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Facing foreclosure? New Fannie Mae website helps consumers find options
WASHINGTON – Aug. 16, 2010 – Fannie Mae launched a new website to help consumers understand their options when facing foreclosure and the possible loss of their home. Called KnowYourOptions.com, it outlines the choices available to homeowners struggling to make mortgage payments, and provides guidance on how they can contact and work with their mortgage company to find a back-up plan.

KnowYourOptions.com provides information in both English and Spanish. Features include:

• Interactive Options Finder helps homeowners identify options.

• Calculators help borrowers understand how many of the options would work in their situation, including calculations about refinance, repayment, forbearance, and modification.

• Videos feature real homeowners discussing how they received help; others feature housing counselors giving advice.

• Forms – including a financial checklist and contact log – to help borrowers prepare for a meeting with their mortgage company or housing counselor.

• Information on refinancing, repayment plans, forbearance, modifications and Deed-for-Lease.

• Out-of-the-box alternatives, including short sales and deeds-in-lieu for homeowners who recognize that they can no longer afford their mortgages, but want to avoid a foreclosure on their credit history

More info: www.KnowYourOptions.com.

© 2010 Florida Realtors®

PALM BEACH, Fla. – July 28, 2010 – With today’s reduced property values and increased unemployment, it’s tempting for some homeowners to just throw their hands up in defeat, allow the bank to take their home in foreclosure and rid themselves of the monthly mortgage burden.

Even suffering through the paperwork and stress of a short sale may seem too much for an overwhelmed borrower to handle.

But Florida homeowners should be aware of unique rules in the state that make the benefits of a short sale typically outweigh the ease of walking away in a foreclosure.

“I want to be very clear on this, short sales are a better solution than a foreclosure, even when all the options in a situation where you lose your house are not great,” said Mark Greene, owner and president of Short Sale Operations LLC in North Palm Beach.

The biggest difference between Florida and many other states when it comes to losing a home is the deficiency judgment.

While some states ban lenders from collecting the remainder owed on a loan after a foreclosure or short sale is completed, Florida law allows banks to go after borrowers for up to 20 years. That can lead to a garnishment of wages long after the home is gone.

In a short sale, where the bank agrees to take a lesser amount for the home than what is owed on a loan, lenders sometimes are willing to write off the deficiency on the front end.

Greene said in 90 percent of the cases he handles, the bank has waived its right to seek a deficiency.

That was the case with Jupiter resident Kathryn Lorello, who in 2008 found herself in a home she couldn’t afford.

Following a divorce, and with three children, Lorello bought a $408,000 home that she lived in comfortably for a year. But then she lost her job as a manager of a real estate company.

She remembers the day the bank served the notice of foreclosure.

“I cried my eyes out,” Lorello said. “That’s when I panicked because I really didn’t want it to happen.”

Lorello got advice from Greene on doing a short sale.

Her bank, Wells Fargo, waived its right to seek a deficiency even though it ended up taking $200,000 less than what was owed on the loan.

Also, if a bank refuses to waive the deficiency in a short sale, it still would have to go back to court to seek a judgment.

In a foreclosure, at the end of the proceeding, a deficiency judgment is automatically awarded by the courts and the bank is free to seek a claim.

“In the past, people just wanted to move from the property and get on with their lives and didn’t understand what the lenders’ rights were in terms of pursuing a deficiency claim,” said Paul Baltrun, director of loss mitigation at the LaBovick & La-Bovick law firm.

“I think people are more aware now about what can happen after the fact and that their nightmare can continue.”

Another consideration is the effect of a foreclosure or short sale on credit.

According to the Fair Isaac Corp., which developed the widely used measurement of credit risk called a FICO score, the negative effect of a foreclosure is only marginally worse than a short sale.

But in Florida, a deficiency judgment from a foreclosure is likely to have a much larger impact that will prohibit your ability to buy another home for many years.

Daniel Poulos, a mortgage broker with Elite Lending in North Palm Beach who has studied the effect of foreclosures and short sales on credit, said unless a borrower pays off the deficiency, it may be 20 years before someone is eligible for another mortgage.

“That’s the kind of information that’s not getting out in Florida,” Poulos said.

There are a few situations where some experts believe it is better for someone to go to foreclosure rather than do a short sale.

