Daily News related to the Foreclosure Crisis

The biggest unpunished heist in human history - Max Keiser

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10/29/23

Fines Levied: Oregon reaches $2.3B settlement with ACI
The Oregon Division of Financial Regulation (DFR) joined 43 other state financial agencies in reaching a settlement with ACI Payments Inc. (ACI), for erroneously initiating electronic transactions totaling $2.3 billion from the accounts of 480,000 mortgage-holders nationwide. By the numbers State regulators levied $10 million in fines through a multistate enforcement action. In Oregon, there were over 13,000 erroneous ACH entries affecting nearly 5,000 accounts. The dollar value of transaction in Oregon alone was over $23 million. Additionally, 50 state attorneys general, including the Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, levied an additional $10 million in fines to ACI, in coordination with state regulators.

10/27/23

Wire You Foreclosing?
Does a lender have the right to foreclose its mortgage if a payoff of such mortgage is made by wire transfer, but the payment does not make it to the lender’s account? A recent case[1], heard on appeal by the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division, Second Department (the “Court”), explored this issue, specifically looking to the language of Article 4-A of the Uniform Commercial Code (“UCC”), which governs “funds transfer”[2] or what we commonly refer to as a “wire transfer,” to issue its ruling. The plaintiff in the case, U.S. Bank National Association (“US Bank”), was the holder of a mortgage on certain real property located in Bay Shore, New York (the “Bay Shore Property”). The mortgage was serviced by Ocwen Loan Servicing, LLC (“Ocwen”).

10/26/23

Hedging, Webinars, HELOC, Prequal Tools; STRATMOR on Servicing; Lunches and RESPA
It is said that if all the hunters on opening day(s) of deer season in Wisconsin were grouped together, they would comprise the sixth largest army in the world! Sometimes lenders feel that they have a target on their backs, and here at the WMBA’s 49th Annual Real Estate & Finance Conference in Milwaukee, some of the informal talk in the hallways is about avoiding redlining, a focus of audits and exams. Another is RESPA. When does “As you wish” or “intent” figure into lending? “Rob, is it true that the same business lunch can either be a RESPA violation, or not?” I am not an expert in compliance, but yes, that is true.

10/25/23

Tozer Proposes Ginnie Mae Support of Independent Mortgage Bank Funding
In a recent paper presented by The Urban Institute, Ted Tozer, Nonresident Fellow in the Housing Finance Policy Center of the Urban Institute, proposes that Ginnie Mae support the housing system to stabilize financing for independent mortgage banks (IMBs).

10/24/23

Freddie Mac Sells $19.1 Million in Non-Performing Loans
Freddie Mac has announced it sold, via auction, 88 non-performing residential first lien loans (NPLs) from its mortgage-related investments portfolio to GITSIT Solutions LLC and VRMTG ACQ LLC, a woman-owned business. The loans are currently serviced by Specialized Loan Servicing LLC.

10/20/23

JPMorgan Chase Paid $1.085 Billion in Legal Expenses in Last Six Months; It’s Still Battling Hundreds of Charges and Legal Proceedings on Three Continents
At some point, federal regulators, the Senate Banking Committee and the criminal division of the U.S. Department of Justice are going to reach the same conclusion that Wall Street On Parade reached quite some time ago: JPMorgan Chase is a criminal enterprise in drag as a federally-insured bank.

10/20/23

Is this a repeat of the 2008 housing bust? The number of homeowners hit with foreclosure notices in the third quarter of the year jumped 34% from a year ago to nearly 125,000, according to a recent report from real estate data firm ATTOM. They were up 28% from the previous quarter. Across the country, about 1 in every 1,121 properties had a foreclosure filing in the third quarter. That’s a return to almost pre-pandemic levels as foreclosure moratoriums put in place in the early days of COVID-19 have expired. Filings included default notices, scheduled auctions, and bank repossessions.

10/19/23

Prepared Remarks of CFPB Director Rohit Chopra on the Proposed Personal Financial Data Rights Rule
Good morning, and thank you for being here today. In the last few decades, sectors across the economy have become more concentrated and centralized. A key priority for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is to ensure that consumer finance markets are fair, transparent, and competitive.

10/17/23

Three Oregon counties face class action suit over foreclosure law
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A class action lawsuit filed Thursday is looking to stop Oregon counties from retaining entire tax foreclosure proceeds, arguing the practice violates the United States Constitution, according to court documents.

10/17/23

What is a zombie mortgage? Couple facing foreclosure because of 'zombie' loan | What to know
CARSON, Calif. -- A Carson, California couple is facing foreclosure because of what's known as a "zombie loan." That term refers to a second mortgage that seemed to have been forgiven or written off - until years later when a collector reaches out about the unknown, but supposedly unpaid, debt. Such confusion over mortgages has led to a surprise massive bill that Adaina Brown and her husband can't pay.

