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The Departments of Treasury and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) released the August edition of their Housing Scorecard on Friday which painted a picture of slowly increasing home prices and decreasing foreclosures while delinquencies increased. The Scorecard, issued jointly by the Departments of Treasury and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is largely a recap of data released by other sources such as the Census Bureau, S&P Case-Schiller, RealtyTrac and the National Association of Realtors...

The Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) has been subject to much criticism. To sum up the implementation and execution of the program in two words: GONG SHOW Loan servicers give on average three times more attention to delinquent borrower in their portfolio than they do on loans where they have no credit exposure, i.e. GSE or other Gov backed programs. WHY? The traditional compensation model for servicers is based on a flat percentage of a loans outstanding in the portfolio. On conventional...

U.S. mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are looking to more aggressively move loan workout duties to specialist firms as their frustrations with the big banks deepen. "Specialty servicers", who are in the business of deciding on whether it's more cost effective to bring a borrower current or liquidate the collateral at the smallest possible loss, are generally compensated in a way tied to how efficiently they control losses. There is economic motivation for specialty servicers to make the right decision for both the borrower and the bank....

Two Federal Reserve Economists suggest that the answers to arguments over the efficacy of new stripdown provisions for bankruptcy judges actually lie in the historical experience with Chapter 12 and the agricultural crisis of the 1980s....

The number of homeowners who completed HAMP's mandatory 90 day trial period and were converted into permanent load modification status rose 68,000 to 299,092 in April. This is a 13 percent increase over the number of permanent modifications reported up until the end of March. MND has discussed recent Administration initiatives to motivate servicers to play a bigger role in helping families save their homes, but we wonder if servicers are totally to blame or if the Administration is starting to scramble as the HAMP program may be close to helping all who are capable of being helped. ...

Bank representatives speaking to the House Financial Services Committee addressed the problem of second mortgages and boasted of the efforts their institutions were taking to alleviate the current foreclosure crisis....

MBA, ABA, AFSA and 11 state lending groups have expressed concern to HUD over proposed regulations that will require mortgage servicers to use licensed originators to handle loan modifications....

One in every 45 homes in the U.S. received some type of foreclosure filing during the year just ended, a situation that would have been even worse without actions from banks and the government according to a new RealtyTrac report. The obvious question that arises is: WILL GOVERNMENT LOAN MODIFICATIONS BE SUCCESSFUL? IS THERE ANOTHER WAVE OF FORECLOSURES LOOMING IN THE SHADOWS?...