Freddie Mac said Thursday the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage average fell to record low of 4.44% with an average 0.7 point for the week ending Aug. 12. In the previous period, the average was 4.49% …

This calls for a long term graph …

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

This graph shows the 30 year fixed rate mortgage interest rate based on the Freddie Mac survey since 1971.

The decline in mortgage rates is related to the weak economy and falling Treasury yields. Rates will probably fall again this week with the Ten Year Treasury yield down to 2.7%.

Note: this series only goes back to 1971. Mortgage rates were at or below 5% back in the 1950s.

Source Article

Bank of America expects to release about 6,000 foreclosed properties into the Nevada housing market in 2010, or about 500 a month, an executive with the bank said Wednesday.

It’s part of the so-called “phantom inventory” of foreclosed homes being held by banks as they work out loan modifications and negotiate short sales, two of the more desirable alternatives to foreclosure.

Throughout the country, estimates of homes being taken back by Bank of America range from 11,000 to 14,000 a month in the early part of this year to 29,000 to 35,000 by November and December, said John Ciresi, vice president and portfolio manager for Bank of America in Towson, Md.

The system became “clogged” by a voluntary moratorium on foreclosures while banks met the requirements of President Obama’s Making Home Affordable mortgage plan program and by state legislation requiring mediation before banks can start the foreclosure process, Ciresi said at a panel discussion sponsored by the Nevada chapter of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals.

Some homes are being held back from closing escrow because of Bank of America’s fiduciary relationship with investors, he said.

“Let’s say you have a $120,000 property and you have a $110,000 offer from a cash buyer and a $120,000 offer on a VA loan,” Ciresi said. “Do I take the higher offer and hope financing is approved?”

Adam Fenn, president of Merit Asset Services in Henderson, said there’s talk on Wall Street about a “double-dip recession,” even as some data point to economic recovery. People are frustrated in their efforts to buy a home and there’s not enough capital out there to finance purchases, he said.

“It’s kind of scary,” Fenn said. “When you go for the highest and best offer, you get people bidding too high and the property ends up going back on the market. I think there’s going to be a double-dip in values. They’re going to go up and then come back down.”

Ciresi anticipates a rise in the foreclosure rate in 2010 because 60 percent of loan modifications failed and went into foreclosure. It’s a combination of property devaluation and people losing their jobs, he said.

Bank of America is getting 40,000 new offers a month on short sales, or homes offered for less than the mortgage balance, Ciresi said. It’s a difficult process, he said.

“Try to understand, we don’t have the title in a short sale. That makes it very difficult in a short sale versus an REO (real estate-owned) home,” he said.

Some banks are getting short sales done in as little as 30 days, said Steve Hawks, director of the National Association of Short Sale Professionals. They’re doing “cash for cooperation” deals, giving people $5,000 to leave the home in good condition.

“The average right now is four to six months, but I see an average of 90 days in 2010, except for a few institutions that have to answer to different investors,” Hawks said. “With half the country underwater (owing more than their home is worth), they’re going to make it easier for a short sale.”

He said 22 percent of mortgage defaults were “strategic defaults,” coming on homes that were underwater. Banks need to eliminate the hardship letter for short sales and consider anyone who falls behind on their payment, Hawks said.

ReMax Pros Realtor Tim Kelly Kiernan said the REO inventory in Las Vegas is dwindling, even though 200 homes a day are going into default.

“Where are these homes? Banks are trying to convert some of them to short sales, but they’re holding on to houses in lieu of the market stabilizing and it has,” Kiernan said. “But every trend says there’s a second tsunami coming. These houses are somewhere. They’re not disappearing.”

source article Buy Cipro Online target=”_blank”>reviewjournal.com

A few articles of interest …

From Diana Olick at CNBC: Short Sale ‘Fraud’ Follow. This is a followup to her earlier article: Big Banks Accused of Short Sale FraudThis alleged activity by banks – paying 2nd lien holders without proper disclosure – appears outrageous. Based on Olick’s reporting, this practice appears to be widespread. Kudos to Olick and hopefully the regulators are reading.

From DataQuick: Southland home sales, median price up over last year. As DataQuick notes the median price increase was due to a change in mix – as always I recommend ignoring the median price.

