Dr. Orly Taitz: All my predictions are coming true
Administration plans new efforts on foreclosures
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer Martin Crutsinger, Ap Economics Writer – 37 mins ago
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration, battling a foreclosure crisis that shows no signs of relenting, will step up pressure on mortgage companies to do more to help people remain in their homes, officials said Saturday.
The administration will announce its expanded program on Monday, Treasury spokeswoman Meg Reilly said.
“We are taking additional steps to enhance servicer transparency and accountability,” Reilly said. She said the goal was to increase the rate that troubled home loans were converted into new loans with lower monthly payments.
Industry officials said the new effort would include increased pressure on mortgage companies to accelerate loan modifications by highlighting firms that are lagging in that area.
The Treasury is also expected to announce that it will wait until the loan modifications are permanent before paying cash incentives to mortgage companies that lower loan payments.
Under the $75 billion Treasury program, companies that agree to lower payments for troubled borrowers collect $1,000 initially from the government for each loan, followed by $1,000 annually for up to three years.
The government support, which is provided from the $700 billion financial bailout program, is aimed at providing cash incentives for mortgage providers to accept smaller mortgage payments rather than foreclosing on homes.
The program has come under heavy criticism for failing to do enough to attack a tidal wave of foreclosures. Analysts said the foreclosure crisis is likely to persist well into next year as high unemployment pushes more people out of their homes.
Rising foreclosures depress home prices and threaten the sustainability of the fledgling economic recovery.
A report last week from the Mortgage Bankers Association found that 14 percent of homeowners with mortgages were either behind on payments or in foreclosure at the end of September, a record level for the ninth straight quarter.
The Congressional Oversight Panel, a committee that monitors spending under Treasury’s bailout program, concluded in a report last month that foreclosures are now threatening families who took out conventional, fixed-rate mortgages and put down payments of 10 to 20 percent on homes that would have been within their means in a normal market.
Treasury’s program, known as the Home Affordable Modification Program, “is targeted at the housing crisis as it existed six months ago, rather than as it exists right now,” the report said.
Scott Talbott, senior vice president of government affairs for the Financial Services Roundtable, said the industry supported many of the changes Treasury was proposing.
But he said the foreclosure problem, which began with heavy defaults on subprime mortgages, was expanding to more traditional types of mortgages because of unemployment which has now hit a 26-year high of 10.2 percent.
“The subprime problem has regrettably morphed into an unemployment problem,” Talbott said. He said there was no government program to help the unemployed who are in danger of losing their homes but “many private lenders are modifying loans for the unemployed on their own.”
Treasury’s Reilly said the expanded program would, among other steps, make more aid available to struggling borrowers and expand the number of organizations providing help.
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Associated Press writer Jim Kuhnhenn contributed to this report.
I’ve been a realtor for over twenty years and the Obama’s adminstration trying to help people in foreclosure, problem is nobody qualifies for the program, so it is all smoke and mirrors
Most govt programs are just ” smoke and mirrors ” ! Question is where did / does all that money go ?
Spread $4,000 dollars over 30 years equates to $11.11 per month.; On 20 years it represents $16.67 per month. Reduces the interest 0.47 on a 30 year and 20 year loan of $250,000. That reads 00.47% and they call that an incentive?
We own investment property and asked the banks for a modification or refinance BEFORE we got behind in our payments. None of them would do it without our having to pay down the loan-to-value ratio, which amounted to thousands of dollars. Their appraisers came out with rock-bottom appraisals at our expense, which gave the bank an excuse not to refinance. So why make any payments on property that the bank says isn’t worth owning?
Because our tenants lost their jobs and broke their leases, thousands of dollars per month disappeared. That is the equivalent of a job loss for us and our inability to pay the banks. And we are people with 800 credit scores and a 20-year history of buying, repairing, and selling property.
As in the case of the investment properties, the bank holding the mortgage on our residence has taken our application for a modification but has failed to respond after almost two months. While they acknowledge receiving the paperwork, they are obviously in no hurry to do anything with it. Why should they? Obama’s unconstitutional program gives them $1,000 for just looking at an application. Because it costs the bank money to modify or refinance, they’d rather not do it. So they simply take the application and then eventually turn it down. I don’t think anything Obama, Geithner or Bernanke does is going to make the banks modify loans. The banks do what they want and are taking the stimulus money and hoarding it.