10/17/23

Foreclosure valid despite lack of servicing license
A mortgage foreclosure should not be invalidated despite the fact that the plaintiff borrower was sent a notice of default before the defendant had a loan servicing license, a U.S. District Court judge has decided.

10/17/23

Bank of America’s Deposits Fall, But at Slower Pace than JPMorgan Chase
Bank of America is the second largest bank by assets in the United States, topped in assets by only JPMorgan Chase. Both mega banks have seen a steady decline in deposits since the first quarter of 2022. But the decline in deposits at Bank of America represents just 65 percent of the deposit outflows that have occurred at JPMorgan Chase in the past seven quarters. (Bank of America, as the chart above shows, did report a small uptick in deposits in the current quarter.)

10/16/23

JPMorgan Chase Has Lost a Quarter Trillion Dollars in Deposits in Last 7 Quarters — Fortress Balance Sheet or Leaky Sieve?
On May 1, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation announced that First Republic Bank had failed and that it was being sold to JPMorgan Chase. At the time, JPMorgan Chase was already the largest and riskiest bank in the United States. The sweetheart deal the bank got from the FDIC to take over First Republic included the FDIC eating 80 percent of any losses on single-family residential mortgages for 7 years and 80 percent of any losses on commercial loans, including commercial real estate, for five years. The FDIC also provided JPMorgan Chase with a $50 billion, five-year fixed-rate loan at an undisclosed interest rate.

10/12/23

U.S. Foreclosure Activity Shows Continued Rise In Third Quarter, Approaching Levels Seen Before Pandemic
IRVINE, Calif. – Oct. 12, 2023 — ATTOM, a leading curator of land, property, and real estate data, released its Q3 2023 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, which shows there were a total of 124,539 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions or bank repossessions — up 28 percent from the previous quarter and 34 percent from a year ago.
The report also shows there were a total of 37,679 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings in September 2023, up 11 percent from the previous month and up 18 percent from September 2022.

10/12/23

Fed’s Vice Chair for Supervision Says Another Financial Crisis Could Cost U.S. $5 Trillion to $25 Trillion – Potentially as Much as 100 Percent of GDP
On Monday, Michael Barr, the Vice Chair for Supervision at the Federal Reserve, addressed a contentious issue in a speech before the American Bankers Association’s annual convention in Nashville. The topic was why federal banking regulators have proposed higher capital levels for the largest U.S. banks, those with assets over $100 billion. As we reported on September 20, there has been aggressive pushback on the proposal from large banks, their lobbyists and their trade associations. (Community banks are not impacted by the proposal.)

10/11/23

Is the Mortgage Servicing Space in Need of a Reset?
MortgageFlex has published a new white paper entitled, “The Evolution of Modern Servicing Software: Why industry disruption from the inside is changing how the mortgage servicing industry operates,” where it is suggested that it’s not technology that leads to disruption, but rather the mortgage servicers that put it to use.

10/11/23

Janet Yellen’s Treasury Department Hires 5-Count Felon JPMorgan Chase to Look for Fraud
Immediately upon departing her post as Chair of the Federal Reserve, but prior to getting the nod from the Biden administration to become U.S. Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen engaged in what the courageous reporter at ProPublica, Jesse Eisinger, called a “two-fisted money grab from banks.” Yellen raked in more than $7 million in speaking fees with the bulk of that coming from Wall Street banks and trading houses, including JPMorgan Chase. In a Tweet, Eisinger said: “This is corruption, but isn’t called that because it’s so quotidian.” Now there is the appearance that a quid pro quo is coming full circle.

10/10/23

There Are Two Reasons that 75 Percent of U.S. Banks Didn’t Hedge Their Interest Rate Risk as the Fed Hiked Rates at the Fastest Pace in 40 Years
An academic study released in April found that during the fastest pace of Fed interest rate hikes in 40 years, the majority of U.S. banks failed to hedge their interest rate risk. The study on hedging is titled: Limited Hedging and Gambling for Resurrection by U.S. Banks During the 2022 Monetary Tightening? Its authors are Erica Jiang, Assistant Professor of Finance and Business Economics at USC Marshall School of Business; Gregor Matvos, Chair in Finance at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University; Tomasz Piskorski, Professor of Real Estate in the Finance Division at Columbia Business School; and Amit Seru, Professor of Finance at Stanford Graduate School of Business.

