What is Happening in the World of Real Estate!
This is our archived collection of articles from our old website. These articles keep you informed on what is going
on in the world of real estate today.
(Notice: all links below will take you off this site and to the article's owner site.
Summaries below are a combination of quotes from the article and/or my interpretations of the article.)
NY Attorney General Accused
DcNews.com, by Krista Franks, August 24, 2011
[top]
(
Site owner's note
: Really, the NY Attorney did not agree with the others about giving banks immunity and their solution was to remove him! You
decide for yourself, but I think this is a travesty.)
Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller Tuesday announced the removal of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman from an
executive panel of state officials working toward a settlement with several of the nation’s largest servicers over alleged improper
foreclosure practices...
(more)
New HAFA Regulation Allows
From Making Homes Affordable Supplemental Directive 11-02 March 30, 2011
[top]
(web note: Page 8 of this directive contains the information below.)
Section 7.3 of Chapter IV of the Handbook requires that a short sale be an arm’s length transaction.
This Supplemental Directive amends this restriction to allow servicers the discretion to approve sales to non-profit
organizations with the stated purpose that the property will be rented or resold to the borrower, so long as all other HAFA program
requirements are met...
(more)
Real estate agents and homeowners, this is a fantastic new change to MHA regulations, to see how you can take
advantage of this, take this link:
Stay in your home short sale
Home Ownership Gets Tougher
By Jody Shenn and John Gittelsohn, Nov. 17, 2010
[top]
Home ownership may be falling out of reach for more Americans as lenders toughen their standards for
Federal Housing Administration-insured loans beyond what the agency itself requires.
Mortgage lenders including Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America Corp., the two largest, have raised
the minimum credit score on FHA-insured loans that they will buy to 640 from 620. About 6.3 million people fall within that range,
according to FICO, which created the formula for the ratings...
(more)
Matt Taibbi
By Matt Taibbi, Nov 10, 2010
[top]
The following is an article from the November 25, 2010 issue of Rolling Stone. This issue is
available in Rolling Stone’s digital archive.
(Click here to subscribe)
The foreclosure lawyers down in Jacksonville had warned me, but I was skeptical. They told me the
state of Florida had created a special super-high-speed housing court with a specific mandate to rubber-stamp the legally dicey
foreclosures by corporate mortgage pushers like Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan Chase. This "rocket docket," as it is called in town, is
presided over by retired judges who seem to have no clue about the insanely complex financial instruments they are ruling on —
securitized mortgages and laby rinthine derivative deals of a type that didn't even exist when most of them were active members of the
bench. Their stated mission isn't to decide right and wrong, but to clear cases and blast human beings out of their homes with ultimate
velocity...
(more)
Suffolk County Crushes Deutsche Bank
by Kathleen Scanlon-Desio, Esq, October 4, 2010
[top]
The judges in Suffolk County (along with their Brooklyn counterparts) have been proactive in the fight against fraudulent
foreclosure actions from the beginning. They have refused to rubber stamp the banks’ foreclosure filings and have consistently
required them to adhere to the law...
(more)
JPMorgan Chase freezes
by Kimberly Miller, September 30, 2010
[top]
JPMorgan Chase, the third largest home loan servicer in the country, has suspended its open foreclosure cases
while it examines whether defective documents may have been filed in court.
The unprecedented move follows that of Ally Financial Inc.'s freeze on part of its foreclosure operations last week
in acknowledgement that an employee approved affidavits claiming personal knowledge of foreclosure actions, when he
in fact did not know details of each case...
(more)
Al Franken Letter
by Senator Al Franken, September 28, 2010
[top]
An open letter, read
here
State Probes Whether Three Law Firms
By Kimberly Miller, August 11, 2010
[top]
Three of Florida's largest foreclosure law firms are under investigation by the state attorney general following allegations they
illegally rushed thousands of cases through the court system...
(more)
"Preventable" Short Sale Losses Total
By Carole VanSickle, August 11, 2010
[top]
CoreLogic, a real estate data and analytics firm, estimates that while short sales have tripled since 2008 and are
saving literally thousands of homeowners from foreclosure, that lenders are losing money in the process...
(more)
Walk Away From your mortgage
By Lew Sichelman, August 6, 2010
[top]
Have you heard of or witnessed insurance companies going after individuals who have been foreclosed on?
Answer: The short answer is that yes, private mortgage insurers have the right to file deficiency judgments. And they do where it
is legal and the situation warrants...