To do a short sale, a borrower must give all of his or her financial information to the bank before it will decide whether to allow the short sale. The idea is that if a person can afford to pay the mortgage, the short sale may be denied.

“Now the lender knows everything about your finances and they can better decide whether they will go after you or not,” said Jon Maddux, CEO of YouWalkAway.com, a company that advises people on strategic defaults.

If a lender doesn’t know your finances, Maddux argues, it reduces the chances it will go after you following a foreclosure.

“You might fly under the radar,” he said. “With the millions of people going through this, they are probably going to go after the low-hanging fruit.”

Copyright © 2010, The Palm Beach Post, Fla., Kimberly Miller. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

WASHINGTON – April 9, 2010 – To help resuscitate Florida’s condo market, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) eased their lending rules. Freddie was last, with new guidelines effective April 1.

The FHA made changes first in November 2009. At the time, Peter Zalewski, a condo market analyst and broker with Condo Vultures in Bal Harbour, Fla., called it a “pretty significant move. … This might be an entree for traditional and conventional lenders to return to the marketplace.”

Among other things, FHA increased the number of project units it would finance from 30 percent to 50 percent; required that at least 50 percent of units were owner-occupied; and reduced a presale requirement for new construction to 30 percent.

In January, Fannie Mae eased its condo lending rules, proving Zalewski’s prediction was correct. The government-sponsored enterprise took a hands-on approach by empowering a Florida team to analyze each condo project and approve lending in those it considered to have a lower risk.

Effective April 1, Freddie Mac followed suit. Rather than create teams, however, Freddie Mac stated a list of new rules it would follow as the FHA did, with a prime focus on the buying of a condo in which the seller has a mortgage backed by Freddie Mac.

Those rules include:

• The mortgage file must contain documentation verifying that the existing first lien conventional mortgage on the unit being purchased is owned by Freddie Mac, in whole or in part, or securitized by Freddie Mac.
• The seller’s note date of the existing mortgage for the unit being purchased is on or before Dec. 31, 2009.
• The settlement date for the new mortgage is on or before March 31, 2011.

Freddie Mac issued a Bulletin explaining the changes. To download the Bulletin (PDF format) click here.

© 2010 Florida Realtors®

NEW YORK – March 5, 2010 – Two years after swallowing the troubled mortgage giant Countrywide Financial, Bank of America trails other major U.S. lenders in resolving troubled home loans through short sales or modified loan terms.

The lender, one of the nation’s biggest banks, holds more than a million mortgages that are months behind on their payments – twice as many defaulting home loans as any other lender in the country. But it has given permanent mortgage modifications to only about 1 percent of those borrowers – one of the lowest rates among lenders nationally, according to a report released last month on the federal government’s Home Affordable Modification Program.

The issue is key in Metropolitan Orlando, which has the nation’s 11th-highest rate of mortgage modifications, with 18,000 homeowners in trial modifications and 2,468 in permanent ones, the report stated.

Loan modifications aren’t the only way of out a foreclosure. In January, about a quarter of all Orlando-area home closings were short sales, which occur when the lender allows a homeowner to sell the property for less than what’s owed on the mortgage.

But when it comes to short sales, Bank of America also lags other lenders, real-estate agents say, by taking too long to respond to offers.

“Realtors that I work with, if they hear Bank of America, they won’t even show the property,” said David Pruett, a broker for D.A. Pruett Properties.

The chairman of the Orlando Regional Realtor Association, Kathleen Gallagher McIver, said recently that Bank of America has the worst record for expediting short sales, “and there’s not anyone out there who will tell you otherwise.”

Bank of America acknowledges it needs help with its short sales.

“We clearly recognize the need to improve the short-sale process for both our customers and the real-estate professionals who are critical to a successful transaction,” said Jumana Bauwen, a bank spokeswoman.

The company said it has updated its training, enhanced its technology and established a short-sale team to help customers and real-estate agents navigate the process. It is piloting a short-sale program for owners who don’t qualify for new mortgage terms. And it has established a 24-hour phone line so agents, buyers and sellers can track the status of their short sales.

Bank of America is not alone in its struggles to deal with the avalanche of defaulting home mortgages, according to the February modification report by the U.S. Treasury Department and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Wachovia Corp., now owned by Wells Fargo & Co., has approved permanently modified terms for fewer than 1 percent of its 86,461 defaulting mortgage customers. American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc. has a similar track record with the 127,521 mortgages headed toward foreclosure that it holds. Among the nation’s largest lenders, GMAC Mortgage Inc. had the best rate: 17 percent of its 65,751 defaulting home loans have been permanently modified.

