Foreclosure News

10 foreclosures for every home saved
By Tami Luhby
CNN Money
April 14, 2010

The Obama administration's mortgage-modification program is not keeping pace with the deluge of foreclosures hitting the market, a government watchdog found.

Only 168,708 homeowners have received long-term mortgage modifications under the president's plan, as of February, a small fraction of the 6 million borrowers who are more than 60 days behind on their loans, according to the Congressional Oversight Panel's latest report, released Wednesday.

As a certified cash flow consultant, I pride myself on helping people. This of course has rolled over into real estate investing as well.

For those that have or will potentially be in contact with desperate home sellers facing foreclosure, try educating them first.

To cash in on a potential short sale deal try using this conversational suggestion:

Foreclosures Hit Rich and Famous
By Craig Karmin and James R. Hagerty
The Wall Street Journal
April 09, 2010

The rich and famous now have something in common with hundreds of thousands of middle and lower-class Americans: The bank is about to take their homes.

Houses with loans of $5 million or more will likely see a sharp rise in foreclosures this year, according to a RealtyTrac study for The Wall Street Journal.

Published on: Monday, April 05, 2010 Written by: Jon Prior

To increase the number of properties qualifying for the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development recently changed its definition of what constitutes a foreclosed property. Properties more than 60 days delinquent will now be considered foreclosure properties, and foreclosed properties vacant for at least 90 days will be considered abandoned. See the following article from HousingWire for more on this.

$600 million in housing aid on the way for 5 more states
By Hibah Yousuf
CNN Money
March 29, 2010

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Five more states will receive federal funding to help troubled homeowners avoid foreclosure, the Obama administration announced Monday.

Last month, President Obama unveiled the Hardest Hit Fund, which pumped $1.5 billion into state housing agencies in California, Arizona, Florida, Nevada and Michigan. These five were originally identified because they had been hardest hit by the housing bust, with prices declining more than 20%.

Now, an additional $600 million is being doled out to the five states that have the largest number of counties suffering unemployment rates above 12%: North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island and South Carolina.

Don't foreclose! Do a short sale
CNN Money
By Les Christie
March 29, 2010

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Short sales are the hottest thing going in the distressed-property market, and the trend is expected to get even hotter in coming weeks, when the government starts handing out cash to encourage lenders to close these deals.

"Banks have ramped up short sale approvals," said Duane Legate of House Buyer Network, which connects short sellers with buyers. "They're hiring a lot of the people who once worked in the mortgage-lending industry and moved them over to short sales."

Inspector General Slams Obama Foreclosure-Prevention Drive
By James R. Hagerty
The Wall Street Journal
March 24, 2010

A government watchdog agency criticized the Obama administration's $50 billion campaign to avert foreclosures by reducing mortgage payments for millions of distressed borrowers.

A report by the inspector general of the federal Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, said results of the loan-modification program so far have been disappointing. The report, released Tuesday evening, also said that the U.S. Treasury has failed to measure results properly for the Home Affordable Modification Program, known as HAMP, and that it may merely delay foreclosures in too many cases.

America's Most Underwater Housing Markets
by Luke Mullins
US News and World Report
March 19, 2010

Negative equity--what you have when you owe more on your home loan than the property is worth--is one of the defining features of the still-unfolding mortgage crisis. It's a particularly nasty problem because it can lead to all sorts of unpleasant outcomes for the real estate market and the economy as a whole.

How Many Homes Do Banks Have Up Their Sleeves?
By James R. Hagerty
The Wall Street Journal
March 19, 2010

For those trying to figure out how much further U.S. house prices could fall, it would help to know how many more foreclosed homes banks need to sell.

Alas, no one has found a way to track precisely how many of those properties are owned by banks, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (which ends up with homes when FHA-insured loans go bad) and mortgage investors, including securitization trusts and the government-controlled mortgage firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. All of these entities report data on their holdings of foreclosed homes – known in the trade as REO, short for “real estate owned” – but they do so in their own disparate ways.

Want a Short Sale? Best to Wait
By June Fletcher
The Wall Street Journal
Narch 19, 2010

A new government program aimed to speed up these notoriously sluggish transactions goes into effect on April 5, increasing your chances of negotiating a distressed-property bargain.

Q: I am looking to buy my first home, and it seems like short-sales are priced much lower than regular sales. Are these prices negotiable, or are they the bottom line that lenders will accept?

—Allentown, Pa.