Press
U.S. home foreclosures reach record high in second quarter
Bank repossessions increased 38% in the second quarter from the same period a year earlier for a record total of 269,952, according to data to be released Thursday by RealtyTrac. More…
Foreclosure crisis prompts legislative efforts to help
Just like thousands of times before, Mike Reyes parked his car in front of a house he has called home for the past seven years. More…
Analysts Question a Threat by Fannie
Fannie Mae’s decision to begin punishing people who walk away from their unpaid mortgages could prove difficult to sell to the public and might be impossible to execute, housing and lending experts said Thursday. More…
Fannie Mae gets tough on homeowners who walk away
The mortgage giant plans to go to court against those who can afford to make their payments but decide it’s not worth it. It also will limit their access to future loans. More…
U.S. New Home Sales Drop 33% in May
Sales of new homes dropped to a record low in May, according to new government figures released Wednesday, providing a gauge of the market’s dependence on a federal stimulus program. More…
More borrowers exit Obama mortgage help plan
A growing number of homeowners who sought help from the Obama administration’s main mortgage aid program are in danger of losing their homes. More…
Housing Market Slows as Buyers Get Picky
Before the recession, people simply looked for a house to buy. Later they got squeamish just thinking about buying. Now they are on a quest for perfection at the perfect price. More…
High Default Rate Seen for Modified Mortgages
Fitch Ratings Ltd. forecasts that most borrowers who get lower mortgage payments under a federal government program will default within 12 months. More…
Loan Aid Leaves Some Worse Off
The government’s mortgage-modification program has left some struggling homeowners worse off than they were before. More…
Fannie Offers Spur to Avoid Foreclosure
Fannie Mae will make it easier for some struggling homeowners to buy houses in the future if they avoid foreclosure in the present. More…
Think housing is recovering? Think again.
Americans purchased homes at a surprising clip in April, but don’t let that fool you into thinking the housing market is back. More…
Mortgage delinquencies drag on economic recovery
The mortgage crisis is dragging on the economic recovery as more homeowners fall behind on their payments. More…
Mortgages: Strategic Defaults Are On the Rise
When homeowners stop paying on purpose, where does the money go? More…
The Condo Conundrum
IF A CONDOMINIUM OWNER is behind on his mortgage, he usually isn’t paying his condo association dues either… More…
Foreclosure rates surge, biggest jump in 5 years
A record number of U.S. homes were lost to foreclosure in the first three months of this year, a sign banks are starting to wade through the backlog of troubled home loans at a faster pace, according to a new report. More…
Housing to Test Economy’s Post-Stimulus Strength
To what extent is the economy running on government life support? More…
Foreclosures Hit Rich and Famous
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. More…
Some homeowners facing the prospect of repeated foreclosures
Aided by flimsy lending practices, many borrowers got into real estate investing during the boom years. Now they’re defaulting on multiple properties. More…
More homeowners are opting for ’strategic defaults’
Underwater on their mortgages and angry at banks, more borrowers are choosing to hand over the keys, even if they can afford the payments. More…
Homeowners facing worst simply abandon homes
Financially strapped people are simply walking away from their homes. More…
Short sales grow as a cheaper alternative to foreclosure
Banks’ resistance to the tricky transactions is softening as the number of distressed properties increases. More…
No Help in Sight, More Homeowners Walk Away
New research suggests that when a home’s value falls below 75 percent of the amount owed on the mortgage, the owner starts to think hard about walking away, even if he or she has the money to keep paying. More…
Mortgage lenders pursue homeowners even after foreclosure
Former homeowners may still be on the hook if there’s a difference between what they owed on their mortgage and what the bank could sell it for at auction. And these “deficiency judgments” are ticking time bombs that can explode years after borrowers lose their homes. More…
House Price Recovery Just A Head Fake, Says Alpert, Especially In New York
In the second half of 2009, house prices staged a surprising recovery, leading many to conclude that the housing bust was done. Keep dreaming, says Dan Alpert of Westwood Capital.
Walk Away From Your Mortgage!
