Consumerist
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bad advice
Homeowner Says Bank Told Him To Skip Payments, Then Foreclosed
When MC lost his second job he had trouble affording his $3,000 mortgage payment. He called his mortgage holder, Flag Star Bank, asking for a break, but the bank told him there was nothing it could do for him unless he skipped payments and submitted a loan modification package. More » -
crime
5 People Charged With Robbing And Torturing Mortgage Modification Agents
KTLA says that five people have been charged with torture, robbery and false imprisonment after luring two loan modification agents to a location and then holding them for hours, beating and robbing them before one escaped. More » -
mortgages
Homeowners With Good Credit Are More Likely To Strategically Default
Here's an interesting discovery about mortgage defaults from the LA Times:
More »Research using a massive sample of 24 million individual credit files has found that homeowners with high scores when they apply for a loan are 50% more likely to "strategically default" — abruptly and intentionally pull the plug and abandon the mortgage — compared with lower-scoring borrowers.
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loan modifications
"What Do I Do When My Lender Isn't Playing Fair With Loan Modification?"
Yesterday, the New York Times wrote about a judge in Arizona who forced Wells Fargo to explain why it keeps stalling and being uncooperative with a customer who has been trying to get a loan modification request approved. Sadly, in the past week we've gotten two separate emails from homeowners who are also having trouble with getting banks to approve their requests for the government-sponsored loan modifications. "Who can we contact to complain?" asks one frustrated customer. More » -
loan modifications
65% Of Modified Loans Will Default Again Anyway, Study Predicts
Many homeowners that couldn't afford their home the first time around, can't afford it the second or third, a new study finds. Fitch Ratings predicts that 55-65% of home loans getting modified will end up at least 60 days behind within a year. The percentage is even higher for those in subprimes... More » -
housing crisis
Report: Loan Modifications To Date Haven't Been That Effective
A new government report provides a reason why default rates for modified home loans have remained fairly high: in many cases, lenders aren't actually modifying the loans by very much.
Fewer than half of loan modifications made at the end of last year actually reduced borrowers' payments by more than 10 percent... [while] nearly one in four loan modifications in the fourth quarter actually resulted in increased monthly payments.
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farces
Citi "Homeowner Helper" Site Merely Potemkin Village?
Did Citi set up its "homeowner helper" site to comply with Obama's mortgage assistance programs, but then not actually attach it to any humans that will help homeowners? After inputting his info on the site, Citi told reader CoarseLive to schedule an appointment with a representative. No one ever called him. When he tried calling Citi directly, multiple agents told him they had no idea what he was talking about, and they hung up on him, again and again. His story, inside...
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scams
FedMod.com: Loan Mod Scammers Advertising On Network TV?
Matt at SteadFastFinances tipped me off to a possible loan-modification scam running ads on network TV. More » -
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mortgages
4 Things To Try Before Foreclosure
Usually one has somewhat of an advance notice that they're going to miss a mortgage payment, so before that happens and the bank comes to take your house away, Kiplinger's advises calling up your lender and discussing one of these four options: More »
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1-9 of 9 for "loan modifications"
