Irvine Housing Blog

I wonder if any of these profiled HELOC abusing squatters are made aware of their 15 minutes of fame on the IHB.  Maybe their kids are shamed at school for having deadbeat parents.  Who knows, they are probably proud of their accomplishment, they obviously won this little chess match for now.

At least this person has the dignity to maintain the landscaping, unlike that other TRidge douche profiled earlier this week.

What is the payment difference for a “$1,267,500 Option ARM with a 1.25% teaser rate.” relative to say a 6% FRM?  You could count that difference as ‘income’ too.

My immediate thought is that this makes buying at trustee sale much less attractive.  How will a potential bidder know if the owner has received the requisite notifications and offers of loan modification?  It occurs to me that this legislation may have the opposite effect of it’s intention.

FYI ... HousingWire reports CoreLogic Adds Foreclosure Data to Distressed Property-Listing Web Site one can use the link for a detailed report

Bank of America Puts Short Sales Ahead of REO

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010, 5:04 pm

Bank of America, one of the largest lenders in the U.S., has instituted a policy of liquidating as many assets saddled with defaulted loans as possible before repossession, said Matt Vernon, the short sale and REO executive at BofA.

Vernon took the position at BofA in February. He has since announced plans to add 1,000 employees to the short sale staff. BofA currently holds more than 477,000 loans eligible for the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), and has provided more than 600,000 modifications through HAMP and its own programs.

But Vernon said BofA will continue to make the short sale push when he spoke on a panel at REO Expo, being held this week in Dallas.

“We’re going to do everything possible to liquidate property prior to foreclosure,” Vernon said. “REO will still be available, but we will do everything we can to do short sales.” Vernon said the goal is to get as close to market value as possible, or even over market value. “Short sales is not an investment strategy to get homes on the cheap,” he said.

He added that agents who want a part of that market need to make short sales a major part of their business strategy through 2010 and into 2011.

Not just agents, but other companies in the default space were listening as well. Danielle Washburn, assistant vice president at Lender Processing Services Asset Management Solutions said lenders are beginning to put more emphasis on short sales because of recent efforts from the current Administration.

The Treasury Department launched the Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives (HAFA) program in April to provide incentives to servicers to provide short sales and deeds-in-lieu of foreclosure.

“Because of programs like HAFA, the process is getting easier,” Washburn said. “But they remain very complex. There are sometimes 10 decision makers with just one transaction, the lender, the buyer, the seller, mortgage insurer, investors and more. Just one of them can stop the whole deal.”

Milton Shaw, senior vice president of LPS Asset Management Solutions, said modifications and short sales through HAMP or HAFA could just be delaying the inevitable foreclosure and REO process, and the real estate business is growing frustrated with the delays.

“There’s just been an incredible amount of frustration,” Shaw said.

Both Washburn and Shaw agreed that more short sales will be on the way as HAMP continues to underwhelm both the industry and the public. In implementing the push for short sales, Vernon said a lot has been learned from HAMP.

“We are learning from the past where we struggled mightily,” Vernon said, “and from now as we still struggle. We need the best to execute these transactions.”

Write to Jon Prior.

This is good news?

Good News on Mortgage Delinquencies: Fitch

Some good news from Fitch this morning on mortgage delinquencies: May Residential Mortgage Backed Securities (RMBS) delinquencies declined for the second straight month, following a steady four year increase.

(RMBS are bonds backed by residential mortgages.)

Still, it is pretty staggering to look at the size of the delinquencies, which are defined as 30 days or more past due.

For subprime: 44.8 percent, down from 45.2 percent in April. But think about it: roughly 44.8 percent of subprime loans are in delinquency.

For Alt-A — borrowers with less than full documentation and lower credit scores (so called “Liar Loans”) — the numbers were almost as high: 33.9 percent, from 34.1 percent in April.

Still, at least it’s improving.

Here’s the bad news: Fitch cautions that “approximately 9 percent of performing Alt-A loans and 37 percent of performing subprime loans are modified and have a substantial risk of re-default.”

