SACRAMENTO, CA—A real estate investor pleaded guilty today in United States District Court in Sacramento to conspiring to rig bids and commit mail fraud at public real estate foreclosure auctions held in San Joaquin County, Calif ., Sharis A Pozen, Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, and Benjamin B Wagner, [...]
Loans in foreclosure have been delinquent an average of 624 days — a record high, according to Lender Processing Services’ September report. The time loans spend in foreclosure continues to increase. For example, 40 percent of home owners with loans in foreclosure have failed to make a payment within two years, and 72 percent of home [...]
Forensic Mortgage Loan Audit Scams: Fraudulent foreclosure “rescue” professionals use half-truths and outright lies to sell services that promise relief to homeowners in distress. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the nation’s consumer protection agency, the latest foreclosure rescue scam to exploit financially strapped homeowners pitches forensic mortgage loan audits. In exchange for an [...]
A new wave of foreclosures hit in August, as banks picked up the pace in taking action against home owners who have fallen behind on their mortgage payments, RealtyTrac Inc. reported Thursday. The number of U.S. homes that receiving an initial default notice rose 33 percent in August from July. That increase represents the biggest [...]
Standard & Poor’s estimates that it would take nearly four years — or 47 months — for the housing market to work through its shadow inventory at the current rate. While that number is still high, it marks an improvement over S&P’s first quarter report that had estimated 52 months. Shadow inventory represents homes that [...]
Foreclosure filings dropped again in July, marking the 10th straight month for year-over-year declines and reaching their lowest level since November 2007, RealtyTrac reports. But analysts are still mostly attributing the drop to banks’ processing delays as they take more time to take action against delinquent home owners. For July, about 212,764 homes received a [...]
Beginning Aug. 1, the Federal Housing Administration will extend the period for unemployed homeowners to miss mortgage payments from four months to a full year, providing qualified homeowners with more time to find employment before the foreclosure process begins. Making sense of the story The new Special Forbearance program falls under the FHA’s Loss [...]
Even with continuing foreclosures, how many are started and just hang there? I know of several people who have been in their home for six months to a year and the banks have not finished the foreclosure proceedings. The market is flooded with foreclosures, so maybe they are hanging back on some of them. Here’s [...]
Nationwide, new foreclosure cases and repossessions have dropped by a third since last fall as banks, as greater scrutiny over banks’ foreclosure procedures and more home owners fighting back in court has slowed the pace. Banks, already facing huge backlogs of foreclosures they’ve already repossessed, also may be reluctant to add on more to their [...]
Three major banks have lost federal mortgage modification incentives in delivering a foreclosure relief program until they make big changes to improve their practices. Obama administration officials have told Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Wells Fargo & Co. that they must make “substantial improvements” to the way they administer the Home Affordable [...]