Bank of America, which inherited much of its mortgage portfolio from Countrywide, says part of the problem is that many homeowners have not been diligent about submitting the documents needed to convert a trial mortgage modification into a permanent one.

Clermont resident George Simmons said he is now totally frustrated, having tried for more than a year to get Bank of America to convert a series of trial modifications into something permanent.

“Let’s see, the last correspondence I had from them said they didn’t have my income-tax return and my Social Security records,” Simmons said. “I sent it to them so many times. I’ve got my fax receipts and my certified postal receipts. They just keep asking for the same paperwork over and over and over again.”

Overall, about a fifth of Bank of America’s defaulting-mortgage customers have received temporary, three-month trial modifications. To address the huge volume of troubled loans needing permanent solutions, the company has hired about 15,000 staffers. Workers knock on doors and call homeowners with trial modifications at least 10 times before the temporary terms expire in three months.

At one point, Bauwen said, Bank of America was behind in getting homeowners into trial loan modifications. But it has ramped up those efforts, she said, and many of those trials will be converted into permanent modifications.

More importantly, Bauwen added, the company is not ramping up its foreclosure efforts unnecessarily.

Copyright © 2010 The Orlando Sentinel, Fla., Mary Shanklin. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

New rules could speed short sales of distressed homes

WASHINGTON – Jan. 12, 2010 – The federal government is setting guidelines for short sales of homes, giving lenders a 10-day limit to respond to offers, freeing borrowers from debt and providing financial incentives to lenders.

The new rules seek to address the many criticisms of short sales and figure to play a significant role in South Florida, where distressed properties dominate the market as the housing slump meanders into a fifth year.

“The cloud could be lifted,” said Domenic Faro of the Fort Lauderdale Real Estate firm. “This could bring us back to some normalcy.”

In a short sale, the homeowner unloads the property for less than what’s owed on the mortgage, and the lender forgives the difference. Nearly half of all single-family mortgage holders in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties are “under water,” meaning they owe more than their homes are worth, according to third-quarter data from Zillow.com, a Seattle-based real estate firm.

While short sales are considered the perfect solution for “underwater” homeowners on the verge of foreclosure, the deals often drag on as lenders take weeks or months to respond to offers. Frustrated buyers walk away during the delays. In some cases, lenders insist that borrowers share in the financial loss, holding up the transactions even longer.

To speed up the process, the U.S. Treasury is calling for lenders to respond to short sale offers within 10 business days. Sellers are eligible for $1,500 moving allowances, and they will not be on the hook for repayment of any debt.

Also, lenders will get $1,000 to cover administrative and processing costs, while investors owning the mortgages will receive a maximum $1,000 for allowing up to $3,000 in short sale proceeds to be distributed to less senior lenders. Loan servicers participating in the Obama Administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program are required to follow the guidelines.

The rules do not specifically apply to loans guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, which represent about half of all U.S. mortgage debt. The two government-run mortgage companies are working to finalize their own guidelines.

The Treasury plan, which must be implemented by lenders no later than April, is meant to help sellers like Dawn Sclafani, who has been waiting since October for her lender to approve a short sale offer on her Margate home. A buyer has offered $155,000, and she owes $233,000.

Sclafani, a 50-year-old psychologist, said she’s eager for the bank to approve the deal so she can put the experience behind her.

“I want to move on … but I can’t until somebody gives me permission to,” she said. “I’ve heard that this is a horrendous process. The banks are just not very cooperative. I do believe these new rules will help.”

U.S. Rep Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, agrees, saying the guidelines are meant to make short sales “a more usable tool.” Klein points out the rules provide standardized paperwork for all short sales and give buyers and sellers a more reasonable time frame for whether or not the sales will happen.

But Klein and others say the government may have to increase the financial incentives. The $3,000 cap on short sale proceeds is not sitting well with second lien holders, who have been demanding more money from sellers, the first lenders and real estate agents in exchange for releasing their claims and allowing the short sales to proceed.

“This is a great program if all these mortgages had only one lien holder,” said Travis Hamel Olsen, chief operating officer for Loan Resolution Corp., an Arizona company that helps lenders complete short sales. “But many of these properties have two liens.”

