“For the last few years, the number of Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (HECM) in default from a failure to pay taxes and insurance has been hot topic for debate at events around the country. Estimates from industry experts typically put the number around 10,000, but a new report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Inspector General says there are nearly 13,000 such loans.”
Archive for August, 2010
“Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has charged Coppell, Texas-based American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc. (AHMS) with using illegal debt collection tactics and improperly misleading struggling homeowners. According to state investigators, AHMS collections agents used aggressive and unlawful tactics to collect payments from Texas homeowners who had difficulty meeting their payment obligations. The defendant also failed to credit homeowners who properly submitted their payments on time.”
“If you combine those who are renters and those who have zero mortgage debt, these two groups would make up the majority of households in the U.S. Renters will definitely benefit because they can purchase homes at a lower price without going into incredible amounts of debt. Instead of blowing a large part of their income on the mortgage, they can use freed up disposable income to actually spend in the real economy… Those who have paid off their house win either way. If home prices fall, they will get less for their home but at the same time, other home prices will fall so they can purchase a home at an adjusted level. Many of these people are not looking to move so either way it is a moot point. The only people that are obsessed with home values are those who are now real estate speculators.”
“JPMorgan recommends remaining overweight in MBS because investors are being “well compensated” for prepayment uncertainty.”
““In our opinion, the goals of the efforts to reorganize Freddie and Fannie should be to promote the availability and stability of mortgage finance for the core of the housing market while minimizing systemic risk and costs to taxpayers. Any new structure should be designed to be resilient over the business cycle so that mortgage financing neither dries up during periods of market stress nor expands excessively during periods of market ebullience”.”
Homeowners with a Citigroup home loan may have found that mortgage modifications have reportedly increased over the past months. There have been reports that the number of permanent home loan modifications are on the rise for many mortgage servicers, like Citigroup, but there are also those who feel that this mortgage assistance program is only benefiting mortgage servicers and may be unhelpful for homeowners in need.
Homeowners complain of the amount of trial modifications that are canceled by various lenders, like Citigroup, are a main cause of many homeowners’s troubles. These cancellation numbers have been released from the Making Home Affordable servicer report and according to the July report, the total number of cancellations of trial modifications for homeowners with Citigroup is at 77,502 homeownwers, which is up from 68,818.
Many believe that this is one of the main causes of problems with the program and points to the program’s ineffectiveness as proof. There are many homeowners who are unable to benefit from this modification program due to the fact that they are either denied a modification or cannot meet the payment requirements of the trial period if they are granted a temporary modification.
There is a glimmer of hope though as some of these homeowners are getting alternative payment plans after being denied a modification. So these homeowners who have been denied a modification have been able to enter alternative modification programs, alternative payment plans, or have taken advantage of short sale and deed in lieu of foreclosure plans.
While there are many critics of the modification program, and difficulties and troubles between lenders and homeowners have been well documented, there are opportunities for some homeowners to gain assistance through the Making Home Affordable Program. Countless homeowners still struggle to find the help they need and many are denied the assistance they are seeking through a modification plan, there are home loan modifications and alternative payment options available that may help some keep their home. It’s understood that no mortgage servicer is perfect, but homeowners have various options which may be used in order to prevent the loss of their home or allow them to simply avoid the foreclosure process if they are unable to continue to afford their home.
Homeowners with J.P. Morgan Chase who have been struggling to make the mortgage payment have become reliant upon the Making Home Affordable modification program in order to make their home loan more affordable. However, there have been troubles between homeowners and many mortgage servicers as home loan modification trial periods are being canceled, leaving some homeowners wondering what to do next.
According to the July Making Home Affordable servicer report, J.P. Morgan Chase had canceled 74,486 trial modifications. This number is through the month of June and is up from 58,605 cancellations in trial modifications which was reported in the June Making Home Affordable servicer report which was current through the month of May.
Many homeowners are quite angry at the majority of mortgage servicers in the Home Affordable Modification Program. There are those who believe that lenders are not doing all they can to help homeowners who are struggling but lenders counter that many homeowners are either unable to pay their mortgage payment during the trial modification period, have submitted improper paperwork, or have a low debt to income ratio which disqualifies them from assistance.
Homeowners who have been struggling to make their mortgage payments are finding that they redefault in some cases even when a mortgage modification is offered. However, despite the fact that alternative modification plans and alternate payment arrangements were sometimes given to homeowners who are disqualified from the trial modification program, homeowners believe more needs to be done.
Foreclosure prevention and alternative efforts have been launched through various programs but homeowners still continue to struggle when it comes to their mortgage payments. Unemployment and the simple lack of financial means to afford their home has caused a great deal of strain on the part of homeowners who are just trying to keep their head above water. Many believe that only by altering modification programs or offering assistance which is more affordable to troubled homeowners will foreclosures be more widely prevented and homeowners will be able to keep their homes until better economic times arise.