(more)
FHA rolls out principal reducing
By Carrie Bay, August 6, 2010
[top]
Nearly a quarter of U.S. homeowners with a mortgage owe more on the loan than their home is worth, and home prices are threatening to fall
further and push even more borrowers underwater. The Federal Housing Administration (FHA), though, is throwing out a lifeline...
(more)
Federal Officials: no Plans for Expanding
By Nick Timiraos, August 5, 2010
[top]
Obama administration officials knocked down rumors on Thursday about any plan for new programs–dubbed an "August Surprise" –to
streamline refinancing or cut mortgage balances for homeowners in a bid to stimulate the economy without asking Congress for money
ahead of the midterm elections...
(more)
An August Surprise from Obama
By James pethoukoukis, August 5, 2010
[top]
Main Street may be about to get its own gigantic bailout. Rumors are running wild from Washington to Wall Street that the Obama administration
is about to order government-controlled lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to forgive a portion of the mortgage debt of millions of Americans
who owe more than what their homes are worth. An estimated 15 million U.S. mortgages – one in five – are underwater with negative equity of
some $800 billion...
(more)
The Most Reviled Law Firm in Florida
By Lynn E. Szymoniak, Esq., August, 1 2010
[top]
In the last weekend in July, 2010, photographs of Florida lawyer David J. Stern appeared on the internet. Stern, the owner
of the largest foreclosure law firm in Florida, was photographed sun-bathing on his 130 foot yacht, reportedly named,
"Su Casa es Mi Casa" (your house is my house). There were, also, photos alleged to be of stern's 2008 black Bugatti,
Veyron, a $1.85 million car and the most expensive street legal car...
(more)
Homeowner gets foreclosure reprieve
By John G Edwards, June 29, 2010
[top]
Company that purchased the property at auction has been barred from evicting tenant while case is pending . The original homeowner
file suit for being foreclosed on while still in a loan modification process with Bank of America...
(more)
Spilled Blood Would Bury Mortgage Fraudsters
By Al Lewis, April 23, 2010
[top]
An interesting commentary on the mortgage mess by Anthony Accetta, showing frustrations of a former U.S. Attorney...
(more)
Round two: Suffolk County Supreme Court
By Kathleen A. Scanlon, March 9, 2010
[top]
Simply put, Wells Fargo representatives unlawfully enter a home where the knew they did not have the right to. The judge was not very happy...
(more)
Angela Iannelli Sues Bank of America
Huffington Post March 9, 2010
[top]
A Pittsburgh-area woman is suing Bank of America, claiming it wrongfully repossessed her home and saying that a bank contractor
trashed the house and took her parrot...
(more)
Reality Check on Real Party
March 8, 2010
[top]
Homeowners facing foreclosure are, understandably, looking for hope. News reports of homeowners successfully asserting the
"produce the note" defense to stop foreclosure have sparked that hope in many. It seems only logical that a company commencing
a foreclosure action should be required to demonstrate that it is the real party in interest before that action can move
forward. But simply demanding that a mortgage servicer produce the note or establish itself as the real party in interest isn’t
the magic bullet it sometimes appears in the popular press.
We know mortgage documentation is rife with errors, misrepresentations and missing links. Various studies have estimated the percentage of
mortgage claims containing substantial errors between 57% and 80%. Katherine Porter’s 2007 study of mortgage proofs of claim in bankruptcy
cases revealed that 52.77% of proofs of claim lacked at least one clearly-required document. What those errors mean for the homeowner depends
not only on the nature of the error, but also on the state and jurisdiction in which the claims are prosecuted...
(more)
Thousands walk away
Posted: 4:40 PM Mar 8, 2010
[top]
With the economy still struggling, a growing number of people in Michigan are walking away from homes that are worth less
than what they still owe on them.
The number of Michigan residents who have engaged in such strategic defaults more than tripled between 2005 and 2008 --
from 5,100 to 17,250, according to a report by Experian-Oliver Wyman, a credit reporting and consulting firm.
Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Economy.com, said he expects the problem to get worse this year and next.
"As people struggle to make ends meet, they will say, this just doesn't make sense" about continuing to make payments, he told the
Detroit Free Press...
(more)
***********
Get news, updates and opinions on current real estate issues!
Sign up to get our real estate letters
Check out this credit improvement company
Credit Assistance Network
Archived Articles, part 2
Return to Article List
