By Katie Buitrago, Woodstock Institute
The latest report on the Obama Administration’s foreclosure prevention program includes the news that Treasury has, for the first time, taken punitive action against servicers who exhibit...
Financial Products
The foreclosure crisis was spurred by the proliferation of higher-cost and high risk financing that was often targeted to borrowers and communities of color. These borrowers and neighborhoods have been disproportionately impacted by foreclosures and will need access to loan modifications and affordable mortgage loans if they are to stabilize and participate in any type of economic recovery.
In order to avoid as many foreclosures as possible, the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) and other federal foreclosure prevention programs must be made more efficient and expand their criteria to more effectively offer loan modifications to unemployed and underwater homeowners. The program has also suffered from slow implementation and a failure by servicers to quickly convert trial modifications into permanent modifications.
Additionally, neighborhoods need new home buyers to fill the holes left behind by foreclosure. However, demand is weak and credit for home purchasing is scarce, especially in the communities hardest hit by the crisis. Prospective home buyers need creative and sustainable loan products designed with current market realities in mind, such as down payment assistance, and housing counseling to help them buy and keep a home they can afford. Non-profit lenders such as Neighborhood Housing Services (NHS) of Chicago understand communities and specialize in making affordable loans. However, they need public and private leverage to expand their ability to lend to the broader Chicago region. Additionally, there is a need for banks to return to the hardest hit markets and make safe and affordable mortgages.
This page details the efforts of RHOPI partners to advocate for improvements to local and national foreclosure prevention programs and to expand access to mortgage credit for prospective homebuyers in communities hit hard by the foreclosure crisis.
Governor Pat Quinn announced the Illinois Housing Development Authority (IHDA) will receive $279.3 million in additional support from the Obama Administration to help homeowners struggling to make their mortgage payments due to unemployment.
The Obama Administration has also approved a plan from Illinois’ state housing finance agency, the Illinois Housing...
The foreclosure crisis is an opportunity to reorient housing strategies to focus on creating and supporting neighborhoods that offer residents an attractive place to live. The Building Resilient Regions Network, funded by the MacArthur Foundation through the University of California at Berkeley, is developing applied knowledge about how regions can be resilient in the face of significant...
Access to mortgage refinance loans sharply declined in communities of color and increased substantially in predominantly white neighborhoods, according to a report released today by a multistate coalition of groups.
These trends underline growing concerns about the dramatically divergent fortunes of communities of color that have been hit hard by the foreclosure and economic...
CheckMyNPV.com is a free tool provided by the United States Department of the Treasury, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development in conjunction with the Obama Administration's Making Home Affordable Program.
CheckMyNPV.com is designed to assist homeowners in conducting a net present value (NPV) evaluation of...
Three banks—Bank of America, Chase, and Wells Fargo—received punitive action from Treasury for failing to meet the standards of the Home Affordable Modification Program. The three servicers had their incentive payments for successful permanent modifications and short sales suspended for one quarter—and possibly longer, if they don’t shape up. We know that homeowners are...
Opportunity to comment on proposed mortgage rules ends Monday
Sameera Fazili of the U.S. Department of the Treasury explains the Administration's proposals to reform the housing finance system at a Woodstock Institute event.
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The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd- Frank Act) is intended, among other things, to reform residential mortgage lending and securitization practices that contributed to the recent financial crisis. The act provides some liability protection for lenders originating mortgages that meet nine specified criteria, as applicable, associated with a borrower's ability to...
The study examined mortgage delinquency and foreclosure rates among the owner-occupants of resale-restricted houses and condominiums in community land trusts (CLTs) across the United States and compared CLT results to rates of delinquency and foreclosure among the owner-occupants of conventional market-rate housing reported by the Mortgage Bankers Association’s National Delinquency...
by James Orr and Joseph Tracy
Federal Reserve Bank of New York
With unemployment very high, income loss is now the primary reason for mortgage default. Unemployed homeowners face tough choices. Those with equity in their house may attempt to sell it quickly. Alternatively, to keep their house while seeking a new job, they might deplete their savings, apply for a loan...