Once again, the responsible borrowers who didn't gamble on real estate values, who acted responsibly, who didn't speculate get the shaft, and the irresponsible, the speculators and the greedy get rewarded ("Md. joins national mortgage settlement," Feb. 9).
And how are the banks going to recover this money? They will pass the cost onto the responsible customers and borrowers. The furor about robo-signing is a joke. Has anyone said that the "victims" did not owe the money? How is it that someone who owes money all of a sudden doesn't owe it because of paperwork irregularities?
Every individual and every family that has lived within its means, honored its debts and lived within its budget should be infuriated by what is nothing more than transfer payments to the irresponsible, the ignorant and the greedy.
Thomas F. McDonough, Towson
I agree with this guy.
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February 09, 2012
NJ Has Backlog of Up to 100K Foreclosures
By Stacie Servetah - Feb 8, 2012 1:38 PM ET
New Jersey must work through a backlog of 50,000 to 100,000 unprocessed foreclosures because of delays caused by an investigation into how lenders handled the filings, said Richard Constable, acting commissioner of the state Community Affairs Department.
Foreclosures slowed to about 10,000 last year from 50,000 in 2010 and 150,000 two years ago after claims of “robo- signing” -- unverified documents sped through the system -- spurred an investigation by state attorneys general at the end of 2010, Constable said today at a meeting of mayors in the Statehouse in Trenton.
As many as 100,000 properties will soon come to market in New Jersey as banks resume processing foreclosure sales, Constable said. The state will work with towns to make sure that the foreclosures don’t blight neighborhoods, he said.
New Jersey has the second-highest inventory of homes in foreclosure after Florida, with 6.4 percent of all dwellings with a mortgage in the process, according to data released today by CoreLogic Inc., a Santa Ana, California-based data real estate information company. Nationally, 1.4 million homes, or 3.4 percent of those with a mortgage, were in foreclosure as of December.
New Jersey also had the second-longest average foreclosure process, at 964 days in the fourth quarter, after New York, where properties took an average of 1,019 days to complete the process, RealtyTrac said in a report last month. Nationwide, the average was 348 days, according to the Irvine, California-based property-data company.
To contact the reporter on this story: Stacie Servetah in Trenton at sbabula@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Tannenbaum at mtannen@bloomberg.net
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February 08, 2012
Chris Christie Signs Bill Requiring NJ Counties to E-Record
The law redefines the terms "document" and "recorded" to include electronic documents and electronic image storage. It also streamlines how county recorders store the various documents they record, which include mortgages, deeds and associated assignments, discharges and releases.
The law calls on New Jersey's Division of Archives and Records Management to establish statewide guidelines for the format and technical requirements of recorded documents "to foster state-wide uniformity in title recordation," within 12 months of its passing. Assembly Bill 2565 was introduced in March 2010 and passed by the state legislature in Jan. 2012. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie signed it into law on Jan. 17.
The law gives counties five years to adopt e-doc capabilities, though some New Jersey counties already use e-recording technology and processes, following the passage of the federal Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce, or ESIGN, Act in 2000 and New Jersey's version of the state-level Uniform Electronic Transactions Act, enacted in 2001.
"While the use of electronic deeds and mortgages is not expected to occur in the near term, both ESIGN and UETA encourage the development of systems that will accept electronic documents without disrupting the ongoing process of title recordation," the legislature said in a joint statement by the Assembly's Housing and Local Government Committee and the Senate's Community and Urban Affairs Committee.
The statement also notes the importance of having a law that can easily adapt to changes in technology and the need for uniformity across the state's 21 counties to make it easier for people and companies that file documents to comply with the state law.
"It must be acknowledged, however, that conventional paper documents will continue to be recorded for the foreseeable future. This revision is a first step toward balancing the need to use technological advances where appropriate, with the recognition that it is not appropriate to mandate an immediate switch to the latest technological development."
According to the Property Records Industry Association, more than 700 of the approximately 3,100 counties and county equivalents in the United States currently utilize e-recording technology.
