Published Monday, September 19, 2011 @ 8:51 am

The big news recently seems to be rising unemployment, with jobs coming back into focus as yet another election season begins to heat up. But a recent jump in another bad economic bellwether—home foreclosures—is a new cause for concern in these uncertain economic times.

According to a latest reports, the number of mortgage-default notices filed by banks climbed 33 percent between July and August — the biggest single-month increase in four years, according to the data provider RealtyTrac.…

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Published Saturday, June 18, 2011 @ 8:21 am

It’s no secret that a big reason for our country’s lingering financial malaise is the real estate market’s seemingly unending mortgage crisis—forcing many Americans out of house and home while also contributing to a bleak economic environment for home purchases, investment and spending.

But along with the knowledge that the mortgage servicing industry foreclosed on more than one million homes last year and is on track to do better in 2011, comes more bad news for the beleaguered economy: high unemployment is now further dragging down the housing market and subsequent prospects for our country’s economic recovery.…

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Published Tuesday, May 24, 2011 @ 5:49 pm

While many are led to believe that filing for bankruptcy can kill your credit score, it turns out missing a single mortgage payment—a common symptom of recent economic malaise—may be just as deadly to your credit’s near future.

According to a recent article from The New York Times, “Missed mortgage payments, serious loan delinquencies, loan modifications, short sales, foreclosures and bankruptcies all drag down credit scores.…

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Published Monday, April 4, 2011 @ 5:37 pm

In 2010, the President Obama reworked his $75 billion foreclosure prevention plan. The second incarnation of the Home Affordable Modification Program (or HAMP) added new incentives to help those hardest hit by the housing crisis, targeting homeowners who were unemployed or underwater in their mortgages (i.e., folks owing more on their loans than their homes were worth).…

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Published Saturday, January 22, 2011 @ 7:24 am

In 2010, the Obama administration reworked its $75 billion Home Affordable Modification Program (AKA “HAMP”) in an attempt to better help those hardest hit by the housing crisis: homeowners who were unemployed or underwater in their mortgages (i.e., owing more on their loans than their homes are worth). Within these changes, (1) the unemployed could qualify for up to a six month stay on their mortgage payments;  (2) in turn, participating banks would receive financial incentives to reduce mortgage balances for underwater homeowners; and (3) lenders could refinance mortgage loans secured by the Federal Housing Administration.…

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Published Monday, January 3, 2011 @ 8:51 am

Despite an apparent uptick in consumer confidence this during the latter part of 2010, no one is buying the idea that the housing market—a major cause for this decade’s economic meltdown—is getting better anytime soon. In fact, according to U.S. Bank regulators, the country’s home foreclosures actually spiked in the third quarter as banks and other mortgage lenders became less inclined to help Americans stay in their homes as the housing market continues to struggle.…

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Published Friday, December 17, 2010 @ 9:44 pm

In the midst of a record number of foreclosures, inattentive banks riddled with an ever-growing wave of scandal and a widely held mistrust of the financial industry, Raleigh based State Employees Credit Union has won major kudos from customers all across the state for their handling of homeowners’ struggles throughout the recession.…

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Published Wednesday, December 8, 2010 @ 11:56 am

A program designed to help American homeowners stay afloat during the tsunami of foreclosures is starting to take on water, according to a committee of Washington Republicans assigned to overseeing White House programs.

Announced not long after it became readily apparent that a major national financial crisis was at hand, the Obama Administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, offered mortgage lenders financial incentive for restructuring customers’ payment plans.…

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Published Friday, November 12, 2010 @ 10:36 am

As has been well reported, mortgage modifications in the current housing market remain hard to come by. But what is less well known is that even for many lucky enough to modify their current house payments, the financial future is far from safely sheltered.  According to a recent report, more than 50 percent of homeowners who received mortgage modifications were at least two mortgage payments behind within a single year’s time, yet again making them vulnerable to perils of foreclosure.  The report also showed that approximately one-third of homeowners who received mortgage modifications that reduced their monthly payments by 20 percent or more had fallen behind again within a year compared to 60 percent for borrowers whose loan payments were left unchanged or increased.…

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Published Thursday, September 2, 2010 @ 10:36 am

Imagine for a moment that you’ve fallen on hard times. You’ve gotten one, two, or maybe more payments than you can count behind on your mortgage. Your bank or mortgage lender has contacted you over and over, threatening you with talk of a foreclosure. You’ve even been told to expect a foreclosure sale in the coming month.…

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Published Wednesday, July 7, 2010 @ 8:53 am

News just moved from bad to worse for many homeowners seeking shelter under the Obama Administration’s Home Affordability Modification Program (otherwise known as HAMP).

Recent government figures show that the average beneficiary of the administration’s flagship homeowner-assistance program owes their mortgage lender more than $1.50 for every dollar their home is currently worth.…

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Published Monday, June 28, 2010 @ 6:52 pm

Only three months ago, the President Obama reworked his $75 billion foreclosure prevention plan. Part two of the Home Affordable Modification Program (or HAMP), put into play new incentives to help those hardest hit by the housing crisis, targeting homeowners who were unemployed or underwater in their mortgages (i.e., folks owing more on their loans than their homes are worth).…

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Published Tuesday, May 18, 2010 @ 10:17 am

Just two months ago, the Obama administration reworked its troubled $75 billion foreclosure prevention plan. The revamped Home Affordable Modification Program (or HAMP), put into play an attempt to help those hardest hit by the housing crisis, targeting homeowners who were unemployed or underwater in their mortgages (owing more on their loans than their homes are worth).…

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Published Wednesday, March 31, 2010 @ 10:02 am

This week, amid groundbreaking health care legislation, many missed the Obama administration’s other big news: a major reworking of its troubled $75 billion foreclosure prevention plan. In an attempt to help those hardest hit by the housing crisis, the newly revamped program targets homeowners who are unemployed or underwater in their mortgages (owing more on their loans than their homes are worth).…

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Published Sunday, January 31, 2010 @ 6:10 pm

As the mortgage crisis continues on, ironically, President Obama seemed right at home at the podium during his 2010 State of the Union address just as millions of Americans face losing their home. As a result, many concerned citizens sought in the President’s national address any signs not only of “hope” or “change”—expressions made famous during his campaign days—but also second year specifics about what a new year would mean for the millions of average Americans, just like them, facing imminent foreclosure.…

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Published Tuesday, May 12, 2009 @ 5:20 pm

In a surprising move, the South Carolina Supreme Court on May 5th issued a temporary restraining order against thousands of lenders in the process foreclosing homes in the state. The court was acting in response to a request from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two federal mortgage giants charged with implementing the new Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), which is designed to give certain homeowners an opportunity to modify their mortgages to avoid foreclosure.…

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