New round of foreclosures threatens housing market
New round of foreclosures threatens housing market
March 12, 2010 — Washington Post
The housing market is facing swelling ranks of homeowners who are seriously delinquent but have yet to lose their homes, and this is threatening a new wave of foreclosures that could hit just as the real estate market has begun to stabilize.
Foreclosure tsunami hits high-end homes
March 12, 2010 — Inman News
A few months ago, one of my columns focused on the tie-in between unemployment in the financial sector and the high-end home market.
Foreclosure Specialist Admonishes HAFA Program
March 11, 2010 — DSNews
President Obama’s Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternative (HAFA) program has been under intense fire this week.
As DSNews.com reported, four appraisal organizations sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Monday, opposing the program’s allowance of broker price opinions (BPOs). However, appraisers aren’t the only ones with concerns about HAFA.
BofA and the Parrot: Bird’s Eye View of the Foreclosure Mess
March 11, 2010 — Wall Street Journal
“It isn’t about the parrot,” a lawyer for Angela Iannelli told me.
The issue, insisted the lawyer, Michael Rosenzweig of Edgar Snyder & Associates in Pittsburgh, was the distress inflicted on Ms. Iannelli by Bank of America Corp.’s bungling. As we reported Wednesday, the bank apologized for an incident in which its contractors entered her home near Pittsburgh while she was out, cut off utilities, padlocked the door and confiscated her pet parrot. Though Ms. Iannelli had fallen a month or so behind on mortgage payments, her case hadn’t reached the stage at which Bank of America would be justified in taking such actions to “secure” the collateral.
FHA challenged on projected risk to taxpayers
March 12, 2010 — Washington Post
The Federal Housing Administration will need taxpayer money because it failed to properly project how borrowers with FHA-backed loans are affected by job losses and diminished equity in their homes, New York University professor Andrew Caplin told a House panel Thursday.