Farmington Hills, Mich. He said the 1,400-square-foot home was livable, but [...]

(Source: The Philadelphia Inquirer ) PHILADELPHIA _ The housing downturn that began in 2005, 2006 or 2007 _ depending on location _ has tested the mettle of the economists whose job it is to figure out when and how the [...]

(Source: Probulica By Sasha Chavkin) – Many foreclosures have been thrown into question [1] because of flawed documentation such as inaccurate affidavits describing a mortgage’s history. But three recent court cases point to another type of flaw in foreclosure filings [...]

United States District Court, D. Hawaii (LoanWorkout.org) – In this case, Plaintiff alleges that Defendants violated TILA by failing to provide Plaintiff with all of the required disclosures. (Compl. ¶¶ 27-46.) As in Meyer and Hubbard, plaintiff fails to allege [...]

NEW YORK /PRNewswire/ — Mortgage rates soared again this week, with the average rate on the benchmark conforming 30-year fixed mortgage rate rising to 5 percent, according to Bankrate.com’s weekly national survey. The average 30-year fixed mortgage has an average [...]

(By Mary Shanklin, The Orlando Sentinel, Fla.) – For the first time in more than a year, Orlando was not one of the top foreclosure cities in the nation last month. Typically, the metro area has ranked about 10th in [...]

(Source: The Palm Beach Post By Kimberly Miller)- Dec. 15–Nearly two years into a $30 billion federal foreclosure prevention program, a congressional oversight panel has again roundly criticized the plan, calling it ineffective and predicting billions of dollars will be [...]