One of the big arguments against Gretchen Morgenson’s quasi-defense of Ed DeMarco and the implications of principal reductions on Fannie and Freddie loans was that surely nobody is suggesting that the GSEs write down their primary loans while the second liens are kept intact. But in fact that is the argument, according to DeMarco himself: [...]

One of the things I looked at in an earlier installment of the foreclosure fraud settlement documents is how banks can satisfy their obligations by modifying mortgages they don’t own. HUD again tried to push back on this with a blog post about “myths v. facts” in the mortgage settlement (I’ll just say that I’ve [...]

Here’s the second installment in the review of the foreclosure fraud settlement documents. Exhibit D in this document lays out the menu for credits toward the settlement. When we talk about credits, the federal government and state AGs want you to assume that means a set amount of principal reductions that the banks will grant. [...]

According to the Wall Street Journal, the foreclosure fraud settlement could finally get released today. Nick Timiraos goes through the “trade-offs” in the settlement, which seem to only go in one direction, with state and federal officials easing off the banks in exchange for the hope of more “relief” for borrowers. I documented this yesterday [...]

Fresh off his Daily Show appearance, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan announced that Bank of America will provide additional assistance to homeowners under the as-yet undisclosed foreclosure fraud settlement. BofA will write down to market value, according to Donovan, over 200,000 loans that correspond to certain criteria: if the homeowners are underwater, delinquent by more than [...]

You would think that the Administration would try to master how to deliver relief to struggling borrowers who need the help before moving on to another sector of the housing industry. But you would be wrong. Instead, Bloomberg reports that the Administration will open up the failed HAMP program to real estate speculators who got [...]

One of the responses you often get from official sources about the failed HAMP program is that it was but one of a string of programs implemented using TARP funds to help homeowners. So just because HAMP has used barely $3 billion of the $50 billion in available funds, that’s not a full picture, because [...]

The Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, is now three years old. In that time, not one sanction has been placed on servicers for noncompliance with program guidelines, despite multitudes of documented evidence of abuse. I don’t think I have to go into all the different cases; just Google “Portrait of HAMP Failure. The Treasury [...]

One thing that I’ve been pointing out is that the best estimate by HUD and other federal and state boosters of the foreclosure fraud settlement is that it will help 1 million underwater borrowers get principal reductions. That represents a little less than 10% of the total underwater borrowers in the country. The latest data [...]

House Democrats continue to push the Federal Housing Finance Agency to offer principal reductions on loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, one of the biggest things that can be done to further an economic recovery. In a letter organized by Rep. Zoe Lofgren, 116 Democrats, a majority of the caucus, urged FHFA Chair [...]

Well, here’s an interesting report that might have been good to have in hand a few weeks ago. The National Association of Consumer Advocates, the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys and the National Consumer Law Center have released the results of a survey showing that “mortgage servicers continue to initiate foreclosure proceedings improperly, either [...]