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MATT’S TAKE ON THE NEWS
March 22, 2012
Foreclosures Hit Rich and Famous

Craig Karmin and James Hagerty from the Wall Street Journal report on a trend that is spreading across the countryside. Houses with mortgages of $5M or more have seen a dramatic rise in mortgage defaults. People used to make money and could afford these gargantuan money pits but, with job cuts and a struggling economy these properties are going down the tubes, like their lower cost brethren. The article states, “In February alone, 352 homes nationwide in this category were scheduled for foreclosure auction, the final step before a bank acquisition. That is the largest monthly number of these so-called notices of sale since the financial crisis began. By comparison, in all of 2009, there were 1,312 such notices.” Astonishing numbers!
I think that this is the beginning of a trend. Why? Because wealthy people have the means to pump good money after bad to keep a house out of foreclosure. But, the money will eventually run out. Either that, or the home owner will make a business decision and engage in a strategic foreclosure. Either way, there may be opportunity heading your way.

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Matt’s Take On the News
June 7, 2011

Who Says Politicians Can’t Be Bought!

Massimo Calabresi from Time reports on how Iowa’s Attorney General Tom Miller recently accepted $15,000 in campaign contributions from (2) individuals who have vested interest in the government and the attorney generals NOT coming down on lenders for their bad deeds. You might ask who Miller is. Miller, “…. took the lead on the investigation by all 50 state attorneys general into the “robo-signing” foreclosure scandal, where several big banks allegedly approved taking away people’s homes without adequately verifying the facts in court, as required by law in some states.”

Instead of recognizing the conflict of interest, Miller made excuses justifying the contributions. Why wouldn’t he simply return the money?

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Matt’s Take on the News

August 25, 2011

Hamp Decides to Foreclose

This is the latest example of how a government acronym (I mean foreclosure prevention program) has failed the American consumer. Kara Johnson reports on how HAMP applicants have been foreclosed on.

Ms. Johnson reports,”

Fannie Mae has been directing mortgage servicers to proceed with foreclosure when mortgages are more than 12 months overdue, even when the homeowners were being considered for loan modification under the federal Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). That’s according to an investigation by the Detroit Free Press, which published the results in a three-part series beginning Sunday.

According to the Free Press investigation, Fannie Mae directed lenders to proceed with foreclosure against homeowners who were actively seeking HAMP loan modifications, contrary to Fannie Mae’s own declared policies and the government’s rules for HAMP. The paper cited confidential records it obtained that detailed correspondence between Fannie Mae and lenders responsible for servicing the mortgages in question.”

No matter how you cut it, the government talks out of both sides of their mouth. On one hand they claim to be saviors. On the other hands they are amp’ing up the foreclosures on people who are trying to play by their rules.

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Matt’s Take on The News

August 18, 2011

Have They Seen The Light!?

Shanthi Bharatwaj from The Street reports on a trend that I hope sticks. He reports that some lenders finally have realized that short sales make more sense than foreclosures. My hope is that the trend is being pushed by the investors that actually own the notes versus’ the “banks” that are simply servicing the loans. I say this because the servicing companies have a vested interest to drive properties into foreclosures. The investors that own the notes have little to gain (except being able to prolong the reporting of the bad debt until the house is actually sold).

From the article, “Lenders often consider short sales as the lesser of two evils when compared to foreclosures,” Core Logic noted in a May 2011 report on short sales. “While significant losses may be incurred in both foreclosure and short sale scenarios, the overall negative financial impact of short sales is typically less than that of foreclosure. In many cases short sales represent the best way for lenders to minimize their overall losses. In general, all parties fare better when a foreclosure is prevented.”

So, why are some servicing companies still making it painfully difficult to complete a short sale? I think its stupidity and greed.

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Matt’s Take on the News
July 5th 2011

Why Foreclosure Filings Have Dropped

Lisa Shapiro from the Huffington Post clarifies why foreclosures have fallen to a 40 month low. Many want you to believe that it is due to the success of this program or that program…or that the economy is making a miraculous recovery. While all of this would be great, it’s just not the case.

“This slowdown continues to be largely the result of massive delays in processing foreclosures rather than the result of a housing recovery that is lifting people out of foreclosure,” said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac, in a press release.” An indicator is the average time to foreclose. Nationwide this number rose from 340 days to 400 days (Q1 2010 vs. Q1 2011). In judicial states this time frame can be higher (In Florida, the average time to foreclose is 619 days.) According to the report, the cause of these delays revolves around delays in paperwork processing.

As the article points out, “With home prices still falling, a slowdown in foreclosures driven by paperwork delays is bad news for the overall housing market recovery. Home prices hit their lowest point in two years in April, falling 0.7 percent below March 2009 levels, according to a recent report by Clear Capital. Housing experts say the data from RealtyTrac’s report does not indicate a reversal of this trend will be quickly forthcoming.

“As the servicers sort out their processing issues and staff up a little that means these homes will end up on the market as a distress sale and that will cause home prices to fall further,” said Celia Chen, a housing market analyst for Moody’s Analytics. “It delays the problem. It extends the recovery in the housing market.”

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Matt’s Take on the News

June 30, 2011

Illinois home foreclosures up 5 percent in May

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Matt’s Take on the News
June 28, 2011

Do You Facebook?

Sam Debord brings us an interesting post that involves one of the most visited websites in the world…Facebook. A couple in Australia defaulted on their mortgage. Presumable they were playing hide and seek with the bank because the bank couldn’t find them … The bank was trying to serve them foreclosure papers. Some industrious little Ninja from the bank took a gander at Facebook…low and behold guess who they found? Yep…the sellers! The sellers were served their papers over Facebook! According to Mr. Debord, Australian courts upheld the process!

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Matt’s Take on the News
June 23, 2011

“No end in sight to foreclosure quagmire”

NBC Channel 11 reports on how we continue down the rabbit hole of foreclosures. The government has introduced program after program that had great intentions but have delivered minimal results. The blame game is always played but never finished. Unemployment continues to rise while our economy plummets. The banks hold back the inventory of houses that they own. Servicing companies stretch out the process for endless periods of time. Some buyers are being ostracized in this market…I could go on and on……..rather than you listening to my rants, read the article and let me know your thoughts.

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Matt’s Take on the News

June 9, 2011

Dual Track Foreclosures

Alejandro Lazo from the Los Angeles Times report on a common practice called dual track foreclosures. To quote the article, “Financial institutions commonly pursue foreclosure even if a borrower has requested a loan modification, a two-track process the lending industry has argued is necessary to protect its investments. But dual tracking is under fire from regulators and lawmakers in the wake of last year’s “robo-signing” scandal, which revealed widespread foreclosure errors.”

What’s interesting is that the proposed law has been in front of state legislators several times before. In my opinion, the reason this bill is not passing (and probably won’t pass) is because of the bank lobby. Bankers enjoy wasting money but they don’t like wasting time. They know that getting a loan mod approved is a small miracle so they don’t want to stall the foreclosure process. Sounds kind of silly but it’s true.

SO my question is, If you can run a foreclosure and a loan mod in parallel, why won’t the banks allow a loan mod and a short sale to run simultaneously? They say that the seller must choose 1 path or the other but not both. Why?

Take the time to read the entire article. It’s quite interesting.