The CA Senate’s Banking and Financial Institutions committee is meeting this afternoon to consider SB729. If ultimately passed and signed into law, this bill would have dramatic impact on how foreclosures are conducted in California. Read the rest of this article »

When a homeowner misses one payment, they are technically in default on that loan. Does the lender immediately start a foreclosure (as they are legally entitled to do)? Of course not – they try to work it out with the homeowner, have the homeowner pay some late fees and get a ding on their credit record. But what happens when several payments are missed? Now what?

In today’s world, this is the common starting point for the homeowner who starts trying to get a loan mod.  There seems to be a pervasive sense that once I’ve start to apply for a loan mod, the lender won’t foreclosure on me. WRONG! Read the rest of this article »

Looking at one month of foreclosure activity for Ventura County shows a different skew than the longer term trend of the quarterly reports of the last few years.

Foreclosure activity for March on the monthly graph shows an increase over February. Compare that foreclosure activity to the 1st quarter results for 2011 and you’ll see some fluctuation but an overall downward trend for the last 18 months.

The house (controlled by Republicans) made a basically symbolic vote yesterday to repeal the Obama administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), but a number of Democrats also voted with the Republicans. Why? The loan mod program isn’t working.

Set up to use TARP funds at the height of the housing/financial crisis, the intent was to help 3 – 4,000,000 troubled homeowners modify their loans so they could stay in their homes. But as you read my previous post (“Loan mods and drama in BK court this morning”) loan mods have been virtually impossible to navigate.

With the Dems in control of the Senate and Obama certainly not willing to kill his own program, I don’t see much chance of HAMP being killed off. Rather, what I see is renewed pressure from the fed on the servicers to get their act together. That pressure is literally on today as the fed and the 50 states’ attorneys general meet with representatives of the 5 largest banks to start on negotiations to mitigate loan mods, short sales and foreclosure processes.

I saw first hand the failure of the loan mod “game” and its consequences played out in bankruptcy court this morning.

Two separate cases. Two separate homeowners pleading their story before the judge. One party has lived in her home 37 years. The other party is retired. Notwithstanding the factors or judgment (good or bad) that got them to this point in the first place (used their home as an ATM machine?), both cases revolved around huge frustrations both parties had trying to pursue a loan mod.

In the first case, the lender’s attorney was trying to get a Relief From Stay motion against the retired couple which would allow the lender to foreclosure on their home. Standing at the podium next to her was the couple. The husband was highly frustrated, trying to explain to the judge a litany of issues they’d encountered in dealing with their lender. The judge was patient and understanding, but ultimately said her experience on the court was that the bank’s left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing.

She then made I thought a great decision. She made the attorney standing there personally responsible for handling this couple’s issues with the bank. The couple was told to send 2 month’s payments by the end of this week to the bank’s attorney, told the attorney to give them her business card, and basically told the couple this attorney was now the official representative of the bank. Great!

The other case was sad. The woman was sobbing at the podium. The judge had the bailiff give her a box of tissues, but ultimately, I believe she will lose her home. But she had the same horrible experience of attempting to get a loan mod. Her frustration was heart wrenching, but there was little the judge could do but explain her time line of how her case would play out in the next couple of months.

These 2 cases underlined for me on a micro scale what’s happening today on the macro scale in Washington as theses issues are being hashed out – first, the meeting between the 5 largest banks (the “servicers”) and the fed plus the 50 states’ attorneys general on the whole foreclosure, loan mod situation; two – the House voting yesterday to repeal the HAMP program because it’s not working; and three – the FDIC ruling that future loans banks sell into the secondary market (without the banks keeping some “skin in the game”) must have 20% or greater down payments.

Not much comfort for the 2 parties I saw this morning in bankruptcy court.

Should principal balances on mortgages be reduced for homeowners who can’t (or won’t) make their payments?

That’s a big question facing the 5 largest servicers (read BofA, Wells Fargo, Chase, Citi and Ally Financial) on Wednesday. As part of the effort to clean up the robo-signing mess in states that have judicial foreclosures, the attorneys general of the 50 states plus the fed issued a 27 page “Settlement Terms” document that is intended to provide more safeguards of procedural rights for the foreclosure process.

But a part of this document (see paragraph VI – Monetary Relief) has a single paragraph that states “a substantial portion of monetary relief shall be dedicated by Servicer to support an enhanced program of sustainable loan modifications including principal reductions.”

This concept is causing a raging philosophical debate. Is it fair or right for a homeowner to have his debt reduced while his underwater neighbor is still making payments on his negative equity? Let’s see what Wednesday brings…

Foreclosure activity for January was showing a downward trend. Check out the continuing declining trend of  foreclosures for February on this 12 month graph.

The quarterly trends will be updated after the end of first quarter ending in March.

For more detail of the month to month activity of foreclosures in Ventura County for 2010, you’ll see on the monthly chart that Notice of Defaults and Notice of Trustee Sales are again on the upswing and the Trustee’s Deeds (foreclosure complete) have a bit of fluctuation.

However, stepping back and looking at the broad trend of foreclosure activity on a quarterly basis since 2005 in Ventura County, the number of foreclosed homes is on the downward trend.  There were two spikes in the number of foreclosures both in the March and June quarters of 2008 with an even stronger spike in 2009. Check this out on quarterly chart!

Foreclosure stats are in for November for Ventura County. The quarterly graph tracks foreclosures since March of 2005. Check it out!

The 12 month graph shows the Notice of Default trending upward a bit while the Notice of Trustee Sales jumped from 407 to 578 in November. The Trustee’s Deeds (REOs) are trending slightly downward.

Ventura county foreclosure stats are in for October and the numbers are dramatically down from September – most likely due to the lenders’ moratorium. Check out the graphs for quarterly comparison since 2005 and the 12 month chart.