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February 06, 2012
New Jersey Updates Title Recordation Laws
From Property Records Education Partners
New Jersey Updates Title Recordation Laws. On January 17, New Jersey enacted a 2010-2011 session bill, A2565, to modernize the state’s title recordation laws to permit the use of electronic documents and to reorganize and streamline the state’s recordation requirements. Given that the federal E-sign Act and the New Jersey Uniform Electronic Transactions Act both require the acceptance of electronic alternatives to paper documents and encourage the development of systems that accept electronic documents, the bill updates state law to, for example, (i) broaden the definition of “document” and “recorded” to allow for electronic recordation; (ii) delete statutory references to separate sets of books or separate databases for different kinds of documents; (iii) remove requirements for marginal notation of documents; and (iv) require development of standard formats for electronic documents. For a copy of A2565, please see http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2010/Bills/A3000/2565_R1.PDF.
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February 04, 2012
Freddie Mac's Regulator 'Completely Puzzled' By Allegations Of Conflict : The Two-Way : NPR
Saying he is "completely puzzled by the notion that there was something immoral that went on here," the man at the top of the agency that regulates Freddie Mac has explained why he believes the taxpayer-owned mortgage company did nothing wrong when one of its arms, as NPR and ProPublica have reported, "placed multibillion-dollar bets against American homeowners being able to refinance to cheaper mortgages."
Edward DeMarco told Morning Edition co-host Steve Inskeep in an interview broadcast on today's show that Freddie Mac's actions were "in the class of ordinary business transactions." The "reverse floaters" in Freddie Mac's investment portfolio, which as NPR has reported "brought in more money for Freddie Mac when homeowners in higher interest-rate loans were unable to qualify for a refinancing," did not affect the agency's efforts to stabilize the mortgage market, DeMarco said.
Instead, DeMarco characterized the investments as part of Freddie Mac's effort to make sure it doesn't lose money. And he said one of his major responsibilities, is to "make sure Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac undertake activities that don't cause further losses to the American taxpayer."
DeMarco is acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) — the agency that regulates Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.
As we reported Thursday, two key senators "who have taken the lead on legislation aimed to help homeowners refinance at historically low interest rates," are critical of FHFA's oversight of Freddie Mac. One of them, Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, laid much of the blame on DeMarco and accused him of not looking out for American homeowners who want to refinance at today's historically low interest rates.
DeMarco told Steve, though, that "not only I, but my staff think of the average homeowner on a daily basis" and believe that their efforts to stabilize the mortgage market and prevent losses at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are good for all Americans in the long run.
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Fannie Mae: Don't Expect 'Normal' Housing Market Until 2015 - The Home Front (usnews.com)
Americans will have to wait a few more years for the housing market to return to "normal," an industry expert said Thursday.
"We're five years through a 10-year adjustment cycle," said Doug Duncan, vice president and chief economist at government mortgage giant Fannie Mae, who expects the housing market to stabilize sometime around 2015.
The path to stabilization, however, will be fragmented regionally, Duncan said, primarily along foreclosure and delinquency fault lines. "Two-thirds of households underwater are in 5 states," Duncan said, states which likely face more pain before any gains. "It's a very regional issue going forward."
As the impact of the housing crisis continues to reverberate through the country, the picture has changed. Where local and national housing markets were once virtually identical, they've now begun to diverge as employment prospects have changed in certain parts of the country.
While an oversupply of housing remains an obstacle for a housing market recovery, the lack of demand will be the more immediate issue going forward, Duncan says.
"There's been a focus on the supply side, but no one wants to buy. The level of application activity has been flat," he said. "From our perspective, it's really a demand problem going forward."
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The incremental improvement the market has seen is largely thanks to investors, Duncan said, who can circumvent the mortgage minefield and pay for properties in cash.
Only a significant improvement in the jobs picture—to the tune of 300,000 jobs a month—will help drive lagging household formation, which has been on the decline for decades now, and drum up demand for housing. "We're expecting 150,000 [jobs added] tomorrow," Duncan said of the Labor Department's jobs report. "That's not robust enough to dramatically improve the employment picture."
How will we know we have a "normal" housing market again?
"I define it when construction returns to the level that would see additions to the housing stock to accommodate [demographic] growth," Duncan said.
Until then, the United States will likely remain plagued by too much supply and too little demand for housing.
"The headline on housing is [there will be] a little bit of improvement, but this is not the year in which housing is going to break out," Duncan added.