The housing collapse left 10.7 million families owing more than their homes are worth. So some of them are making a calculated decision to hang onto their money and let their homes go. Is this irresponsible? More…
Slowing Pace of Home Sales Raises Fears of New Retreat
The number of houses placed under contract fell sharply in November in the first drop in nearly a year, data released Tuesday show. It was the clearest sign yet that predictions of another downturn in real estate may become a reality. More…
U.S. Loan Effort Is Seen as Adding to Housing Woes
The Obama administration’s $75 billion program to protect homeowners from foreclosure has been widely pronounced a disappointment… More…
Rising Treasury yields bad news for home buyers
Investors continue to have little appetite for Treasury bonds, and that’s a problem for home buyers and people hoping to refinance their mortgages. More…
Few borrowers helped by modified mortgages
A surprising number of homeowners who get their monthly payments reduced fall behind again within a year. More…
More prime mortgages default in 3rd quarter
Troubled home loans continued to mount in the nation’s banks in the third quarter More…
More homes are poised to hit the market
A supply of 1.7 million homes headed for sale because of foreclosure or delinquency looms over the nation’s housing market. More…
Citi to suspend foreclosures for 30 days
WASHINGTON – Citigroup Inc. will suspend foreclosures and evictions for 30 days in a temporary break for about 4,000 borrowers. More…
U.S. Mortgage Delinquencies Reach a Record High
The number of people at least one month behind on their house payments rose to a record in the third quarter, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Thursday. More…
Are Distressed Homes Worth It?
Home buyers are finding that the battered real-estate market offers just as many opportunities for headaches as for bargains. More…
Florida Condos: No Bottom in Sight
Investors betting that Florida real estate will recover in the not-too-distant future may have a longer wait than they bargained for. More…
Home Sales Falter After 4-Month Gain
Sales of previously owned homes fell unexpectedly last month, an industry group reported Thursday, showing that a budding recovery in the housing market remains weak and faltering. More…
As an Exotic Mortgage Resets, Payments Skyrocket
With many of these homes under water — worth less than the loans against them — many interest-only mortgages will soon become unaffordable, as the homeowners have to actually start paying principal. Monthly payments can jump by as much as 75 percent. More…
The housing recovery mirage
With home prices rising even in California, it might seem that the worst is over for the housing market. But the good vibrations may be short lived. More…
Loans That Looked Easy Pose Threats to Recovery
When Harvey Clavon took out an exotic mortgage to refinance his home in Santa Clarita, Calif., three years ago, he thought he knew what he was doing.More…
California mortgage delinquencies expected to rise through 2009
Mortgage delinquencies will continue to rise and set records the rest of this year in California, according to projections to be released today by TransUnion, one of the three big U.S. credit-reporting companies. More…
Housing: Still a Long Road to Recovery
If you’re selling your home, the good news is that you’re likelier to find a buyer now than in the last couple of years.The bad news is you should be prepared to slash your asking price. More…
Mortgage defaults soar to record 13%
Widespread joblessness is causing more Americans to fall behind on their house payments, triggering a new round of foreclosures that some analysts fear could delay the nation’s economic recovery.More…
Wells Fargo is sued over home equity lines of credit
In a harsh slap attributed to the housing bust, solid bank customers across the country have seen their home equity credit lines slashed or erased entirely by lenders who say, regretfully, that their property values have fallen.More…
Expensive homes miss the recovery
In recent weeks, mortgage brokers, bankers, and even Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke have been talking about a housing rebound later this year. And the figures seem to back up their optimism: New home sales rose 11% in June for the third consecutive month.More…
Home sellers frustrated as short-sale deals collapse
Scores of homeowners who thought they’d cut a deal with their banks to sell their houses for less than their unpaid mortgages are seeing those agreements fall apart months later, contributing to the mounting foreclosures that threaten the housing market’s recovery.More…
