Foreclosure Recap – Week #30
This is a new one. Everyone knows that in order to get a loan and in fact to even get a job now days, you need a great FICO score with the credit agency. It is how they determine if you might be a good risk or not. Well now there is a new measuring device for people to judge likelihood of foreclosure and they can even use this to give some sort of guess as to exactly when, given your current criteria you might be facing a foreclosure. It is called the FOPI score and that stands for Foreclosure Probability Index. It is using a bunch of counts and balances and comes up with a probability score that is fast becoming the industry standard. The article helps you understand the new system and there are links to see where you stand.
The Bank of America has made an announcement that offers to give some relief to foreclosed homeowners if they happen to be eligible for the plan. According to Bank of America spokespeople the loans were offered through Countrywide and the program will be available to some of those who suffered from foreclosure, short sale or deed-in-lieu of foreclosure. While not every state is involved in this, if you happen to live in one of the forty states that are, you are in luck. The ten states are not currently participating in the program, including: Alabama, Arkansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, South Carolina, Utah and Vermont.
From the Northwest Arkansas Times comes this story of a local high-end subdivision that has gone into agreement with its lender for a friendly foreclosure. Stone Mountain subdivision, which is a local and very upscale location is slated to go into foreclosure proceedings on August fifth of this year and will apparently do so in uncontested fashion. It appears that both sides have reached an agreement that they can live with and will make everyone somewhat happy.
As a statement of how things are going in California there is this story of how local homeowners are opting to remove and / or bury pools that are in the yards. This removes the danger from children getting hurt in them and removes the cost of upkeep, which can run into the hundreds of dollars per month. A lot of people have decided that having the additional real estate of a larger flat yard might be worth more in this market than having the expense and safety issues of a defunct and not used pool. In California a lot of areas are under a water crisis anyway so this makes sense and in many cases is actually boosting the price of the homes.
The state of Illinois has been holding hearings lately on foreclosures. It seems that almost every person that testified before the senate committee there said fairly much the same thing. That the current changes that are geared towards fixing and modifying the loan process and making things easier to get things amended and changed for the good of the mortgage holder simply is not working. Unemployment is growing and the number of foreclosures is far outdistancing the number of homeowners that are getting any kind of relief from the federal program.
The state of Arizona is trying to plug up a loop hole in it’s laws that make it too easy for people to just walk away from a foreclosed property. This has caused Arizona to be in dire straights when it comes to the foreclosure numbers. One of the reasons it’s so easy to walk away from the debt you owe on a home is that the lenders in many states are precluded from coming after you for any loss that they suffer when they foreclose and resell the home. It’s called anti-deficiency protection and to a lot of peoples’ surprise the Arizona legislature revoked the protection for certain buyers. This is aimed at making the numbers drop but we will see over time if it actually has that effect. You should review the information here because if it works well in Arizona it will likely be tried elsewhere.
Many of us have had to deal with the customer service lines at the mortgage and foreclosure companies. This article gives you some pointers that we all already know but sometimes forget. It is a concise review of how to get through the red tape and automated lines to actually speak to a human and then to be able to get past the initial contact person and on to their supervisor who is the one that can most likely help you where the first person you speak with can’t. They are more the first line of defense or buffer line and you need to get by them to get the job done.
If you are one of the many folks out there today that live in daily fear that the foreclosure knock could come on your door at any moment in time then this is a story that you need to review. Homeowners in St. Louis, Missouri, can avoid foreclosure, restructure home loans, and reduce mortgage rates with help from the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA). NACA will be holding a "Save the Dream" event at Chaifetz Arena on July 31-August 3, 2009. While this is not something all of us can benefit from since not everyone lives in St. Louis, it is worth looking at to see the options that are available.
Foreclosure fraud has become such a big business lately that most states either have or are considering enacting bills to protect the homeowners and prosecute the offender. The state of California is no exception and the story in the San Franciso Bay View gives some shocking details as to what is being done and what types of scams these companies and individuals try to pull to get the job done and part good hard working and scared individuals from the hard earned money they are using to try and save the family homes.
According to the Miami Herald, foreclosure rates in Florida in general and south Florida in particular are still some of the highest in the nation and unfortunately show little signs of a major slowdown. The Cape Coral/Fort Myers area ranks second in the country after Las Vegas. One in every 14 homes, or 7.2 percent of total housing units, was in some stage of the foreclosure process in the Cape Coral area on Florida’s west coast, compared to Las Vegas where the number was one in 13 homes, or 7.45 percent. This is not surprising news but it is still far from good and there is a long way to go before anyone could even consider calling the crises over.