2009 has been one of the most significant years in the default servicing industry to date. DS News would like to look back on the year that was, and the Foreclosure-related stories that were most read and left the biggest impact on viewers. The housing crash is about to come back with a vengeance, as 7 million new foreclosure properties are about to hit the market, analysts at Amherst Securities Group LP said this week - a huge shadow inventory that threatens to further destabilize a housing market that had shown signs of righting itself over the summer. Market observers say that loan modifications, legal wrangling, redefaults, and bank practices have delayed foreclosures, and that an undisclosed glut of homes is about to come to light.
A Wells Fargo senior VP responsible for foreclosed properties moved into a $12 million mansion in Malibu and turned it into an exclusive party pad just after the owners - a couple whose savings were wiped out in Bernie Madoff's ponzi scheme - surrendered the house to Wells to settle debts. The exec's free ride could spell disaster for Wells Fargo and its peers in the mortgage-lending industry -- and it could cost her her job ... and her freedom.
The Treasury Department announced this month that it is close to finalizing a widened incentive program to entice lenders and servicers to rely more on short sales as an alternative to foreclosure. Presumably, the Treasury is trying to help facilitate a transaction that will result in less loss to the lender than in the case of a foreclosure, the California-based John Burns Real Estate Consulting said in a recent research note that reacted to the news.
The despair and desperation that often accompanies a foreclosure seems to have gotten the best of one California couple - but it turned to outright violence when they kidnapped and beat the loan modification consultants they'd hired to help them.
Even as the industry is ramping up efforts to keep troubled borrowers in their homes, the latest market study from Lender Processing Services (LPS) shows that mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures remain alarmingly elevated. These growing numbers are adding to large "shadow" inventories of REOs, the company warned. Nearly one-third of foreclosures remain in pre-sale status after 12 months - twice as many as the year prior, LPS said, further adding to the threat of a shadow eclipse.
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