Smartphone applications or as there are better-known, apps, are used by millions of smartphone users everyday. There are many programmers and developers who are working on new apps in order to either simplify smartphone users’ lives, assist men and women in the day-to-day use of their smartphone, to gather information, or simply as a way to make money by offering smartphone users a fun, useful, or interesting application.
However, programming smartphone applications is not something that many are able to do since the majority of smart phone users are not computer programmers. However, there are classes that are becoming more popular at universities that can teach individuals how to program smartphone applications to do almost anything they can imagine.
Yet, Google, according to reports, is said to be embarking upon what can only be described as an inspired piece of programming which would allow anyone to create a smartphone application. The way they are going about allowing smart phone users to create applications is by, obviously, creating an application.
In a move that many are calling genius, Google has set to bring smartphone users who may not have a background in programming an application that will allow the average smartphone user to program their own app. This application for Android is currently said to be in a beta test phase and a professor from MIT has been working closely on the project with Google.
While the current homemade application creator for the Android is said to be only for smartphone users who create the ads and unavailable for upload, it’s hoped that in the near future users can create their apps and sell them to others if they wish. While it’s unlikely that any individuals who are using this create-and-app application will be creating anything groundbreaking soon, it’s felt that applications like this for smartphone users who may have ideas for apps will provide a foundation on which they can cultivate these ideas.
Many homeowners have faced the problem of losing value in their home and as a result there have been those who are left owing more on their home than their home is worth. However, there have been a select few lenders who have offered principal reductions for homeowners who are in a difficult position with their underwater mortgage.
Some mortgage lenders like Bank of America and Citigroup were reported to be working to reduce homeowners’ principal amounts when a homeowner was suffering from an underwater mortgage, but there are more lenders who have been hesitant to offer reductions in mortgage principals. While Bank of America and Citigroup haven’t been the only banks to use principal reductions nor have they offered principal reductions on a wide scale, there are rising requests from homeowners that more be done.
There have been mortgage servicers who have extended a mortgage principal reduction from earned principal forgiveness programs. In some cases, homeowners were offered a reduction in their mortgage principal over time if they continued to make mortgage payments, but this again isn’t something every lender has used.
Mortgage principal forgiveness plans may not be available to every homeowner or in every case of devaluation on a home, but there may be alternate paths a homeowner may take if their underwater mortgage is burdensome. For instance, underwater refinancing opportunities may be available to some from the Home Affordable Refinance Program or a new FHA initiative.
Yet, with home values either still falling in some areas of the nation or slow to recover in others, homeowners and analysts alike feel that more solutions must be presented in the case of underwater mortgages. There are those who feel home prices were inflated and, as a result, the severity of these underwater mortgages is causing a great deal of financial strain on homeowners. Many believe that in order to bring home prices back in line to where they should be, lenders must reduce or forgive mortgage principals on homes where the loss of value has been extreme.
Credit card debt is something that is common among many Americans since more and more people are becoming reliant upon their credit in order to make purchases. While credit card debt is something that causes problems for many, there are reports that credit card debt for consumers has dropped to the lowest it has been in years.
However, many Americans who still owe a great deal on their credit cards are looking for ways in which they can erase their credit card debt faster. While there are not a wide variety of ways for an individual to erase debt, there are methods which many have used to make paying off their debt much easier and faster.
Many cardholders seek debt relief programs which will allow them to erase their debt, but there are few cardholders who can simply have their credit card debt forgiven. Yet, certain repayment plans can be quite affordable and allow the cardholder to get out of debt not only faster but at less cost overall.
Some credit card holders turned to consolidation loans in order to group various credit card debts into one lump sum. This can be beneficial and has been used by many but time and costs need to be considered when consolidations are in play. A consolidation loan, obviously, comes with a higher principle amount than separate credit card debts so it could take longer to repay when interest is factored in. Credit cardholders who are interested in getting out of debt quickly and at less cost overall will either have to avoid a consolidation loan or pay more than the minimum requirement on their loan so that they may erase this debt fast.
Others have simply attacked their credit card debt separately and, when done properly, many have seen their credit card debt disappear in a short period of time. Some cardholders will attack their credit card debt from the highest interest debt to the smallest or from the smallest amount owed to the highest. This will require strict financial discipline and, for those who have used this method in the past, it will necessitate smart budgeting and the cessation of credit card use until these debts are under control.
No matter the method a cardholder uses in dealing with their credit card debt, those who have been successful over the past months have simply made it a point to pay more than the minimum requirement on their debt so as to avoid interest building up on their principle amount and costing them more overall. Interest rates and timeframes of repayment are what must be considered in order for any credit card holder to quickly erase their debt at as low of a cost as possible.