New Obama Mortgage Plan: A Backdoor Bank Bailout
March 30, 2010, Wall Street Journal

Today President Obama announced an expansion and modification of his Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). While one can debate the merits of incentives to keep unemployed families in their homes while they search for jobs — I personally believe this will more often than not keep those families tied to weak labor markets — what should be beyond debate is the various bailouts to mortgage lenders contained in the program's fine print.


How $50 Billion in TARP Money Is Being Spent on Housing
March 30, 2010, Wall Street Journal

The Obama administration is stressing that the revamp of its foreclosure prevention efforts won’t cost any more taxpayer money. That’s because the administration hasn’t come close to using the $50 billion from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) that it set aside for its loan modification program last year.


Los Angeles Times Unloads Foreclosure Web Site
March 29, 2010, Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times is getting out of the foreclosed-homes auction business, saying it needs to focus its attention and money on its other ailing operations. The newspaper, which is owned by Tribune Co., obtained bankruptcy court permission last week to sell its 66.67% interest in foreclosure auction Web site Zetabid.com to joint-venture partner Catalist Homes for $200,010.

House Flippers in U.S. Crowd Courthouse Steps in Hunt for Deals
March 31, 2010, BusinessWeek

During the U.S. housing boom, even amateur investors could buy and sell a property within a couple of months and turn a profit. Today there’s nothing amateur about house flipping.


5 More States Get $600 Million in Foreclosure Funds to Save Homes
March 30, 2010, Washington Post

The Obama administration announced Monday that it is expanding by $600 million a fund aimed at helping states tackle the foreclosure crisis with locally tailored approaches. State housing finance agencies from North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio, Oregon and Rhode Island will share $600 million to test new approaches to helping borrowers save their homes from foreclosure. That is in addition to $1.5 billion set aside for California, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan and Florida when the program was initially announced in February.

Obama's New Foreclosure Plan Gets Mixed Reviews
March 27, 2010, TIME

Reaction is mixed to President Obama’s plan to prevent up to 4 million homeowners whose mortgages are underwater from defaulting on their loans over the next three years.

Underwater' Rescues
March 27, 2010, Los Angeles Times (Editorial)

Federal, state and local governments have launched initiative after initiative to save borrowers from foreclosure, leading many Americans to ask why some people should be rescued from the bad bets they made on the housing market while more cautious home buyers were left to absorb the full brunt of the collapse. The question is sure to be raised again in response to Friday’s announcement that the Obama administration will push lenders to reduce the amount that people owe on homes whose values have fallen to less than the amount of their mortgages. It's easy to defend the rescues when they're premised on voluntary decisions by banks to cut their losses. It's more problematic to justify using tax dollars to persuade lenders to do something they should be doing anyway.

Above Water?
March 28, 2010, Washington Post

Despite recent, tentative signs of stabilization, the housing market remains fragile, and that translates into insecurity or outright hardship for millions of Americans. Twenty-four percent of all homeowners with mortgages are "underwater," meaning that they owe more on the residence than it is worth. For those borrowers who are unemployed, this situation is especially devastating: They can't tap equity to deal with expenses, and they often can't sell if a job offer requires them to move. In many cases, it's cheaper to walk away and let the bank foreclose than to keep up monthly payments.

Don't Foreclose! Do a Short Sale
March 29, 2010, CNNMoney.com

Short sales are the hottest thing going in the distressed-property market, and the trend is expected to get even hotter in coming weeks, when the government starts handing out cash to encourage lenders to close these deals. These transactions, where lenders allow homeowners to sell their houses for less than they owe, accounted for 17% of all residential real estate sales in February, up from nearly 13% in November, according to a monthly real estate market survey by Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance.

Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop
March 25, 2010, The Economist

In its early days, the Obama administration argued over whether the financial system or the real economy should be the economic priority. Critics disputed the premise. They argued that no lasting recovery would be possible until housing markets were healthier.

U.S. Plans Big Expansion in Effort to Aid Homeowners
March 26, 2010 — New York Times

The Obama administration on Friday announced broad new initiatives to help troubled homeowners, potentially refinancing several million of them into fresh government-backed mortgages with lower payments.

Will White House Plan Rile Up More Borrowers Than It Helps?
March 26, 2010 — Wall Street Journal

The White House announced a raft of enhancements to its foreclosure mitigation efforts on Friday morning, as we reported in today’s WSJ. Every new program announcement will raise hopes for some and the anger of others, but the bottom line is that these adjustments, which include renewed attention towards reducing loan balances, are designed to address the fact that the foreclosure crisis has deteriorated as unemployment rises and more borrowers owe more than their homes are worth.

Attorney general says Arizona to get $1.7M to help prevent mortgage fraud
March 26, 2010 — Associated Press

PHOENIX — U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder delivered more resources to fight mortgage fraud in Arizona and across the nation Thursday, saying $8 million will be used to beef up investigation teams this spring.

