End to Robo Signing Causes New York Foreclosures to Plunge
New York foreclosures are now in a record plunge, thanks to the government’s robo signing moratoriums. However, experts say that the report is not actually good news for homeowners at risk of losing their homes, because the decrease in New York foreclosures due to end of robo signing, is just temporary. Robo signing was widespread industry practice that was in violation of state laws and regulations. When it was discovered at their institutions, many lenders immediately stopped all foreclosure practices while they made the necessary corrections. Experts agree that economic factors were not the reason for the plunge in New York foreclosure rates, since unemployment is still high and consumer spending is still low. This means that the drop in the number of repos was likely caused by the banks stopping foreclosures.
Many banks have already restarted the home foreclosure process. One in particular, Bank of America, which is amongst the largest home lenders in the country, has come forwarded recently and announced that it was ending its moratorium. Rochester foreclosures have already shown an increase with a change of 26.22% change from November to December 2010. Now that the temporary suspension is ending, it is likely that most homeowners in trouble will still lose their homes. The number of people who took advantage of the time available, to work on loan modifications and short sales was insignificant. This is causing expert analysts to foresee an accelerated increase in New York foreclosures in the first quarter of 2011, as things start to return to normal. Meanwhile, New York cities are already showing signs of the process beginning again. Kingston foreclosures are at 17.06% and Bay Shore foreclosures are at 10.53% during the November to December 2010 time period.
However, there are New York cities that are still on the decrease in their numbers 
with Middletown foreclosures at -18.18% and Syracuse foreclosures at -2.69% from the months of November to December 2010. Showing that the repossessions of homes are still slowing in these areas as foreclosure filings are remaining down. New York courts were the first in the nation to order bank attorneys handling foreclosures to take steps to guarantee the process was being done correctly and to verify the accuracy of their own documentation. This ruling was in direct response to the disclosure of the errors in banks robo signing during the foreclosure process of homes. New York is not the only state which has experienced this problem with foreclosures, the trouble is widespread and in every state. New York rates third in population for U.S. states and is one of the 23 states that require the courts to approve any home foreclosure. It has been reported that all states need to review foreclosure paperwork better to detect problems. As the necessary corrections are made to the defects in the integrity of foreclosures, the fillings will once again increase in these New York cities that are still showing a recent decrease.
With New York foreclosures now showing no more delays in their proceedings since lawyers have been stating in writing that they reviewed all the documents, the number of foreclosure is expected to increase again during 2011. The jump will only make the weak housing market remain in trouble as more homeowners lose their homes, and cannot qualify to purchase another one. The good news in New York State is that as of Friday, December 2010, no one had yet won the Mega Millions Lottery, worth an estimated $290 million. A winner choosing the cash option, before taxes would have $182 million. New York also has a new Governor, Andrew Cuomo, who took office on January 1, 2011.