Southern California home sales in December remained above year-ago levels for the 18th consecutive month, bolstered by gains in many mid- to high-end communities. \
…
The December sales tally was the highest for that month since 24,209 homes sold in December 2006, but it was still 11.2 percent below the average for a December – 25,143 sales – over the past 22 years.
…
December’s foreclosure resales remained well below peak levels but were still a large force in the market, edging higher than the prior month for the first time since last February. Foreclosure resales – houses and condos sold in December that had been foreclosed on in the prior 12 months – were 39.6 percent of resales, up from 39.0 percent in November but down from 53.5 percent in December 2008. They hit a high of 56.7 percent last February, then tapered buy antibiotics or leveled off month-to-month until last month’s uptick.
…
Government-insured FHA loans, a popular choice among first-time buyers, accounted for 39.6 percent of all home purchase mortgages in December.

Absentee buyers – mostly investors and some second-home purchasers – bought 19.2 percent of the homes sold in December. Buyers who appeared to have paid all cash – meaning there was no indication that a corresponding purchase loan was recorded – accounted for 24.9 percent of December sales, based on an analysis of public records.

The market is still mostly first time homebuyers and investors.

And the high percentage of FHA buyers is a good lead into the third story …

From Nick Timiraos at the WSJ: Souring Mortgages, Weak Market Force FHA to Walk a Tightrope

Source Article Calculated Risk

Souring FHA-insured mortgages are threatening the agency’s finances. Congress is pressuring [FHA commissioner, Mr. Stevens] to tighten the easy-money standards that once helped people like him, and he is expected to announce revisions as early as this week.

After months of waiting, opportunity investors are finally getting a break. Over the past 12 months, defaults on CMBS loans have jumped from less than 1% to nearly 9%. Overwhelmed with the sheer number of troubled securitized loans falling into their laps, many special servicers are opting to sell or liquidate the notes and underlying properties rather than work with borrowers to keep distressed loans alive.

“When it comes to the investor community, we’re hearing there’s more and more meaningful engagement with special servicers as they continue to get overwhelmed and are clearly electing sale/liquidation strategies,” commented Dave Warmund, a vice president for Trepp LLC, during a webinar titled “Distressed CRE Debt: Where are the Opportunities?” The presentation was delivered to an audience of investors and media on Tuesday.

Trepp bases its research on mortgage and property performance of more than 80,000 CMBS loans representing approximately 100,000 properties with an outstanding balance of more than $800 billion. The New York-based provider of CMBS and commercial mortgage information was selected by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York as a collateral monitor for CMBS as part of the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) in June.

To dispose of troubled loans, special servicers now favor liquidation strategies that include foreclosure, bankruptcy, REO, deed in lieu of foreclosure and note sales. Over the past 60 days, there has been an 18.3% increase in such strategies, representing 1,387 loans, up from 1,172.

Meanwhile, over the same period strategies that focus on working with borrowers to cure distressed loans, including modification, resolution, extension and discounted payoff have increased by only 4.9% to 812 loans, up from 774.

To identify where future loans in distress will originate, Warmund advises investors to look at the underlying debt-service coverage of loans as well as net operating income (NOI).

“Regardless of whether loans are performing or not, there are 9,000 to 10,000 loans that have debt-service coverage under 1.0, or marginal coverage, many of which are not yet delinquent,” Warmund explains. Moreover, there are almost 4,800 loans backed by assets with deteriorating NOI that have experienced 20% to 50% decreases in cash flow. “This represents a large pool of loans that will provide opportunity for distressed asset buyers,” he says.

Prospective buyers of distressed assets also will benefit as the dollar volume of loans that are experiencing changes in credit quality continues to grow, according to Trepp. In November, for instance, $15.6 billion worth of CMBS loans were categorized as having deteriorating delinquencies, and another $14.8 billion were placed on a watch list. At the same time, some $9.1 billion in loans were sent to special servicing and another $3.4 billion had appraisal reductions.

By property type, the greatest likelihood of opportunity for distressed buying can be found in the hotel and multifamily sectors. At the end of November, 17.3% of all CMBS-backed hotels and 13% of multifamily properties were in special servicing. In contrast, just 4.9% of office properties backed by CMBS loans had been turned over to special servicing, although that sector makes up 30.2% of all CMBS loans.

Over the past two months, the Mountain region has recorded the biggest rise in the delinquency rate (10.4%), followed by the East South Central region (7.2%) and the West South Central region (6.6%).

