Foreclosure Nation

WASHINGTON: Small businesses and consumers were wary about taking advantage of easier credit in the first quarter, but loan demand among large firms grew, the Federal Reserve said in a report on Monday that showed credit markets thawing unevenly. The Fed's quarterly survey of senior bank loan offic...

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The mortgage default risk index from University Financial Associates LLC (UFA) registered a reading of 141 for the first quarter of 2011. The index’s baseline of 100 correlates to the default risk of loans made during the 1990s. Translation – under the current economic conditions, investors and le...

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Before the real estate bust, Rob Paxton and Susan Schneider might have met at a networking event or through their home-buyer clients. Instead, they first crossed paths at a day shelter for the homeless in Falls Church. Schneider, once a mortgage broker with plenty of disposable income, arrived one...

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The down payments demanded by banks to buy homes have ballooned since the housing bust, forcing many people to rethink what they can afford and potentially shrinking the pool of eligible buyers. Last week, the Obama administration called for gradually raising down payments to a minimum of 10% on...

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The down payments demanded by banks to buy homes have ballooned since the housing bust, forcing many people to rethink what they can afford and potentially shrinking the pool of eligible buyers. WSJ's Mitra Kalita reports banks are requiring prospective new home buyers to come up more cash for dow...

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United States Bankruptcy Judge Robert Grossman has ruled that MERS's business practices are unlawful. He explicitly acknowledged that this ruling sets a precedent that has far-reaching implications for half of the mortgages in this country. MERS is dead. The banks are in big trouble. And all forec...

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NEW YORK - Adjustable rate mortgages are back! After accounting for nearly 70% of all mortgages issued during the boom, ARMs vanished during the bust, totaling just 3% of the market in 2009. Now they make up 5% of all mortgages issued, and Freddie Mac predicts 10% by December. Behind the comeba...

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Fewer consumers filed applications for a new mortgage last week as interest rates on home loans jumped to a 10-month high. Based on data from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), the average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage spiked more than 30 basis points in one week’s time. MBA said Wednesd...

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MELISSA CALDERONE was ready for a fresh start when she made plans last year to move to Florida from New Jersey. Recently remarried, she signed a contract in mid-March on a house to be built in Windermere, Fla., by Pulte Homes, the nation’s largest homebuilder. The neighborhood had good schools for h...

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Heeding pleas from industry players and trade groups across the country, the Federal Reserve issued additional guidance this week to help smaller mortgage lenders and loan brokers comply with the agency’s new loan officer compensation rules that take effect April 1, 2011. Amendments to Regulation Z...

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In the last quarter of 2010 Freddie Mac > reported that 46% of homeowners who refinanced lowered their principal by putting > in more money at closing, the highest cash-in percentage on record. Meanwhile, Freddie's > cash-out borrowers fell to 16% of all loans, the lowest percentage on record. Co...

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Wells Fargo sent out word to its broker clients that, per the existing schedule, > on April fool's Day 2011 the new comp rules go into place. Wells expects to put > out its plan in February, but reminds us "The rules prohibit a loan originator > from: Receiving compensation based on the interest...

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Rates are still decent, and ARM loans don't immediately jump to mind in this kind > of environment for loan agents when a borrower saunters through the door. (In fact, > ARM loans have accounted for about 5% of production in recent months.) The Federal > Reserve, however, approved an interim rule...

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Citing an urgent need to address questionable mortgage and foreclosure practices that have helped stall the broader economic recovery, a group of economists, analysts and financiers has signed a letter to Federal regulators, calling on them to develop national standards governing the mortgage proces...

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Flagstar unleashed a spate of changes for its clients which, in my opinion, are > unusual since they represent a definite loosening of guidelines. The changes are > several pages long, so reproducing all of them here is impractical. But here are > some highlights. "We are pleased to announce we ...

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In the previous two parts of this series I have recounted the multiple frauds perpetrated by MERS: it defrauded counties out of billions of dollars of reporting fees, it defrauded homeowners by destroying documents that provide a clear chain of title -- facilitating its foreclosure frauds, and it de...

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Independent mortgage banks and their subsidiaries made an average profit of $1,423 on each loan they originated in the third quarter, thanks to a surge in refinance activity and growing demand for mortgage-backed securities (MBS), the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported Tuesday. The third ...

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The number of mortgage applications in the U.S. fell last week as higher lending rates led to a fourth straight decline in refinancing. The Mortgage Bankers Association’s index decreased 0.9 percent in the week ended Dec. 3, figures from the Washington- based group showed today. Refinancing fel...

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Thousands of Florida mortgage brokers will be out of work after Dec. 31. That's the deadline for seeking new loan originator licenses under the Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System. The state Office of Financial Regulation said Tuesday it had gotten only 10,308 applications as of ...

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Despite record-low interest rates, an increasing number of Americans can’t afford to buy a house. The nation’s two largest mortgage lenders, Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America Corp., have raised the minimum required credit score on FHA-insured loans to 640 from 620. Requiring a 640 cre...

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At the center of the foreclosure fraud crisis lies something called "MERS," which is usually described in news reports as a computer system and database. But a thorough review of the company's publicly available documents show it's much more than that. We reviewed hundreds of pages of bulletins, new...

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In Mortgage Ad, Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right By RON LIEBER NYT One of the most important lessons of the mortgage collapse is that potential borrowers need clear explanations of exactly what kind of commitment they are making. So in the last couple of years, there has been a recurring national co...

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With home loans going bad at a still-staggering pace and losses mounting for the GSEs, the nation’s two largest mortgage financiers are pursuing several avenues to recover money, including returning poorly underwrittenloans to lenders. During the first three months of this year, Fannie Mae and Fredd...

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Fraud in the mortgage originations world is what happens when opportunity and motivation intersect. It is far more productive to limit the opportunity to commit fraud than it is to address motivations . Are we using compensation in the form of bonuses to motivate quality decisions? • Have we ...

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So far Babk of America has been asked to buyer back $1.5 billion compared to $448 million is 2008. JP Morgan $1.7 billion compared to 2008 $1.1 million. And Wells Fargo $1.3 billion compared to 2008 $426 million. Clearly buy backs will have a big impact this year on bank health. The total buy ...

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