Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac recently extended their foreclosure forbearance programs to give short-term aid to unemployed homeowners, but housing counselors warn that these borrowers will need to look at longer-term solutions. Making sense of the story In a forbearance program, a lender agrees not to foreclose on a property and gives the borrower several [...]
5 Tips to Avoid Being Scammed Don’t pay up-front fees. Foreclosure consultants are prohibited by law from collecting money before services are performed. Don’t ignore letters from your lender or loan servicer. Responding to those letters is your best bet for saving your house. Don’t transfer title or sell your house to a “foreclosure rescuer.” [...]
New York Times Closing costs can increase the price of a home by as much as $10,000, sometimes more. Borrowers who are “cash-poor” can ask for assistance, or talk to their lender about a lender credit toward closing costs. Some lenders advertise that if borrowers agree to accept a mortgage interest rate from a quarter [...]
Last year, more than two million people were turned down for homes, according to federal data, often because the applicants didn’t meet certain lender requirements or because their applications were incomplete or otherwise problematic. With lenders’ underwriting criteria becoming more rigorous in recent years, it’s important buyers know the most common triggers for mortgage-loan rejection. [...]
Declining property values are preventing some homeowners from taking advantage of today’s historically low interest rates and refinancing. Many homeowners nationwide have either no equity or are in a negative equity position in their homes. This leaves them with two options for refinancing, paying extra at the closing or what’s known as a cash-in [...]
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 [...]
Although the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the federal agency created to oversee mortgage lending, only recently opened, the Bureau started looking at ways to protect consumers during the loan-shopping period long before it’s official start date. Making sense of the story: The bureau is exploring avenues for combining the two forms that borrowers currently receive [...]
Lenders are losing out on thousands of dollars–sometimes within just mere hours–due to short sale fraud, which is skyrocketing and plaguing the housing market, investigators say. In one of the most common short sale scams, an investor submits a low offer on a home that is underwater, in which the borrower owes more on [...]
Although there are a number of programs available to help homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages keep their home, the large amount of misinformation tends to result in troubled homeowners failing to contact their lender until it is too late. Some homeowners believe, incorrectly, that contacting their lender early in the process will draw [...]
A new survey indicates that home buyers are ill-prepared to take out a mortgage, answering basic questions about mortgage information incorrectly nearly half (46 percent) of the time, according to a Zillow Mortgage Marketplace. More than 1,000 home buyers were asked to respond true or false to eight mortgage-related statements, including “The rates of [...]