Ok, so if I’m clear on this….450 days from 1st payment default to the final day when the cops are there tossing you out is “lightning quick” and they want to slow down this process?!?

I’ve just added another year to my squat timeline. Thanks gubmint!

The Law of Unintended Consequences then must dictate that if you can’t boot a squatter in a timely manner, then why lend in the state at all? Pretty soon you’ll see banks adding State by State fee premiums to their rates. Loan in Texas - 4.5%, -0- points. Same loan in Cali? 5.0% for 1.0 point.

I’m no fan of the banks. They aren’t suffering here. Only those who play by the rules are being punished.

Let’s line up the banksters, the pols, their attorneys, and the squatters down along the Gulf of Mexico and push them into the water. Perhaps their absorbancy will help suck up the BP oil flow. Oh, snap! Greasy scum can’t absorb more grease. Perhaps a better idea will come later. Stay tuned.

My .02c

Soylent Green Is People.

“What exactly is an erroneous foreclosure? Aren’t these people delinquent on their loans? Don’t the banks have foreclosure rights at their discretion?”

Erroneous foreclosure=foreclosing on the wrong house.

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SmartSpending/blog/page.aspx?post=1628429&_blg=1,1628429&ucpg=2&pgnew=False#uc2Lst

Did it really start the description with “Affordable” for a 1.25 million dollar price tag?

Really? It was plenty affordable to the previous owner who could have used the HELOC’s to pay the monthly nut, but other than Ponzi financing I don’t see how “affordable” and over 1 million dollars go together.

Maybe by that they mean small and lame for the neighborhood. (I’m not familiar enough to know)

It looks like more of the same ...
Make laws that are unclear and must be settled in court with unknown outcomes and the mood of the judge.  Stimulus package for lawyers.

As for recourse on errorous FC, it should be limited to those that paid but the banks refuses to correct the error such as crediting the wrong account, bank falsification on recept date, etc.

I’ve had bank claim late cc payment which money was removed from my account but credited a week later.  Lots of excuses, such as must be received at x processing location in z state instead of at local branch locations, must be received 1 week before due date to allow for processing time, our system had problems but you’re still responsible for the late fees ...  Took about 5 phone calls to correct that stituation.  CA DMV was even worse.

“I wonder how he feels about that?”

HE enjoyed every second of the housing bubble and even the aftermath. His house has made him almost 285K/year for 6 years (before 30% tax).

after tax:
640K cash + 560K (5% interest for 6 years on 1.88M) = 1.2M

before tax:
1.2/0.7 = 1.7M
1.7M/6 = 285K/year

IR-

Beautiful portrait.

Is that a Van Dyck?  The light is really good, but are you sure it was copied correctly.  The light on the man is brighter than that on the woman. 

The flemish in the 17th century truly advanced the art of humanist painting with very real portraiture that used light, color, texture and posing to capture the personality of their models.

The Getty Museum has some pretty good paintings currently on display.

unrestricted HELOC withdrawal at 100% value still a legal possibility

If a bank wants to lend 100% of value, let them.  Get the govt out of it and let them find private capital to finance this crap.  It is ludicrous that we need laws to make banks prudent.  Get the god damn govt out of this and new laws will be completely unnecessary.  Why is this so hard to see?

This is socialist/fascist clusterf*ck and we’re all walking in circles mumbling to ourselves like winos drunk on malt liquor

Nice to see that Cal senate bill 1178 has passed the senate and is sent to the Assembly. Seems fair to both the lender and homeowner in light of the original law on purchase money mortgages.

Aren’t HELOCs recourse?

“Simple fairness dictates that no one should lose their home while they are in the middle of trying to save it…”

Simple fairness also dictates that prudent people who saved up a responsible down payment and bought within their means don’t get the sh*t end of the stick. 

For those who’re genuinely fighting to keep a home they were qualified to buy in the first place: power to them.  But such cases are rare given the debt-to-income ratios of the typical housing bubble purchase.