There is currently a proposed bill before the Utah State Legislature sponsored by Senator W. Niederhauser which is currently known as S.B. 42. If enacted into law, it will reduce the current statute of limitations for a bank to sue for the deficiency in a short sale from six (6) years to ninety (90) days following the short sale of the property.
For a full version of the proposed bill, please click here
(The Hill) The Treasury Department and Department of Housing and Urban Development announced Friday that the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), a signature housing relief effort for the White House, was being extended by another year. Previously set to expire at the end of 2012, homeowners struggling to keep up with their mortgages can now enroll in the program through the end of 2013.
To further boost the program, the administration is tripling the amount it will pay banks to modify mortgages, as well as provide new incentives to encourage Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac to agree to principal reductions on mortgages backed by the government-sponsored enterprises. Before, HAMP only supported principal reductions for bank-held mortgages.
“These enhancements will provide additional relief to struggling homeowners, renters, and their neighborhoods to accelerate the housing market recovery and improve our overall economy,” said Tim Massad, the Treasury’s assistant secretary for financial stability.
The program is a signature part of the administration’s efforts to help struggling homeowners grappling with the bursting of the subprime mortgage bubble. However, it has failed to impact nearly as many homeowners as originally intended. The program, established as part of federal bailout efforts, was originally intended to help modify up to 4 million mortgages, but so far has made permanent changes to roughly 900,000 mortgages. The Treasury said those mortgages have yielded monthly savings of about $500 for homeowners.
(The New York Times) Although home foreclosure rates appear to be stabilizing and unemployment is slowly coming down, there are still millions of jobless borrowers who are at risk of losing their homes because they cannot afford their monthly payments.
FreddieMac and FannieMae, the goverment-sponsored housing finance companies that represent approximately half of all mortgages have announced plans to extend their existing programs so that unemployed borrowers can defer part or all of their monthly payments for up to 12 months while they are out of work.
(The Salt Lake Tribune) Court rulings may have slammed shut a legal line of attack for Utahns fighting to keep their homes from foreclosure.
Recent decisions by state and federal courts mean that Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc. (MERS), an entity created by the nation’s bankers in the runup to the housing bubble, can continue to foreclose on properties.
“It’s a tragedy,” said Merrill Chandler, executive director of National Association of Foreclosure Defense Advocates, a Salt Lake City-based organization that works with local attorney Craig Smay on foreclosure legal challenges. “It’s kind of like we’ve been kicked in the teeth and gutted and now hung out to dry.”
(The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah had the nation’s fifth-highest rate of foreclosure activity in 2011, a new report shows, with 2.3 percent of its homes receiving a foreclosure-related filing during the year.
The state’s household rate of one in 43 is lower than only four states — Nevada (1 in 16), Arizona (1 in 24), California (1 in 31) and Georgia (1 in 37), reported the foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. Nationally, the rate is 1 in 69.
Utah’s filings last year were down about 32 percent from 2010, but RealtyTrac warned that the drop does not necessarily indicate that the housing market is getting any better. Many foreclosures have been delayed because of confusion over documentation and legal issues involved in the foreclosure process, and most other areas of the country had significant declines in filings for the same reasons.
“Foreclosures were in full delay mode in 2011, resulting in a dramatic drop in foreclosure activity for the year,” RealtyTrac CEO Brandon Moore said.
Foreclosures made up a smaller slice of all U.S. homes sold in last year’s third quarter, as banks delayed placing properties for sale and home sales slowed.
Despite the decline, foreclosures still represented 20 percent of all homes sold in the July-September period — about four times more than at the height of the housing boom, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.
Foreclosure sales include homes purchased after they received a notice of default or were repossessed by lenders.
In 2005 and 2006, when housing was still flying high, foreclosures made up less than 5 percent of all home sales, the firm said. They peaked in 2009 at 37.4 percent.
As a portion of all homes purchased, foreclosure sales declined in the third quarter from 22 percent in the April-June period. They were down from 30 percent in the third quarter of 2010, RealtyTrac said.
(Washington Post) The Federal Reserve said Wednesday that unemployment will remain so high over the next three years that the central bank will probably keep interest rates near zero for that period, more than a year longer than previously indicated. The announcement significantly extends the Fed’s commitment to taking steps to help drive economic growth.
The Fed did not meet the demands of economists who say it should be taking immediate and dramatic action to try to reduce joblessness. But the Fed made clear that remains an option if economic growth doesn’t speed up soon.
Recently the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) stated that principal reductions would be more costly for FannieMae and FreddieMac then forberance agreements. A forbearance agreement allows the borrower to reduce or suspend monthly payments. FHFA claims that widespread principal reductions would undercut the finances of FannieMae and FreddieMac. FHFA further claims that endorsing principal reductions would further breed behavior that will continue to exacerbate the existing mortgage problems. About 22% of mortgages in the United States are upside down at an estimated $750 billion. Currently FannieMae and Freddie mac own or guarantee 30 million mortgages or roughly half of all outstanding mortgages.
(CNN Money) Investors wielding cash are reviving sales volume in the housing market — but at a price.
As the National Association of Realtors noted last week, all-cash sales accounted for 31% of December existing-home purchases. All that bargain hunting drove sales of existing homes up 5% for the month, NAR says.
A steady pace of sales is critical to the housing market’s recovery, of course, because we need to clear all those foreclosures and short sales off the books so that prices can stabilize and even start rising.
But there is a downside to those all-cash purchases. The cash buyers — the bulk of which are investors, says the NAR — put downward pressure on home prices even beyond what the natural forces of supply and demand would do, according to Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance’s latest HousingPulse Tracking Survey. “Cash buyers are able to bid significantly lower on many properties because they offer a shorter and more reliable closing timeline,” the report says. That’s music to the ears of mortgage servicers, who are anxious to get their distressed real estate off their books.
(Reuters) – Watching the U.S. home market struggle to rebound is like listening to children in the back of a car. No, we’re not there yet.
The National Association of Realtors reported that ten real estate markets are “leading the nation toward a general recovery and stability of the housing sector,” but myriad problems are going to weigh down the housing market for months to come.
The lingering malaise in the economy has triggered a new wave of defaults and foreclosures. After five straight quarterly drops, foreclosures nationwide shot up 14 percent from the second to third quarter this year, according to data released by Realtytrac, the foreclosure information service