All Articles Tagged "foreclosure prevention"
Obama Offers Assistance to Unemployed Homeowners
(San Francisco Chronicle) — The Obama administration is making it easier for out-of-work homeowners to stay in their homes, as it tries to revamp its troubled foreclosure-prevention program. Starting Aug. 1, the Federal Housing Administration will extend the period for unemployed homeowners to miss mortgage payments to a full year from three or four months. That will allow qualified homeowners to go without making a monthly payment for 12 months before the foreclosure process begins.
Budget Cuts Imperil Legal Aid in Foreclosure Cases
(New York Times) — In the large immigrant community of Jamaica, Queens, which is ground zero of New York City’s foreclosure crisis, a small squad of young lawyers fans out to local courts every day to do battle with lenders, negotiate hard-fought changes to onerous loans and provide free legal representation to low-income homeowners about to lose their homes. Now, however, the anti-foreclosure team itself is facing foreclosure. The state’s budget squeeze has put at risk more than 120 legal aid and homeowner-counseling agencies across the state that have provided a last-ditch legal and economic lifeline to thousands of distressed homeowners. “I am not sure I will have enough money to pay my staff by the end of this year,” said Jennifer Ching, the project director of Queens Legal Services, one of the groups whose future is threatened. “New York could soon find itself with thousands of unrepresented homeowners who risk falling through the cracks.”
States Try to Force Mortgage Workouts
(Wall Street Journal) — A few states are forcing banks to sit down with borrowers facing foreclosure and attempt to hammer out a settlement face to face rather than going to court. The compulsory negotiations, assisted by a third-party mediator, are producing loan modifications and other settlements at substantially higher rates than voluntary-mediation programs that have been implemented in some states. Nationwide, the number of troubled homeowners receiving assistance with their mortgages has been falling. About 470,000 homeowners received loan assistance in the third quarter, down 17% from the second quarter and down 32% from the same quarter a year earlier, federal bank regulators said in a report Wednesday.
City Intervenes on Mortgages
(Wall Street Journal) — Facing a spike in the number of apartment buildings going bust in low-income neighborhoods due to heavy debt burdens, the Bloomberg administration is taking an activist approach, publicly and privately pushing lenders selling loans on the properties to take haircuts on the troubled mortgages. The aggressive role reflects a fear among city housing officials that the prices being offered to lenders for distressed properties’ debt are too high to allow for adequate repairs of run-down apartments, and will ultimately force new owners to resort to predatory tactics against tenants to make a return.
Govt Anti-Foreclosure Program Needs Goals
(AP) — The Obama administration’s central foreclosure-prevention effort won’t reach its original goals and the government should come up with clear, measurable objectives for the two-year-old program, according to a new report from a congressional watchdog. Because the Treasury Department has failed to properly analyze the program it runs, it is nearly impossible for overseers and the public to determine whether it is a success, the Congressional Oversight Panel said in a report issued Tuesday.
Will.I.am Launches New Mortgage Relief Program
(AllHipHop) — Black Eyed Peas’ frontman will.I.am has launched a new business aimed at helping people who are losing their homes or are facing foreclosure due to the sagging American economy. The superstar rapper/producer told The Sun that he has launched the i.am.home Mortgage Relief Program, which also helps to find jobs for those in unemployed. “I rescue families who are losing their homes because they have no jobs and they can’t pay the mortgage and the banks are foreclosing on their homes,” said will.I.am, who has sold over 28 million records worldwide, with The Black Eyed Peas.
