Free Republic

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said Thursday that he's trying to figure out how much money he made from controversial housing giant Freddie Mac and suggested he may release the information as early as Friday. Gingrich's comments, in an interview with Fox News' Greta Van Susteren, represent the latest shift in his campaign's response to a Bloomberg News story earlier this week that said the former House speaker made as much as $1.6 million from Freddie. Initially, the Gingrich campaign promised to release details about the payment, then appeared to back off that pledge. Freddie Mac and its sister quasi-governmental...

How do you foreclose on a home that doesn't exist? That's the question KRPC-TV in Houston asked Texas homeowner Brad Gana, whose home was destroyed by Hurricane Ike in 2008 while he was overseas (via AGBeat). Despite the the destruction, Gana continued to make mortgage payments on the property. Then, two days before Gana planned to sell the property, he learned the bank was foreclosing on it. What happened? Apparently, while Gana was making his regular payments, Bank of America had incorrectly placed a homeowner's policy on the non-existent property and additionally, increased his monthly mortage payments. Bank of America...

The sight of excavators tearing down vacant buildings has become common in this foreclosure-ravaged city, where the housing crisis hit early and hard. But the story behind the recent wave of demolitions is novel — and cities around the country are taking notice. A handful of the nation’s largest banks have begun giving away scores of properties that are abandoned or otherwise at risk of languishing indefinitely and further dragging down already depressed neighborhoods. The banks have even been footing the bill for the demolitions — as much as $7,500 a pop. Four years into the housing crisis, the ongoing...

I know a divorced lady who is upside down in her mortgage. Her employer has also been cutting back her hours and she was late last month making her payment. She financed through a bank that sold her mortgage in the secondary market to Bank of America. Bank of America refuses to talk to her about renegotiating her loan. Other than walking away, does she have any options? Thanx.

Bank of America increased foreclosures by nearly 200 percent in California between July and August. John Karevoll, an analyst with DataQuick told Patt Morrison that the bank is capitalizing on favorable laws in California and other states where a court order isn’t needed to repossess a home. “This is the rip-the-band-aid-off policy here," he said. "It’s basically just to go out there and plough through it and get rid of it.” Dan Frahm, the senior vice president of Bank of America Home Loans, says the recent upswing in foreclosures is due to a massive backlog. “Those foreclosures that have been...

The New Face of Foreclosure: Strategic Defaults By Laura Rowley Published September 19, 2011 Gene Kessler, 67, may be the new face of mortgage default. The tech industry retiree is in the process of walking away from the home he purchased for $166,000 in 2004 in a small town 75 miles southwest of Minneapolis. Its value has plummeted to $111,000, wiping out Kessler's $45,000 down payment and leaving him with a mortgage that's more than the home is worth. He stopped paying the loan six months ago, and estimates he'll have to vacate by March 2012.

American Banker’s Kate Berry has a fantastic piece of reporting today, under the headline “Robo-Signing Redux: Servicers Still Fabricating Foreclosure Documents”. Among her discoveries is this document, dated August 3, 2011, wherein Tonya Hopkins signed over a mortgage in her capacity as Assistant Secretary of Sand Canyon Corporation. The problem with this? Sand Canyon hasn’t been in the mortgage business since 2009, and Tonya Hopkins doesn’t work for Sand Canyon: she works for American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc.

Is the Housing Crisis Making Americans Sicker? 8/30/2011 1:43:42 PM Is the housing crisis making Americans sicker? New economic research suggests just that. The research found a direct correlation between foreclosure rates and the health of residents. Mitra Kalita explains on Lunch Break

Untangling the Foreclosure Mystery— Part 4 EXAMINING THE CASE OF ONE LOCAL “DEADBEAT” Commentary by Matt Gardi The last few weeks, in this newspaper, I have made an attempt to expose what is truly going on in the foreclosure process, and how it ties back to a myriad of other systematic issues affecting our daily lives. Last week, we touched on the fact that the court system is incentivized directly by the Banks that have caused this crisis. But I would be remiss if I did not mention the Foreclosure and Economic Recovery Plan, aka the “Rocket Docket.” In...

Providing fresh evidence that it is intellectually exhausted, the Obama administration is flirting with revisiting the mortgage-refinancing market. And like the semi-criminal scam that was the Home Affordable Mortgage Program, this new push is not really about helping out innocent bystanders crushed by the housing crash, but about the hundreds of thousands of market-massacring new foreclosures that are coming down the pipe — foreclosures that may be delayed, even if they are not prevented. The Committee to Reinflate the Bubble is in session. Banks are reasonably eager to refinance certain kinds of mortgages — what they lose in interest, they...