There are some lawsuits against the big banks having to do with securitization. It appears that many of the toxic assets have already been removed from the banks’ books by TARP money, but the banks are foreclosing on mortgages anyway, because when they take the property and auction it off, it is pure profit. The banks lose nothing and actually make money on foreclosures. The advice I’ve been given is if we go into foreclosure, we can fight it in court, because the bank trying to foreclose might not even hold any paper on the property anymore.
They get paid nothing if there isn’t a closed loan “just for looking at the application” How would you like to waste your time and not get paid?
And it’s your fault for not having a cushion to pay for times when a renter defaults. How did that feel when they defaulted? Same way when you default to a lender. The problem is the Gov trying to dictate to lenders because the Gov has no idea about how it goes. I’m sorry if I am harsh towards you but you have alot to learn and you are spreading misinformation as most borrowers have NO CLUE about loans or lending and how that works or what amount of work is involved. It’s the most stressful job there is for ungrateful customers who assume it’s easy money.
It will not work. It’s a loan officer who writes and gets paid for the loan and not their company. Oh yeah they have to split the fee with the company too but a loan officer works on your loan for 30 days. Let’s see, how much an hour does that turn out to be? Less than minimum wage. Funny you’ll pay a lawyer a huge fee for swindling you with bad advice that offers you no added value but you have a grudge to pay a professional loan officer a fee for something of value? I do not get it. So they MIGHT collect another $1,000 for 2 more years, only it goes to the company. No. No loan officer will write your loan. They’ll refer you to someone down the road who will refer you to someone else. Ungrateful customers who cry about loan offers who politely “look at their application for free” need to be charged an application fee of $100. Maybe that will make you realize the value and stop the window shoppers from wasting everyone’s time. Mortgage people have families to feed too and are sick of time wasters who begrudge an earned fee.Time is money.
You cant’ be serious here are you? Or are you just guessing? Pure Profit? Again you wouldn’t know a loss from profit if someone stuck it under your nose. By the time it goes to auction it is a huge loss and who’s going to buy it or pay the liens or the other expenses…MORE money loss for the bank.
No, Most tarp money has no been spent. Here’s a little education for you on what happens. Someone like me comes in and buys the ‘bundles’ of toxic notes for an offer price. In the bundle, there are properties that are next to worthless having been vandalized by people thinking it’s okay to do that because the banks deserve it. There are some decent properties in the bundles too. But the bundle is ‘as is’ and comes as one unit. The bank writes off their losses on taxes and gets what they can for them so they can have SOME MONEY to loan to worthy borrowers or else they will be out of business if they have no more money to lend.
What the bundle buyer does with the properties shall remain a mystery to you because I will not disclose that. There are no big profits for the banks. They have only a HUGE loss which gets written off and passed back onto you the tax payer who has defaulted and trashed the place or lived there for free at the banks expense further threatening the banking industry. Banks pay taxes too or you didn’t know that? PLEAAAAAAAAAASE do me a favor and stop spreading this bunk on fertile unsuspecting minds.
Bank is a business just like your “rental business” is. If they don’t get paid they belly up just like if you don’t get your rent you go under. Capice? Folks, America has been so dumbed down that there is no reality for information anymore. Ya know I love this site and didn’t mean to over post but sometimes it takes a good scolding to set things right. I detest the confused disinformation portraying banks as evil and greedy. It’s a business with real people who have families working there to put food on the table and the owners of the bank make a living. Get rid of the grudge and stop spreading absolute wrong statements about banks. Last I looked we are still a capitalistic society. And it plain wrong to try and screw the bank because you feel like it.
WHAT NOW IS A HACK FOR OBAMA.. LOL LOOK AT WHAT HE SAYS TO NEW ENGLAND YOUR SPREADING DISINFORMATION !!! LMAO.. THATS OBAMA’S SECRET NET POLICE TALKING THERE.
WHAT NOW I WAS JOKING.. SARCASTICALLY… LOL