Real Estate Outlook: Freddie Mac Predicts Positive Recovery
March 23, 2010 — RealtyTimes

Could we be heading for a "double dip" in the economy, taking us back into recession, as some Wall Street analysts predict?

Could the Federal Reserve's planned departure from the mortgage securities market send home loan rates spiking upward, and knock the wind out of the housing recovery?

Only 23% of Agents Surveyed Predict Increase in Home Prices
March 23, 2010 — DSNews

Seventy-seven percent of real estate professionals think home prices will either stay the same or decrease in the next six months, according to the responses of more than 1,400 real estate agents and brokers nationwide in the first quarter 2010 Home Prices Survey released Tuesday by HomeGain, an Emeryville, California-based provider of online marketing programs that connect real estate agents with homebuyers and sellers.

Homeowners Sue BofA for Failing to Permanently Modify Loans
March 23, 2010 — DSNews

Homeowners in Washington State are suing Bank of America, alleging the nation’s largest lender is “intentionally” and “systematically” thwarting and ignoring borrowers’ requests to make reasonable mortgage modifications that would prevent homes from being foreclosed.

Watchdog report criticizes Obama mortgage plan
March 24, 2010 — Associated Press

A government watchdog is criticizing the Obama administration for establishing a "meaningless" goal for its flagship mortgage assistance program.
The report issued late Tuesday by Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, says the Obama administration is measuring the performance of the program by a questionable standard.

Home sales show market struggling to find footing
March 24, 2010 — Reuters

WASHINGTON - Sales of newly built homes fell for a fourth straight month to a record low in February, but another rise in new orders for durable goods offered hope that the economic recovery remained on course.

Future of Fannie and Freddie Debated on Capitol Hill
March 23, 2010 — DSNews

Lawmakers have again set their sights on mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The House Financial Services Committee convened a hearing Tuesday to discuss the future of housing finance in general and the GSEs in particular – it’s the first step in a legislative process that could turn the mortgage industry on its ear and the beginnings of a long debate that will undoubtedly become more and more heated in the months ahead.

UCLA economists: no 'double dip'
March 24, 2010 — Inman News

Rejecting the possibility of a "double dip" recession, economists with the University of California, Los Angeles, Anderson Forecast say they expect economic growth to remain on track even in the face of continued high unemployment.

We are happy to announce a series of new RealtyTrac features that we’ve just implemented to improve your user experience on the website and enhance your search power by arming you with more powerful features that provide you with more detailed foreclosure data and expanded real estate information found only on RealtyTrac.

Here’s a look at the new features.

MLS-FORECLOSURE MATCH
The new exclusive MLS Match feature, which combines the world’s most comprehensive foreclosure database of more than 2 million default, auction and bank-owned properties with millions of for-sale properties from Multiple Listing Services nationwide, allows users to quickly identify foreclosure properties that are also listed for sale on the MLS and to check the foreclosure status and details for resale listings. Now you can find discounted foreclosure homes with the ease and convenience of buying traditional real estate. You can access this new MLS Match feature from either the search results or property details page on RealtyTrac.

REALTYTRAC RATINGS
The RealtyTrac Ratings is an innovative tool that helps buyers zero in on the best deals without sifting through hundreds of properties. The RealtyTrac Rating is based on an analysis of property sales history, area historical sales and current resale listing information. The rating was created to help bargain hunters and investors hone in on the best available deals in their local markets. There are five possible ratings: Three stars is the highest savings potential in the area; two stars is a very good savings potential; one star is a good savings potential; a “Neutral” rating means there is no savings potential; and “No Rating” means there is insufficient data available to rate the property.

PROPERTY TRENDS TAB
The star rating system is based on the wealth of information now available in the new Trends Tab on every property details page. This new feature shows buyers in a graphical and tabular format when a property was previously sold, the date and price it sold for, and how much the sold price was above or below the local market average. If the property is listed for sale, the graph shows how much that list price is above or below the local market average.

ESTIMATED COST TO RESTORE (ECR)
Estimated Cost to Restore is another easy-to-use feature that allows homebuyers, investors, homeowners and real estate professionals to quickly and reliably estimate the cost of repairing and restoring any property listed on RealtyTrac — thereby helping them to make wiser investment decisions. The Estimated Cost to Restore is an estimate of the total rehab cost required to restore a property to market-ready condition, taking into account square footage, labor, materials and other expenses. A separate ECR is given for five different property conditions: Excellent, Good, Fair, Poor and Very Poor.

REDESIGNED PROPERTY DETAILS
All of the above new features are integrated into an improved and redesigned Property Details pages, with the most important and relevant information located at the top of the page. Now the foreclosure status, address, property description, loan amount, estimated value, RealtyTrac Rating and Estimated Cost to Restore are all prominently displayed at the top of the page. Tabs below this summary information allow customers to dig deep into all the corresponding details.