The administration unveiled major expansions to its foreclosure prevention plan Friday. The new policies include principal write-downs for underwater mortgages, an FHA negative equity refinancing program, temporary assistance for unemployed homeowners, and larger incentives for short sales and deeds-in-lieu. Treasury officials say the new program enhancements will better align efforts to meet President Obama's goal of helping 3 to 4 million borrowers save their homes.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed AB 183, which will provide a tax credit of up to $10,000 to Californians who are buying their first home or purchasing a newly-built home. The bill gives the Franchise Tax Board authority to extend a total of $200 million in tax credits to California homebuyers--$100 million for first-time buyers of existing homes and another $100 million for buyers of new, unoccupied homes.
Data released this week by federal regulators show that 14 percent of all mortgages were non-performing at the end of 2009 and more than half of the loans modified in the first quarter of 2009 were delinquent again by the end of the year. With the continued deterioration in loan performance, the regulators says lenders' have stepped up home retention actions, but the report notes that servicers expect a larger number of mortgages to slip into foreclosure in the coming months as prevention options are exhausted.
State regulators have announced a 35-state settlement agreement with CitiFinancial, after a recent examination conducted by the Massachusetts Division of Banks found that the company failed to report 91,127 residential mortgage loans to the federal government as required by the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). As part of the agreement, CitiFinancial has agreed to pay a penalty totaling $1.25 million.
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