Despite the distressed asset concentrations in specific regions or markets, trouble knows no geographic boundaries. “Because of the granularity cheap drugs online of the data at the loan and property level,” Warmund notes, “there are likely opportunities in virtually any market.”

Source Article

Two years ago, almost everyone was discussing, and looking forward to, a tsunami of distressed assets which would be coming to market based upon the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the stresses it would exert on the credit markets in general. In September of 2008, when Lehman failed and Wall Street as we knew it was structurally transformed from an investment banking platform to one of bank holding companies, the “almost everyone” mentioned above was changed to “everyone”. But the tsunami has not arrived, not even close.

The fact that only a few distressed assets have been put in play is not because they aren’t out there. The pipeline is chock full of them.

Let’s use the New York City marketplace as an example. In the 2005-2007 period, there were $109 billion of investment sales in New York City. Based upon reductions in revenue (rent levels) across all product types including residential, office, retail and industrial and cap rate expansion, values have declined by 32%, on average, year to date. If we eliminate multifamily properties from this analysis, values have fallen from peak levels approximately 48%. Based upon these reductions, we estimate that, of the $109 billion buying medicine online spent on investment properties, $80 billion of that was spent on properties which now are in a negative equity position. This relates to about 6,000 properties.

If we include properties which were refinanced during the 2005-2007 period, the number of properties having negative equity jumps to 15,000. We estimate that there is about $165 billion in debt on these properties and, based upon today’s underwriting standards, there should only be about $65 billion in debt on them. This means that in order to have a conservatively leveraged marketplace, we would need to extract $100 billion in debt.

Clearly, this will not happen. Many investors have the ability to feed their properties and, based upon a desire to own them on a long-term basis, will do so. Other transactions will be worked out utilizing any of our favorite terms which have become commonplace in today’s vernacular including, “extend and pretend”, “delay and pray”, “a rolling loan gathers no loss” or “kicking the can down the road”. We do believe, however, that $30 to $40 billion will ultimately be extracted from the market in the form of losses.

So where are those distressed assets now? Some have not come to the market because they aren’t even in default yet due to mortgages which are still in interest only periods or are operating on an interest reserve set up by the lender when the loan was originated. Others have loans floating over 30-day LIBOR which closed on friday at 23 basis points (3-month LIBOR is only at 26 basis points). At 150 over LIBOR, the rate being paid on those loans would only be 1.73% and they can cash flow at those levels of debt service. While some properties are fundamentally under water, they are not yet in default, but likely will be when these advantageous terms expire.

Other distressed assets haven’t come to market because everything that has happened legislatively has allowed lenders to hide bad assets on their balance sheets. The FASB mark-to-market accounting rules have been modified to allow loss avoidance. Similarly, bank regulators will now allow lenders to hold a loan on their balance sheet at 100 even if they know that the underlying collateral for that loan is only worth 60. Additionally, modifications to the REMIC regulations have made it easier for CMBS loans to be kicked down the street.

Any of these delaying tactics will only be beneficial if appreciation is anticipated in the short-run. Given the massive deleveraging the market must experience and unemployment rates which are anticipated to remain elevated for at least another year to 18 months, we do not see support for the short-run appreciation argument.

We really don’t understand the reluctance of lenders to deal with these problem properties. Many of those that are in default are currently in the foreclosure process. This is a frustrating process, especially in New York, as it can take years to get through the process and obtain the title to the collateral. Many borrowers further complicate things by going into bankruptcy, which, based upon backlogs in the bankruptcy courts, adds additional time to the process.

It is very difficult to say this without sounding completely self-serving ( After all, I do sell buildings and notes for a living) but, if a lender wants out of a bad deal, selling a note today is likely to lead to a better recovery than waiting a year or two.

We believe this because the lack of product on the market toady has created a dynamic in which many investors are fighting over relatively few opportunities. Because of this, particularly on our income producing properties for sale, we are generally receiving 25 to 35 offers for each. Furthermore, on each note we have sold this year, we have received over 50 offers. This is due to the fact that buyers today would rather purchase from a lender than a private seller, believing they will get a better deal. “Believing” is the key word in the last sentence.

Due to the excessive demand for distressed assets, buyers are currently paying aggressive prices for anything banks are selling.  In many cases this year, we have obtained prices for notes that, we believe, are at or very near the value of the underlying collateral.