High-End Homes Frozen Out of Budding Housing Rebound
Housing is fast dividing into two markets: Sales of low- and moderately priced homes are picking up and values have stopped falling in some parts of the nation. But on the upper end, sales remain mired in a deep slump and price declines are expected to accelerate.More…
Subprime Brokers Resurface as Dubious Loan Fixers
From the ninth floor of a downtown office building on Wilshire Boulevard, Jack Soussana delivered staggering numbers of mortgages to homeowners during the real estate boom, amassing a fortune.More…
Subprime Resurfaces as Housing-Market Woe
The U.S. housing market is facing new downward pressure as holders of subprime-mortgage bonds flood the market with foreclosed homes at prices that are much lower than where many banks are willing to sell.More…
In California, mortgage scammers find easy pickings
As foreclosures climb, so does fraud by schemers preying on desperate homeowners hoping to modify their loans. State investigators have 750 open cases — up from just 10 a year ago. More…
Paper Avalanche Buries Plan to Stem Foreclosures
Somewhere on earth, there must be a more difficult task than this: persuading American mortgage companies to lower payments for homeowners who can no longer afford their loans. But as Karina Montenegro struggles to accomplish this feat for a troubled borrower, she strains to imagine a more futile pursuit. More…
Sales of previously owned homes in U.S. fall in May
Sales of previously owned homes in the U.S. continued in May to fall below levels of a year earlier, despite lower prices and tax incentives for buyers, according to figures released by a trade group Tuesday. More…
Loan Redos Get Tangled in Thicket of Red Tape
More than 9% of 45 million U.S. mortgages, or about four million loans, were delinquent in the first quarter of 2009, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. That is the highest level since the group started tracking such data in 1972. More…
Rate Rise Clouds Recovery
Rising interest rates threaten to dim prospects for a housing recovery and choke off a refinance wave that was a major plank of the Obama administration’s economic-stimulus efforts. More…
Foreclosure: Now an Upscale Blight
With the U.S. economy and financial markets showing signs of life, optimistic analysts are looking for a recovery in the all-important housing sector. They got some ammunition on June 2 from the National Association of Realtors, which said that its Pending Home Sales Index jumped in April by the most in more than seven years. More…
Many modified mortgages will default again, Fitch Ratings projects
Modifying nontraditional mortgages will succeed for many people, but most such modifications will end up in default within a year, a major ratings company predicts. More…
U.S. home prices fall by record 19.1% in first quarter
U.S. home prices showed no signs they’ve hit bottom, according to a series of national indexes released today. The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller national home price index showed a record 19.1% drop in home prices for the first three months of this year. More…
How to Relocate for Work When Your Home’s Underwater
The home-price collapse has dragged 1 in 5 mortgaged properties “underwater”—meaning they are now worth less than the loan’s outstanding balance. More…
Slow Start to U.S. Plan for Modifying Mortgages
The Obama administration’s plan to help millions of troubled homeowners avoid foreclosure by reducing the size of their mortgage payments is just getting off the ground. More…
Median home prices fell nationwide in 1Q
Home prices fell in nearly nine out of every 10 U.S. cities in the first quarter of this year as first-time buyers looking for bargains dominated the market. More…
Atlanta Intown Real Estate Services Partners with Access Loss Mitigation
Atlanta Intown Real Estate Services and Access Loss Mitigation have just partnered to assist home sellers who find themselves in a short sale situation. In this partnership Atlanta Intown will market the property and negotiate a contract with the seller and a buyer. When the property goes under contract Access Loss Mitigation takes over and negotiates with the lender on behalf of the seller to bring about a successful closing and have as little negative impact on the seller’s credit as possible. More…
A Short Sale May Not Mean You’re Home Free
Financially troubled borrowers may think that foreclosure or a short sale of their home means their mortgage woes are over.Not necessarily. More…
The Next Wave Of Foreclosures
America’s housing crisis is about to go from subprime to prime.
