Mitigating Foreclosure Losses

PMI Mortgage Insurance Co. has delegated authority to modify loans to servicers, an announcement last week said. The company issued new modification guidelines that define the criteria for loans to qualify for modifications.

FHASecure has refinanced 200,000 adjustable-rate subprime borrowers who could no longer afford their mortgages and missed no more than three payments over the past 12 months, HUD announced. Transaction volume at FHASecure, which helps borrowers “who are in the right house, but the wrong mortgage,” has surged during the past three months.

HUD said the Bush Administration’s FHASecure was designed to help hundreds of thousands of struggling borrowers, “especially low-income families and minorities.”

REOTrans LLC, which automates default management, reported its e-commerce Marketplace is handling 110,115 transactions daily. The network includes 4,090 sellers or asset managers, 6,025 Vendors and 254,874 real estate agents.

RealtyStore.com reported 17,307 notices-of-default were filed in Nevada during the first quarter, climbing by nearly one-third from the prior quarter and up 139 percent from a year earlier. Clark County, where Las Vegas is located, saw NODs double and accounted for 90 percent of the state’s foreclosures.

California saw 44,101 NODs during April, up slightly from March, ForeclosureRadar reported. The state had a record 29,892 new Notices of Trustee Sale filings, rising 7.8 percent. REOs, which are increasing inventories 1.36 times faster than they can resell them, numbered 22,324. Merced saw the biggest discounts offered of all counties reported, with Santa Barbara and Riverside trailing.

“The continued increases in defaults tell us that the worst is still ahead,” ForeclosureRadar founder Sean O’Toole said in the statement.

New Yorkers for Responsible Lending spoke to New York’s state legislature Monday calling for stronger measures in a pending foreclosure bill.

BGS3 said it mediates short-sale negotiations between borrowers and lenders. Real estate agents and brokers are trained and certified by the Louisville, Ky.-based firm.

“Bank loss mitigators are overloaded. They don’t have time to waste on bogus offers or incomplete paperwork,” a press release stated. “With BGS3, lenders don’t have to worry about low-ball offers from investors or ‘phantom buyers’ used just to kick off a short sale negotiation with the lender.”

HSBC north America provided a $1 million grant for Money Management International, which won NeighborWorks America’s 2008 Innovations in Homeownership Contest. The proceeds will be used to provide qualified borrowers with grants to pay outstanding debts and for one-on-one financial counseling sessions.