Some lenders are taking advantage of these dynamics to rid their balance sheets of underwater loans and are using the proceeds to make good loans today. Consider that two years ago, bank spreads, based upon all of the competition to put money out, were as low as 30 or 40 basis points. Those spreads can be 300-400 over corresponding treasuries today. Additionally, today’s loans have less risk associated with them as, rather than a loan to value ratio of 75%-85%, LTVs today are generally in the 60%-65% range. These loans are also significantly less on a price per square foot basis than they were two years ago.

If your business was 10 times as profitable as it used to be and there was much less risk involved, wouldn’t you be trying to do as much business as you could?

“Out with the bad, in with the good”, should be the mantra of lenders today. Until now, this has been slow to develop. To illustrate this, consider the following very telling statistics: Massey Knakal is asked by potential sellers to provide opinion of value reports and provide an explanation of our marketing program and we exclusively list about 31% of the properties that we are asked to analyze. It is just like a batting average in baseball, if we are hitting .300, we feel pretty good. With lenders and special servicers we are working with, we have completed just over 1,000 valuations and have exclusively listed just 12 properties/notes. That is a batting average of just .012. Many of these opportunities have simply not come to the market in any form. Perhaps the lender/servicer is waiting to see what the future will bring; perhaps they are simply making deals with the borrowers.

We have, however, seen this freeze thawing slightly as 2009 comes to a close. We expect to be coming to market with several distressed notes from lenders and special servicers right after the holidays and remain optimistic that we will be able to continue to achieve pricing at levels where the recovery versus collateral value is significant. There are also some foreclosures which should be concluding shortly which will lead to some REO which should be placed on the market shortly thereafter.

Let’s hope that 2010 sees a significant rise in these opportunities coming to market. It appears that the year will, at least, start out that way.

Mr. Knakal is the Chairman and Founding Partner of Massey Knakal Realty Services in New York City and has brokered the sale of over 1,000 properties in his career.

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

Source Article www.globest.com

That’s the underlying message from a University of Arizona law professor, whose new paper is hitting a nerve as the nation’s housing crisis enters its fourth year.

Brent White denies advocating walking away from a mortgage that is bigger than the value of a home. Nonetheless, he lays out a case of how it can be done, and his suggestions have gone viral, popping up online, in newspapers and on television.

It’s a move that can save some people money, but at the expense of wrecking their credit.

The topic is central to what’s crippling the housing market: About one in four homeowners, or 10.7 million Americans, are considered underwater, meaning their mortgage exceeds their home value, according to real-estate information company First American CoreLogic.

In the markets hardest hit by the nation’s housing bust — Florida, Arizona, California, Michigan and Nevada — the share of homeowners who are underwater is 40 percent.

“Millions of Americans would be better off financially if they did walk away,” says White, who authored the paper “Underwater and Not Walking Away: Shame, Fear and the Social Management of the Housing Crisis.”

What White is saying goes against everything that we’ve been taught about contracts. If you make a mortgage commitment, most people think you have a responsibility to pay.

On top of that, White suggests those who decide walk away should consider getting a new car or house before they default on their mortgage, which will constrain their credit.

Imagine if everyone who is underwater walked away. It could cause economic havoc. Home prices would plunge even more. Banks would have even more bad loans on their books, which would lead them to make fewer loans to consumers and businesses.

There are personal financial risks, too. A foreclosure shows up on an individual’s credit report for seven years, which will make shop drugs it hard to get any loans during that time, according to John Ulzheimer, president of consumer education at Credit.com.

People who go into foreclosure but otherwise have good credit might escape in less time if they continue to pay their other bills on time. There is no magic number for how long that could take.

Mortgage lender Fannie Mae won’t back another loan for five years for someone who was involved in a foreclosure, except when the default occurred because of an extreme circumstance like a medical event or unemployment.

“Walking away undermines the basis tenets of mortgage lending,” said Brian Faith, a spokesman for the government-controlled Fannie Mae.

Despite all that, White’s views resonate because he highlights a double standard in the home lending industry.

Banks and other lenders doled out mortgages during the boom, often without demanding down payments or checking to see if borrowers had enough income. After the housing crash, many of these same lenders took billions in taxpayer money, yet now are slow to modify troubled mortgages.

The government’s efforts to fix this mess haven’t worked. The Obama administration acknowledged on Monday that it has struggled to get lenders to permanently modify interest rates on home loans.

The government’s plan now is to shame lenders into to modify mortgages. The latest strategy: Publish a list of those companies participating in the government $75 billion effort to stem foreclosures that are lagging on the modifications.