While fire sales in the tanking subprime boomtowns point toward price stabilization down the road, the rest of the country braces for more pain; not the kind caused by bad loans, but the kind tied to a crumbling economy. More…
Foreclosure Activity in First Quarter up 24 Percent from Q1 2008
During the first quarter of 2009, foreclosure actions were filed against more than 803,489 properties. Foreclosure activity is up 24 percent from Q1 2008. More…
Thoughts on Walking Away From Your Home Loan
If you’re among the millions of people who will not qualify for the Obama administration’s program to help troubled homeowners, you’re probably wondering what you’re supposed to do now. More…
1 in 5 U.S. mortgages are underwater, report says
One out of five U.S. mortgage holders is now underwater, according to First American CoreLogic’s latest review of 45 million mortgages in its database.
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Unlucky or Unwise, Some Homeowners Left Out
Chadi Moussa lives in a house valued at more than $1 million in Dublin, Calif., in the desirable East Bay area. Unfortunately, he owes nearly twice that much on his mortgage. Mr. Moussa, who runs a used luxury car dealership, is by any definition a troubled homeowner. More…
House of Cards: The Faces Behind Foreclosures
Jeff Wagoner is a bankruptcy attorney in Kansas City, Mo., with the brush-cut hair and clear eyes of a former Navy aviator. From his office in a tower on a hill, he can see miles of prairie and a world of hurt. More…
All Boarded Up
Tony Brancatelli, a Cleveland City Councilman, yearns for signs that something like normal life still exists in his ward. Early one morning last fall, he called me from his cellphone. He sounded unusually excited. More…
As projects grind to a halt, home sites turn to wasteland
By day, it’s far too quiet at the site of a planned housing and retail development on a former Navy base in Oakland. At night, neighbors can hear the thieves come out.
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Pending Home Sales Hit New Low, Realtors’ Index Shows
The number of people who agreed to buy a previously owned home sank to a new low in January as economic woes turned them away from the housing market, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday.
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When a homeowner becomes a renter
Michael B. Bennett used to own his home in Chesapeake, Va. Now he rents it, which is taking some getting used to.
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Fed Chairman Says Recession Will Extend Through the Year
The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, offered a sober assessment of the national economy and the prospects of recovery to Congress on Tuesday, as reports of plunging housing prices and consumer confidence reinforced the grim outlook.More…
Foreclosure Activity up 81 Percent in 2008
During 2008, foreclosure actions were filed against more than 2,330,400 properties. Foreclosure activity during the fourth quarter of 2008 is up nearly 40 percent from Q4 2007. More…
How Banks Are Worsening the Foreclosure Crisis
The bad mortgages that got the current financial crisis started have produced a terrifying wave of home foreclosures. Unless the foreclosure surge eases, even the most extravagant federal stimulus spending won’t spur an economic recovery. More…
Home prices in record plunge
Home prices fell 12.4% during the fourth quarter of 2008, the largest year-over-year decline since the National Association of Realtors began keeping comprehensive records in 1979. More…
Foreclosures push U.S. home prices to 5-year low
Prices of existing U.S. single-family homes dropped a record 12.4 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier to the lowest level since 2003, the National Association of Realtors said on Thursday. More…
U.S. 4th-quarter housing prices fall 12% from 2007
Home prices nationally dropped 12% in the fourth quarter, the most on record, amid foreclosures and a recession that pushed buyers out of the market. More…
In Florida, Despair and Foreclosures
Desperation has moved into this once-middle-class exurb of Fort Myers, where hammers used to pound. More…
Housing Appraisals: Still Blowing Bubbles?
Third-party appraisal managers are supposed to eliminate pressure from lenders to inflate housing values. But unscrupulous subprime players are crowding into the market More…
L.A.’s Westside succumbs as housing goes south
The Southern California real estate crash has finally reached the high-end areas of the Westside. Home prices in Beverly Hills, Santa Monica and Malibu — which continued to soar well into 2008 — finally tanked at the end of the year, losing between 26% and 30% of their value in just a few months, the latest data show.
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Company Recommended To Help With Mortgage Workouts
People facing foreclosure occasionally asks me whether they should hire an attorney or a nonlegal company to help them negotiate mortgage modification. I explain that most attorneys, including myself, do not do that type of work and that negotiating a mortgage settlement is primarily not a legal matter.