A power play is underway in the foreclosure arena, according to the New York Times. On the one side is Eric Schneiderman, the New York Attorney General, who is conducting his own investigation into the era of securitizations – the practice of chopping up assets like mortgages and converting them into saleable securities – that led up to the financial crisis of 2007-2008.On the other side is the Obama administration, the banks, and all the other state attorneys general.This second camp has cooked up a deal that would allow the banks to walk away with just a seriously discounted fine...

Eric T. Schneiderman, the attorney general of New York, has come under increasing pressure from the Obama administration to drop his opposition to a wide-ranging state settlement with banks over dubious foreclosure practices, according to people briefed on discussions about the deal. In recent weeks, Shaun Donovan, the secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and high-level Justice Department officials have been waging an intensifying campaign to try to persuade the attorney general to support the settlement, said the people briefed on the talks. Mr. Schneiderman and top prosecutors in some other states have objected to the proposed settlement with major...

“Boogie Nights” star Burt Reynolds may face foreclosure on his mansion in Florida soon, at risk of losing his 12,500 square foot home that he bought with his former wife, Loni Anderson. Reynolds has allegedly not made any mortgage payments on the home since September 1, 2010, causing Merrill Lynch Credit Corporation to file a lawsuit against him recently in Martin County, according to ABC. The actor originally bought the home for $1.5 million in 1994, taking out a 25-year mortgage from the company. Merrill Lynch is asking the judge to take away the 75-year-old star’s home to pay off...

FOLLOW THE LAWThat would be a sure-fire cure for our Economically Transmitted Disease [ETD]. MERS and their Banker pals are adroit enough to gobble up free homes, along with all the various "credit enancements" that go with it...but they aren't quite adroit enough to do it without breaking the law. Too bad for them.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration may turn thousands of government-owned foreclosures into rental properties to help boost falling home prices.

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is looking for new ideas to shrink a glut of foreclosed properties held by mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that are weighing down the housing market and hurting home prices. A "request for information" the administration is putting out doesn't endorse a particular long-term option to stabilize the housing market. Instead, it asks for input from those with private capital willing to work with the government on buying foreclosures and expanding access to rental properties. Another approach the White House is eyeing would allow investors to partner with Fannie and Freddie in...

The office of Nevada Senator Harry Reid will host a home foreclosure prevention workshop on from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday in Las Vegas at Consumer Credit Counseling Services, 2650 S. Jones.Struggling homeowners with a Bank of America loan in Nevada who attend the workshop will have the opportunity to sit down with a HUD-approved housing counselor and a representative from Bank of America to discuss the options that may be available to help avoid foreclosure.Those interested in attending must RSVP by sending an e-mail to foreclosureprevention_reid@reid.senate.gov or by calling Senator Reid’s Las Vegas office at 388-5020.Homeowners who attend the workshop should bring the following financial documents if requesting workout assistance from...

The U.S. Treasury Department joined the campaign to keep homeowners from foreclosure by promoting a new loan modification proposal, Bloomberg reported on July 20. The department said the proposal would prevent at least 1 million Americans from losing their homes. This initiative coincides with efforts made by the Obama administration to step up aid to homeowners and revive the housing market. President Obama announced the Making Homes Affordable program in 2009, setting a goal of 3 million to 4 million loan modifications by the end of 2012. To date, only 608,615 permanent loan modifications have been achieved, according to Bloomberg....

If someone you knew claimed to have bought a new house for $16, you'd probably expect it to be a rundown hovel. But for Kenneth Robinson, that princely sum could see him as the new owner of a $300,000 home in an well-manicured part of Flower Mound, Texas. On June 17, Mr Robinson took advantage of a little known Texas law to move into the abandoned home. The house had been in foreclosure for more than a year and its owner walked away. Then, the mortgage company went bust. Kenneth Robinson answers the front door at his $16 manse Kenneth...

If someone you knew claimed to have bought a new house for $16, you'd probably expect it to be a rundown hovel. But for Kenneth Robinson, that princely sum could see him as the new owner of a $300,000 home in an well-manicured part of Flower Mound, Texas. On June 17, Mr Robinson took advantage of a little known Texas law to move into the abandoned home. The house had been in foreclosure for more than a year and its owner walked away. Then, the mortgage company went bust. After months of research, Mr Robinson used the obscure law 'adverse...