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Distressed Home Sale Prices Drop 4.7 Percent in 2011 | Mortgage News | Daily National and State Headlines
CoreLogic has released its December Home Price Index (HPI) report showing that distressed sales home prices in the U.S. decreased 4.7 percent in 2011 (compared with December 2010). This year-end report shows that home prices continued the trend of year-end decreases, the fifth consecutive year with a decrease in the HPI. The HPI, excluding distressed sales, showed that home prices decreased by 0.9 percent in 2011, giving an indication of the impact of distressed sales on home prices in 2011.
The report also shows that national home prices including distressed sales decreased 1.4 percent on a month-over-month basis, the fifth consecutive monthly decline. However, the HPI excluding distressed sales posted its first month-over-month gain since July 2011, rising 0.2 percent.
The December drop in home prices follows a decline of 4.3 percent in November 2011, compared to November 2010. Excluding distressed sales, year-over-year prices declined by two percent in November 2011 compared to November 2010. Distressed sales include short sales and real estate-owned (REO) transactions.
“While overall prices declined by almost five percent in 2011, non-distressed prices showed only a small decrease. Until distressed sales in the market recede, we will see continued downward pressure on prices,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic.
Highlights of the HPI include:
►Including distressed sales, the five states with the highest appreciation were: Montana (+4.4 percent), Vermont (+4.0 percent), South Dakota (+3.1 percent), Nebraska (+2.5 percent) and New York (+1.7 percent).
►Including distressed sales, the five states with the greatest depreciation were: Illinois (-11.3 percent), Nevada (-10.6 percent), Georgia (-8.3 percent), Ohio (-7.7 percent), and Minnesota (-7.5 percent).
►Excluding distressed sales, the five states with the highest appreciation were: Montana (+7.7 percent), South Dakota (+3.5 percent), Indiana (+3.3 percent), Alaska (+3.1 percent), and Massachusetts (+2.9 percent).
►Excluding distressed sales, the five states with the greatest depreciation were: Nevada (-9.7 percent), Minnesota (-5.2 percent), Arizona (-4.9 percent), Delaware (-4.2 percent) and Michigan (-3.5 percent).
►Including distressed transactions, the peak-to-current change in the national HPI (from April 2006 to December 2011) was -33.7 percent. Excluding distressed transactions, the peak-to-current change in the HPI for the same period was -24.0 percent.
►The five states with the largest peak-to-current declines including distressed transactions are Nevada (-60.0 percent), Arizona (-51.9 percent), Florida (-50 percent), Michigan (-43.7 percent), and California (-43.5 percent).
►Of the top 100 Core Based Statistical Areas (CBSAs) measured by population, 81 are showing year-over-year declines in December, one more than in November.
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January 20, 2012
2012 State of the industry
October Research has published there 2012 "State of the Industry". It is available for free at http://www.thetitlereport.com/TTR/IndustryReport2012.aspx . It contains sections about:
Real Estate
Gradual housing recovery expected, but sleeper issues creeping up
Title Insurance
Distressed market to define title insurance business in 2012
Homebuilders
Homebuilders in 2011: Bubble states hold down housing starts
Mortgage
Consumer confidence improves, but mortgage markets remain constricted
Appraisal
Appraisal industry battles continue into 2012
Settlement Services Law
Business-changing issues loom in 2012
RESPA
RESPA in 2012: The evolution of a titan
The Dodd-Frank Act
Dodd-Frank in 2012: big issues, little certainty
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January 18, 2012
Fannie Mae Predicts 'Moderate Growth' in 2012
The U.S. economy is projected to grow 2.3 percent for the year, according to Fannie Mae’s Economics & Mortgage Market Analysis Group.
Growth will be affected by “fiscal policy issues and political economic uncertainty,” according to Fannie Mae.
The upcoming presidential election, the healthcare debate, and the sovereign debt crisis in the euro zone are three wild cards causing concern for Americans.
Recent improvements in employment have elevated consumers from their “summer rut,” and the housing market is showing some positive indicators, though movement is slow.
“We’re entering 2012 with decent momentum, especially on the employment side,” said Doug Duncan, Fannie Mae’s chief economist.
However, Duncan suggests this momentum will fade over the first half of this year amid “policy changes and challenges that involve the global economy, the domestic economy, and the housing sector.”
Duncan predicts “a year of moderate growth edging away from the 2011 threat of a double dip.”
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