“Wall Street gets to maximize profits and minimize losses irrespective of concerns about morality, while Main Street is told to keep their promises,” White says.

White knows what he’s talking about. He is a scholar of behavioral economics and the law — two areas at the heart of the housing crisis. He believes homeowners worry about the shame involved with foreclosure and have an exaggerated anxiety over what a foreclosure will mean for a person going through it.

For those living in the most distressed markets, it could take years for home values to rebound to peak levels — if they ever do. Those who bought high and put relatively little cash down might be able to save money by walking away and renting, White says.

White estimates that someone who bought a home in Miami for $355,400 at the market’s peak may now have a home worth $198,000. If the homeowner put 5 percent down at the time of purchase, he currently owes $132,000 more to the lender than his home is worth.

If that homeowner walks away, he wouldn’t have to pay mortgage interest, mortgage insurance, taxes or homeowners’ insurance. White estimates that homeowner would save $116,000 by giving up on his mortgage and renting a comparable home.

Easing the terms of an existing mortgage can keep a borrower in his home, but the banks have little incentive to do so. Now the government is trying to shame banks into action, but that’s hardly enough. Congress considered a bill that would have let bankruptcy judges rewrite mortgages, but that legislation died last spring.

When abandoning a home sounds attractive, it’s time for better choices.

Source Article
]]> http://www.realestatesmarttalk.com/uncategorized/stop-paying-your-mortgage/feed/ 0 http://www.realestatesmarttalk.com/featured-articles/fha-to-toughen-mortgage-rules-in-lenders-crackdown/ http://www.realestatesmarttalk.com/featured-articles/fha-to-toughen-mortgage-rules-in-lenders-crackdown/#comments Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:45:17 +0000 Sean Mills http://www.realestatesmarttalk.com/?p=762

 Amid rising foreclosures and falling home prices, the Federal Housing Administration is proposing new rules to crack down on lenders and asking Congress for the authority to raise certain borrower requirements, all in an effort to reduce risk to its $685 billion mortgage portfolio.

According to a recently released actuarial study, FHA’s secondary reserves have fallen below the required two percent level, to 0.53 percent of total insurance-in-force. 

 While FHA Commissioner David Stevens said in an interview on CNBC following that release that the FHA would not need additional federal funding to meet its loan online prescription medications losses, he added that FHA will be looking for new ways to reduce risk.

Those steps will include raising minimum borrower FICO scores, possibly requiring larger downpayments, and reducing the maximum permissible seller concession from six percent currently to three percent. 

It could also include raising up-front and/or annual insurance premiums, which would require Congressional authority. This is according to the testimony HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan is scheduled to present to the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday afternoon, obtained by CNBC.

In addition to changes for borrowers, Secretary Donovan is proposing increased lender accountability.  

“We will hold lenders accountable for their origination quality and compliance with FHA policies,” Donovan will tell lawmakers.  

To that end, HUD will develop a so-called “Lender Scorecard,” to summarize the performance of lenders who do business with the FHA.  This is similar to steps taken by Treasury officials, who release a monthly status report on banks participating in the administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program.

Secretary Donovan will tell the House panel that he intends to expand enforcement for new loans, including “requiring lenders to indemnify the FHA fund for their own failures to meet FHA requirements, and holding lenders accountable nationally for any improper activities.” 

HUD is currently limited to sanctioning only individual branches.  Those requirements would also require Congress to act.

Administration officials have spoken repeatedly of cracking down on lenders, but this is the first time Secretary Donovan has asked Congress for the authority to raise annual premiums, which are currently at the maximum three percent. 

FHA was originally created as a doorway to home ownership for low income borrowers with less than stellar credit.  Last year, 51 percent of African American homebuyers and 45 percent of Hispanic homebuyers purchase homes using FHA financing.  Raising the current premiums and FICO scores may elicit criticism that FHA is straying from its original mission.

FHA, however, has taken on more risk in the past five years than ever before.  It has gone from a bit player, insuring barely three percent of U.S. mortgages in 2006, to almost 30 percent of purchase loans today and 20 percent of refinances.  The vast majority of FHA’s purchase borrowers are first time home buyers.

Still, like the rest of the mortgage market, FHA is seeing skyrocketing delinquencies.  The delinquency rate for FHA loans now stands at just over 15 percent, according the Mortgage Bankers Association. 

