January 6, 2011 (Chris Moore) So the slow economy has finally caught up with you. Maybe you or your spouse was laid off or you got your hours cut back and you’re falling further and further behind on your bills, struggling with your mortgage payments or facing foreclosure, feeling overwhelmed and frustrated. Many homeowners simply [...]
January 5, 2011 (Shirley Allen) According to the data collected on January 4th for LendingTree’s Weekly Mortgage Rate Pulse, average home loan rates offered by network lenders were 5.01 percent (5.26% APR) for 30-year fixed mortgages, down from 5.16 percent the week before, 4.34 percent (4.70% APR) for 15-year fixed mortgages, which was down from [...]
January 5, 2011 (Jeff Alan) The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), in an effort to help families find decent housing and to prevent future foreclosures, is providing nearly $73 million in housing counseling grants to more than 500 national, regional and local organizations. Read more...
January 5 2011 (Chris Moore) The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the two weeks ending December 24, 2010 and December 31 2010. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased 3.9 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis for the week ending December 24, but [...]
January 4 2010 (Shirley Allen) California, New York, Florida, Maryland, and Massachusetts are among the nation’s slowest to refer for foreclosure according to information released by LPS Applied Analytics. In California, the typical foreclosure takes approximately one year from the time the borrower missed their third payment until the loan was referred for foreclosure. Read [...]
January 4 2011 (Jeff Alan) Despite the outcries from consumer advocates, only three states and two cities require mandatory mediation and even those don’t require the lenders to make a settlement. The only thing that administrators in the mandatory programs tell borrowers and lenders at the beginning of the foreclosure process is that they are [...]
January 4 2011 (Chris Moore) When foreclosures and Real Estate Owned (REO) properties enter the housing market, they transition from what is known as the shadow inventory into the visible inventory. Shadow inventory is usually defined as homes that are seriously delinquent (90 days or more), in foreclosure and real estate owned by lenders and [...]
January 4 2011 (Jeff Alan) CoreLogic has released a third quarter update to its annual Mortgage Fraud Trends Report revealing that mortgage fraud continues to rise since its lowest levels in 2009. Most of the increased fraud risk is attributed to the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) and the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) and while [...]
January 1 2011 (Chris Moore) In compliance with the National Housing Act, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Housing—Federal Housing Commissioner, Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) revealed the names and the actions towards nearly 250 mortgage lenders nationwide that had been in violation of HUD and Federal Housing Authority (FHA) guidelines. The [...]
