foreclosures

This should come as no surprise: Even the mere mention of the possibility of bringing back cramdown legislation prompted the Mortgage Bankers Association to spring into action. Here’s the group’s rapid response to comments this week from several powerful Democrats, who who threatened to renew efforts to allow bankruptcy judges to change, or cramdown, mortgage [...]

As Mike pointed out today, the slow pace of loan modification progress has prompted some lawmakers to once again call for mortgage cramdown legislation that would allow bankruptcy judges to modify loans and keep borrowers in their homes.
But the Obama administration is signaling clearly that while it may be open to some new tactics, cramdown [...]

This should sound familiar: Growing losses on Federal Housing Administration-backed mortgage loans are prompting fears the agency will be next in line for taxpayer help, The Wall Street Journal says.
The Federal Housing Administration, hit by increasing mortgage-related losses, is in danger of seeing its reserves fall below the level demanded by Congress, according to government [...]

For many people, one of the confounding things about the financial crisis has been trying to grasp exactly what happened on Wall Street — and how things could have gotten so out of hand. The financial press, in many ways, hasn’t been of much help here, throwing around terms like C.D.O.s and credit default swaps [...]

CNN examines the stalled efforts to rework troubled mortgages, noting that only 6 percent of  4 million eligible homeowners have been helped so far under the Obama administration’s Making Home Affordable program. The piece notes that banks say they are trying to do loan modifications, but need more time to get up to speed on [...]

As Congress jousts over the effectiveness of the stimulus package to stir economic activity, it’s worth noting that homeowners — whose troubles are at the root of the economic crisis — continue to struggle. Nearly one-fourth (23 percent) of mortgage-paying homeowners nationwide now owe more on their homes than the property is worth, according to [...]

Via Michael Shedlock, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reviews the growing problem of zombie subdivisions, those half-built developments you often see from a highway. Developers broke ground for these subdivisions near the end of the housing boom, and abandoned them when the mortgage crisis hit and financing dried up. Now the subdivisions are a drag on surrounding [...]

As a quick addition to Mary’s thoughts on yesterday’s Treasury Department report confirming the reluctance of mortgage servicers to modify loans through the administration’s Making Home Affordable program, it’s worth noting that some of the poorest-performing banks are the same institutions that appeared before Congress just a few weeks ago with declarations that they were [...]

The Treasury Department’s report on the progress — or lack of it — among servicers doing loan modifications makes it seem like the Obama administration is keeping a close eye on its Making Home Affordable Program. But Felix Salmon at Reuters takes a second look at Treasury report, and raises some important questions. Salmon notes [...]

The Home Valuation Code of Conduct makes getting an appraisal costlier and more time-consuming for would-be buyers — and the added time can prevent purchasers from getting the best possible mortgage on their new home.