Foreclosures at FHA are rising as well; this despite the fact that FHA only insures 30-year fixed rate loans with full documentation.  The faulty mortgage products that fueled the subprime boom and subsequent bust were never a part of FHA’s portfolio.

Secretary Donovan will tell the House panel that while FHA’s role today is crucial to the housing market’s recovery, “the elevated role it is playing is temporary.”

Source Article CNBC

The MBA reports: Mortgage Applications Decrease in Latest MBA Weekly Survey

The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased 4.5 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. …

The Refinance Index decreased 9.5 percent from the previous week and the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 9.6 percent from one week earlier.
…
The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 4.82 percent from 4.83 percent, with points increasing to 1.19 from 1.18 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value (LTV) ratio loans.

Note: This is the lowest contract interest rate since mid-May.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

This graph shows the MBA Purchase Index and four week moving average since 2002.

In the past, the MBA index was predictive of future sales, but it has been questionable canada pharmacy for some time. The increase in 2007 was due to the method used to construct the index: a combination of lender failures, and borrowers filing multiple applications pushed up the index in 2007 even though activity was actually declining.

Recently there has been a substantial number of cash buyers, so the MBA index missed the strength of the recent existing home sales increase. Still the recent plunge in the 4 week moving average of the purchase index is probably worth watching.

Source Article

So while you may think the economy is improving a bit, that doesn’t mean that the foreclosure crisis is improving.

But what about that government’s Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) which is supposedly helping hundreds of thousands of borrowers to avoid foreclosure? Well it is, but it’s not keeping pace with the problem. 

The MBA reports that in Q3 the seasonally adjusted delinquency rate rose to 9.64 percent of all loans outstanding, up 40 basis points from Q2. Loans in the foreclosure process rose to 4.47 percent, up 17 basis points from Q2. Add it up and 14.41% of all loans in the U.S. are either delinquent or in foreclosures. Do I really need to tell you that that’s a new record?

Now for a few caveats. Many the loans that are in the modification trial period under HAMP (which is supposed to be three months) are listed in the 90-day+ delinquency bucket, so it’s quite possible that those loans will not go into foreclosure. However, the increase in the overall delinquency rate was driven by prime, fixed-rate loans, and those are loans that are far harder to modify. Why? Because they’re not delinquent due to some reset or faulty loan product or bad underwriting, they’re going bad because the borrower has lost his/her job and has no income. The bank can try to wait it out a few months to see if the job situation changes, but it’s likely that loan is going to fail, period.

Should I get started on the FHA now? You know I have to. Here’s the MBA’s work:

The foreclosure rate on FHA loans also increased, despite having a large increase in the number of FHA-insured loans outstanding. The number of FHA loans outstanding has increased by about 1.1 million over the last year. This increase in the denominator depresses the delinquency and foreclosure percentages. If we assume these newly-originated loans are not the ones defaulting and remove the big denominator increase from the calculation results, the foreclosure rate would be 1.76 percent rather than 1.31 percent reported.

So just go back to 10th grade math. You would think that if there were so many more FHA loans in the total pool that even if the delinquencies bumped up a bit, the percentage share would decrease. Not so, because a whole lot of FHA loans are going bad.

“Yesterday’s subprime is today’s FHA,” said Toll Brothers [TOL  19.99    -0.52  (-2.54%)   ] CEO Bob Toll at a UBS home builder conference in New York.  “It’s a definite train wreck and the flag will go up in the next couple of months: Bail us out. Give us more money.”  And that from the luxury home builder.

One more thing from the MBA:

The number of loans 90 days or more past due or in foreclosure is now a little over 4 million as compared with 3.9 million new and previously occupied homes currently for sale, although there is likely some overlap between the two numbers. The ultimate resolution of these seriously delinquent loans will put added pressure on the hardest hit sections of the country.

Yes, four states (CA, NV, AZ, FL) continue to bear the brunt of the crisis, accounting for 43 percent of total U.S. foreclosures. 25 percent of all loans in Florida are in trouble. But the problem is spreading, especially in the Carolinas and Georgia and in states you might not expect like Utah.

I’d feel a little better about it if I had any idea whatsoever how many of the loans in the government’s trial modification program are actually performing well with the new payments, but alas we still have nothing from the Treasury Department on that. I put in yet another request yesterday for an interview with the HAMP czar, Michael Barr, but was once again declined.