Meanwhile, some local real estate agents remain skeptical of the guidelines.

Broward County agent Ron Rosen, who urged Klein last summer to push for new regulations, said he thinks “the banks will still play their little games with people and make life difficult for everyone.”

Edward Goldfarb of RE/MAX PowerPro Realty in Davie doubts the Treasury will enforce the new rules. “There’s no teeth to them,” he said.

A spokeswoman for the Treasury says it will hand down “substantial” penalties to lenders that don’t comply. They can include the withholding or reduction of payments and requiring improperly rejected loans to be modified.

Lenders have blamed short sale delays on the complicated nature of the transactions, sheer numbers of deals and on borrowers who don’t submit proper paperwork in a timely manner.

In many cases, the banks are not to blame, said Ward Kellogg, chief executive of Boca Raton-based Paradise Bank. Still, he thinks the guidelines are necessary to force lenders to clear the market of so many distressed properties.

“I think the pressure on (the banks) is a good thing,” Kellogg said.

Copyright © 2010 Sun Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Paul Owers. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

By John Letzing, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Seven U.S. banks were closed by regulators on Friday, bring the total this year to 140 as the effects of the credit crisis continued to be felt across the country.

What’s more, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. established temporary institutions to help close two of the failed banks.

Citi Blames Gov’t on Outcome of Equity OfferAs banks clear the TARP hurdle, Citi laments Treasury’s willingness to let Wells Fargo offering hit the market, Barrons.com’s Bob O’Brien reports.
Atlanta-based RockBridge Commercial Bank became the 25th Georgia-based bank to fail this year. The FDIC was unable to find another institution to take over the failed bank, and so will mail checks to retail depositors for insured funds.

RockBridge Commercial Bank had roughly $294 million in assets and $291.7 million in deposits as of Sept. 30. Its failure will cost the federal deposit-insurance fund $124.2 million, the regulator said.

Panama City, Fla.-based Peoples First Community Bank became the 14th to fail in that state in 2009. Peoples First Community Bank had $1.7 billion in deposits as of Sept. 30, and Gulfport, Miss.-based Hancock Bank has agreed to assume those deposits.

Peoples First Community Bank’s failure will cost the deposit-insurance fund $556.7 million, according to the FDIC.

New Baltimore, Mich.-based Citizens State Bank’s failure will cost the deposit-insurance fund $76.6 million, with the FDIC creating the Deposit Insurance National Bank of New Baltimore to protect depositors of Citizens State Bank.

The new bank will remain open for 45 days to allow depositors to access insured deposits and open an account elsewhere, the agency said. Columbus, Ohio-based Huntington National Bank will operate the DINB under contract with the FDIC.

An FDIC spokesman said the agency has created such bridge banks “several times this year and in previous years.”

Irondale, Ala.-based New South Federal Savings Bank also was closed by regulators Friday. The bank had $1.2 billion in deposits as of Sept. 30, which will be assumed by Plano, Texas-based Beal Bank, the FDIC added.

New South Federal Savings Bank’s failure will cost the deposit-insurance fund $212.3 million.

Springfield, Ill.-based Independent Bankers’ Bank was closed, with $511.5 million in deposits as of Sept. 30.

The FDIC said it created the Independent Bankers’ Bank Bridge Bank to allow client banks of Independent Bankers’ Bank “to maintain their correspondent banking relationship with the least amount of disruption.”

Independent Bankers’ Bank’s failure will cost the deposit-insurance fund $68.4 million.

Two Southern California banks were closed Friday, the 16th and 17th such failures in the Golden State as a whole.

First Federal Bank of California in Santa Monica was taken over by regulators. OneWest Bank of Pasadena will assume all of its deposits and take over First Federal’s 39 branches, the FDIC said.

OneWest Bank agreed to purchase all of the $6.1 billion in First Federal Bank assets and did not pay the FDIC a premium for the $4.5 billion in total deposits; the hit to the deposit-insurance fund will be $146 million.

Separately, La Jolla, Calif.-based Imperial Capital Bank was closed. It had $2.8 billion in deposits as of Sept. 30, the FDIC said, and its failure will cost the deposit-insurance fund $619.2 million. City National Bank of Los Angeles is assuming all of the deposits in the “least costly” resolution, according to the agency.

John Letzing is a MarketWatch reporter based in San Francisco