Foreclosures-Refi

Foreclosure filings, which include default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions, were reported on 333,837 properties in April - a 9% decrease from the previous month and a 2% decrease from April 2009, RealtyTrac reports. One in every 387 U.S. housing units received a foreclosure filing during the month. Florida posted the nation’s third highest foreclosure rate, with one in every 182 properties receiving a foreclosure filing, despite monthly and annual decreases in foreclosure activity.


Refinancing borrowers overwhelmingly chose fixed-rate loans in the first quarter, regardless of whether their original loan was an adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) or a fixed-rate mortgage, according to Freddie Mac's quarterly Product Transition Report.

While 30-year fixed-rate mortgages are still the most preferred product chosen for the new loan, 15-year fixed-rate mortgages gained favor among refinancing borrowers who previously held 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, balloon mortgages and ARMs. Overall, fixed-rate loans accounted for more than 95% of refinance loans during the quarter.

Interest rates on 30-year and 15-year fixed-rate products averaged 5% and 4.38%, respectively, in Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey, Freddie Mac’s vice president and chief economist, Frank Nothaft, says. The average initial rate on a 5/1 hybrid arm was 4.2%.

HAMP

The Treasury Department released April data for the administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) Monday, showing that permanent modifications have been initiated for 299,092 struggling homeowners. That’s an increase of 68,000 or almost 13 percent over March.


Of the nearly 300,000 permanent loan restructurings granted, 3,744 have been cancelled. Eighty-one of those cancellations occurred because the borrower paid off the loan. The remaining are the result of re-defaults.

Credit Score

The Senate yesterday approved by a voice vote an amendment by Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) to require that credit reports include the numerical score, which by the most common measure ranges from 300 to 850, the New York Times reported yesterday. Obtaining the actual score from the major credit reporting bureaus that calculate them typically costs up to $15.95 for each score. Udall?s proposal was one of several amendments addressed yesterday in the financial regulations bill, which may be wrapped up later this week. By voice vote, the Senate also approved an amendment to ease proposed restrictions that critics said would cut off angel investing, in which individual investors provide start-up capital to small businesses that typically do not have access to more traditional financing. The original bill included provisions intended to root out fraud, including a 120-day waiting period for certain investors to allow for a review by the Securities and Exchange Commission, but supporters of the amendment said the restrictions would block crucial start-up capital. The Senate also approved an amendment by Senator John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.V.) that preserves the existing authority of the Federal Trade Commission in enforcing consumer protection laws and requires the commission to coordinate with a new consumer financial protection bureau that would be created by the regulatory legislation.

Federal Mortgage Program

The government’s loan modification program has helped about 300,000 defaulting households get permanent new loans, according to federal data released yesterday, but that is only a small fraction of the estimated four million households in danger of foreclosure and of the 1.7 million households that the governments thinks would qualify for the program, the New York Times reported today. Started only a year ago, the Making Home Affordable Program already seems to be running low on applicants. The number of borrowers that enrolled in the trial phrase in April was only about a third of the number that signed up in September. More than 637,000 households are now in the trial phase of the program, during which borrowers need to consistently make their payments. Many in that phase do not survive to a full modification, when a permanent new loan is secured. The number of failed trials, 278,000, is nearly as great as the number of successful ones.

Linkedin- my link

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/carol-lawson/19/b9b/62a

Case Law Update

In re Strausbough, 2010 WL 1172601 (Bankr. E.D. Mich. Mar. 25, 2010) (Rhodes): A Chapter 13 plan filed on behalf of one spouse can void the lien of a totally unsecured mortgage on property owned by the debtor and his non-filing spouse as tenants by the entireties.

I'm buying this book for my son any one  use it before?


the Original Summer Bridge Activities: Bridging Grades Prekindergarten to Kindergarten

Carson-Dellosa Publishing Company, Incorporated
December 19, 2009
ISBN13: 9781604188172
ISBN: 1604188170
BINC: 3045281

Chapter 7 preferred over Chapter 13

Homeowners in 2008 and 2009 seem to have realized three things: 1) home prices are not going up anytime soon; the "crisis" is a long-term change in the housing and mortgage markets; 2) they are not going to get a loan modification; the Administration's projected numbers of those who would be helped by HAMP and HARP were fanciful (dare I say "misleading"?); and 3) they simply cannot make their mortgage payments in a world where overtime is being eliminated, unemployment is a fear or reality, increased tax burdens loom as states and localities can't make ends meet, and many other costs remain high (gas, health care, etc.) Many people had these realizations in 2008, and many more had them in 2009. Each year, the share of chapter 13 filings plummeted. And all this, despite BAPCPA's purported intent of driving up chapter 13 filings and making people pay more of their debts.

Cool Chart

http://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/bankruptcy_data/

Bankrupptcy Filings Up

U.S. bankruptcy filings resumed their upward climb in the first quarter, nearly equaling their highest level since 2005, as high unemployment and a still-strained housing market squeezed consumers.


There were 388,148 filings between January and September, up 17 percent from 330,394 a year earlier, according to data released Friday by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Consumer filings rose 18 percent to 373,541, while business filings edged up 2 percent to 14,607.

Filings also rose 4 percent from last year's fourth quarter, the government data show. That had been the first period with a quarter-to-quarter drop in filings since 2006.