10/09/23

International Bank Study, Using 150 Years of Data, Shows Mega Banks Like the Big Four in the U.S. Produce Financial Instability and More Severe Crises
It took eight years of research to compile a data set of annual balance sheets of more than 11,000 commercial banks dating back to 1870 in 17 advanced economies. And in every country, the study arrived at the same finding: concentrating the banking system in the hands of five or less giant banks leads to financial instability and more severe financial crises. The bank balance sheets of the following countries were examined: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

10/08/23

Viewpoint: Consumers Deserve a Mortgage Bill of Rights
Lawmakers must strengthen protections to ease costs and counter harmful practices
Digging out from the 2008 housing crisis has not been easy. Americans were harmed by predatory mortgage lending practices, a collapse in home prices and a steep drop in the national homeownership rate. Since then, the U.S. housing market has experienced a slow but steady recovery.
Census data shows the national homeownership rate was 65.9% as of second-quarter 2023, up a full 3 percentage points since 2016. But challenges remain. The National Association of Realtors found that the gap in the homeownership rate between Blacks and whites is the biggest in a decade. And a report this past June from the National Association of Homebuilders showed that while wage gains boosted affordability at the start of this year, the trade group’s first-quarter 2023 affordability index was still significantly lower than one year earlier.
When 30-year mortgage rates were in the 3% range, it was easier to overlook mortgage practices that harmed consumers. But now that interest rates have skyrocketed, protecting people from glitches in consumer protections should be more of a priority than ever.
This past summer, the Community Home Lenders of America released its Consumer Mortgage Bill of Rights. This document identifies specific areas where consumer protections need to be strengthened. Mortgage professionals should advocate for these positions to ensure a fair and thriving mortgage market.

10/07/23

Charted: The U.S. Mortgage Rate vs. Existing Home Sales
The U.S. Mortgage Rate vs. Existing Home Sales The U.S. 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has reached its highest level since 2002. Coupled with rising home prices and a constrained housing inventory, U.S. housing affordability is now at its lowest point in history, according to the National Association of Realtors.

10/06/23

GuideWell reaches $30 billion in revenue; ICE: Black Knight deal helps mortgage ‘ecosystem’
After Intercontinental Exchange Inc. agreed in May 2022 to acquire Jacksonville-based mortgage technology firm Black Knight Inc., antitrust officials were concerned the deal would give ICE too much control over mortgage technology in the U.S. Now that the deal is completed, ICE officials said in a Sept. 28 conference call the merged businesses will benefit everyone involved in the mortgage process.

10/06/23

CFPB reports steep drop in mortgage applications, refinances
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) report on 2022 trends in residential lending reveals a notable drop in mortgage applications and originations from the year prior. This drop coincided with an increase in rates, fees, discount points and other costs, according to the bureau’s analysis of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data recorded during that timeframe.

10/05/23

After Getting the Largest Bailout in U.S. History in 2008, 85.5 Percent of the $1.34 Trillion in Deposits at Citigroup’s Citibank Lack FDIC Insurance Today
As evidenced by the speech that the FDIC Chair, Martin Gruenberg, delivered at a conference yesterday, the FDIC is very much aware that both the level of uninsured deposits and the concentration of those uninsured deposits among a handful of mega banks is a serious problem for the U.S. banking system. Gruenberg didn’t name names, but we will do that in this article.

10/04/23

A Public Policy Professor Who Served Under Three U.S. Presidents, Says Jamie Dimon Is an Oligarch and Has “Hijacked the System”
Jamie Dimon is the Chairman and CEO of the serially-charged criminal trading operations of JPMorgan Chase, which thanks to the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999, is also allowed to own the largest federally-insured bank in the United States and use its trillions of dollars in mom and pop deposits to gamble in derivatives.
Robert Reich is Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley; served in the administrations of Presidents Ford and Carter and as Labor Secretary under Clinton; is the author of 18 books, including bestsellers The Work of Nations, Saving Capitalism, and Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future. Reich received his B.A. from Dartmouth College, his M.A. from Oxford University where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and his J.D. from Yale Law School.

10/02/23

Five-Count Felon JPMorgan Chase Gets Hit with Another Federal Fine for 40 Million Derivative Violations; Pays 37 1/2 Cents Per Violation
In the eyes of Wall Street veterans who are paying close attention to what’s going down at the mega banks on Wall Street, federal regulators are making the crime wave at these banks worse, not better. The federal fines for egregious behavior at these banks are getting smaller and more meaningless by the day.
Take, for example, what happened on Friday. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) fined three of the largest trading houses on Wall Street a combined $53 million for derivative reporting violations. Those trading houses were units of Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and JPMorgan Chase.

10/02/23

Federal court rules against servicers in pay-to-pay lawsuit
A federal district court in Houston ruled in favor of a class-action plaintiff last week in a three-year-old case involving pay-to-pay fees, approving a summary judgment against two mortgage servicers.

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