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Home Prices Fell at Sharper Pace in October
Home values in 20 large metropolitan areas across the country dropped at a record pace in October as the fallout from the financial collapse reverberated through the housing market, according to data released Tuesday.
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November Home Sales Fell Faster Than Expected
The American housing market, where the global economic crisis began, is far from hitting bottom. Home sales declined dramatically last month and housing prices posted their sharpest decline in four decades as a rapidly slowing economy discouraged many potential buyers from tip-toeing into the market.
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Foreclosure Activity in Third Quarter up 71 Percent from Q3 2007
During the third quarter of 2008, foreclosure actions were filed against more than 765,500 properties. Foreclosure activity is up 71 percent from Q3 2007. More…
Home Prices Seem Far From Bottom
The American housing market, where the global economic crisis began, is far from hitting bottom.Home prices across much of the country are likely to fall through late 2009, economists say, and in some markets the trend could last even longer depending on the severity of the anticipated recession.
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Company Recommended To Help With Mortgage Workouts
People facing foreclosure occasionally asks me whether they should hire an attorney or a nonlegal company to help them negotiate mortgage modification. I explain that…
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Countrywide to Set Aside $8.4 Billion in Loan Aid
Countrywide Financial has agreed to the largest program ever to modify home loans, as part of a settlement with officials in 11 states, just days after the federal government adopted a giant financial rescue package without any relief for distressed homeowners.
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How we got here: It’s housing, stupid.
The Wall Street crisis has been caused by plunging housing prices. So despite the billions of dollars being thrown at the problem, experts say more trouble lies ahead.
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9% of homeowners in the USA are in foreclosure or behind on payments.
The source of trouble in the mortgage market has shifted from subprime loans made to borrowers with bad credit to homeowners who had solid credit but took out exotic loans with ballooning monthly payments.
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In the Central Valley, the Ruins of the Housing Bust
Ellie Wooten, the likable mayor of this likable Central Valley city, is on her way to the office when her cellphone rings. A constituent wants her mortgage payments reduced, and is hoping that the mayor has some clout with her lender.
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An Economy on the Brink
We are in the first nationwide housing crash since the 1930s, and no one yet knows where it will end.
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‘Liar loans’ threaten to prolong mortgage crisis
In the mortgage industry, they are called “liar loans” — mortgages approved without requiring proof of the borrower’s income or assets. The worst of them earn the nickname “ninja loans,” short for “no income, no job, and (no) assets.”More…
Foreclosure Activity up 14 Percent in Second Quarter
During the second quarter of 2008, foreclosure actions were filed against more than 739,714 properties. Foreclosure activity is up 121 percent from Q2 2007. More…
Foreclosure Activity up 23 Percent in First Quarter
During the first quarter of 2008, foreclosure actions were filed against more than 649,900 properties. Foreclosure activity is up 112 percent from Q1 2007. More…
Foreclosure Activity up 75 Percent in 2007
During 2007, foreclosure actions were filed against more than 1,285,873 properties. Foreclosure activity during the fourth quarter of 2007 is up 86 percent from Q4 2006. More…
Housing Slump’s Third Year to Be `Deepest’ Since WWII
As the U.S. housing slump enters its third year, there is no sign of dawn in the darkness that is paralyzing home building, home buying and home lending.
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Housing Woes Have Domino Effect
If you haven’t yet felt the impact of the nation’s credit crisis, just wait. Chances are, you won’t have to wait long. More…
Foreclosure Activity up 30 Percent in Third Quarter
During the third quarter of 2007, foreclosure actions were filed against more than 446,000 properties. Foreclosure activity is up nearly 100 percent from Q3 2006.
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Lenders Curb New Mortgages In Weaker Areas
Some lenders are now making it tougher for borrowers in softening housing markets to get a mortgage. More…
The United States of Subprime
As America’s mortgage markets began unraveling this year, economists seeking explanations pointed to “subprime” mortgages issued to low-income, minority and urban borrowers. More…