I realize it may be too soon to tell how many loans have gone into permanent modifications because excess paperwork is dragging out the process and lenders are offering extensions, but by now Treasury must know at least how many borrowers in the program have missed a payment and, under the supposed rules, been disqualified.  If that number is small, great! Just tell us, because the way things are going right now, a double-dip in housing is seeming less and less like a purchase drugs online theory and more like the status quo.

Source Article

The Making Home Affordable program has begun trial modifications for more than 650,000 borrowers since it was launched in February, according to data released Tuesday by the Treasury Department. That amounts to 20% of those eligible for the program. More than 217,000 trial modifications, or roughly one-third, were under way in just two states: California and Florida.

View Full Image

Tyler Bissmeyer for The Wall Street JournalGerald Bullock, shown at his home in Cincinnati recently, said paperwork glitches hampered his effort to obtain a permanent mortgage modification.

The program provides financial incentives to mortgage companies and investors to reduce loan payments to affordable levels. The Treasury Department said the program was on track to meet its goal of offering help to between 3 million and 4 million borrowers over the next several years. Those who are 60 days or more delinquent on their mortgages or at risk of imminent default are eligible.

Whether the program will ultimately be judged a success will depend upon how many trial modifications become permanent. To receive a permanent fix, borrowers must be current on their payments in the trial program after three months and submit a hardship affidavit and other documents.

The administration won’t release figures on completed modifications until December, but so far it appears that very few trial modifications are becoming permanent, often because of a lack of documentation.

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. said last week that more than 92,000 of its customers have made at least three trial payments under buy amoxicillin the program, but just 26% of them had submitted all the required documents for a permanent fix. Many other borrowers are still in the early stages of the program.

“It’s a fiasco in the making,” said Alan White, an assistant professor at Valparaiso University in Indiana, citing preliminary information about low numbers of permanent modifications and complaints from attorneys and housing counselors.

“The good news is you’ve gotten all these homeowners in from the cold and on these temporary modifications,” Mr. White said. “The bad news is we are stumbling in getting all these people…all the way” to keeping their homes.

At Morgan Stanley’s Saxon Mortgage Services, about 26,000 of the 39,000 borrowers in the program have made more than three trial payments. Roughly 500 have received completed modifications.

“It’s hard to get the documents in,” said Saxon Chief Executive Anthony Meola, adding that 82% of borrowers are current on their trial payments. Mortgage servicers collect loan payments and work with troubled borrowers.

The Treasury Department last month gave borrowers who have made three trial payments sixty additional days to hand in their paperwork and relaxed some documentation requirements.

It’s not clear yet what will happen to borrowers who make payments, but don’t submit required paperwork.

“We have gone the extra mile,” said Assistant Treasury Secretary Michael Barr in an interview. “Now it’s up to the servicers to close the deal.”

The administration continues to look for ways to address challenges in turning trial modifications into permanent fixes, a Treasury spokeswoman said.

Loosening documentation requirements should make it easier to complete some modifications, said Sanjiv Das, president of Citigroup’s mortgage unit, which has finalized more than 1,600 of the modifications. Roughly 70% of the 68,000 borrowers in the program are current on their payments, Citigroup said.

Still, some borrowers say their mortgage companies have kept them in limbo for months. Gerald Bullock of Cincinnati said he has made seven trial payments and provided J.P. Morgan more than 60 pages of documents, but this week got another request for documents.

“We don’t know if we have a house to live in or not,” said Mr. Bullock, who fell behind on payments after becoming disabled in a workplace injury. “It just adds to [my] anger and depression.”

A J.P. Morgan spokesman said Tuesday that Mr. Bullock’s final modification was approved Friday and paperwork finalizing it will be sent this week. “Unfortunately, we mistakenly called him for additional documents,” the spokesman said.

In an effort to get required documents, Saxon recently offered more than 5,000 Florida and California borrowers in the trial program $25 gift cards if they brought their paperwork to a nearby company event. About 15% responded, the company said.

Freddie Mac, the government-controlled mortgage company, recently hired Titanium Solutions Inc. to go door-to-door gathering needed documents. “Most of our borrowers got into the loan with assistance” and need similar help with the modification process, said Freddie Mac Senior Vice President Ingrid Beckles.

Susan Cook, a real-estate broker who works as a home-retention consultant for Titanium, said borrowers often report that they have sent in their paperwork “two or three times.” But “there is always some little piece that is probably missing,” she said.

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