Federal Government Getting Out of the Mortgage Business

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were created by the Federal Government to assist homeowners in obtaining mortgages to purchase single family and/or multiple family homes. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are not doing well. They are both bankrupt. These organizations are currently being bailed out by the Federal Government.

President Obama and his administration would like to abolish Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Both the White House and Congress are in agreement that the long term future of the mortgage market should be determined by private enterprise and not by federally backed agencies.

Today, tax payers are shelling out billions of dollars to keep Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae financially solvent. These organizations are involved in almost 90% of all mortgages in the United States. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae buy mortgage loans from primary lenders (banks). They put them together in investment products and sell them with guarantees in the event the borrower defaults. The initial purpose of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae was to facilitate the purchase of homes by middle class Americans. The underlying reason for their creation was to allow more Americans to obtain the American dream, the ownership of a single family home at an affordable mortgage rate.

Three Proposals for the replacement of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae

Proposal 1: The Federal Government would not be involved in the underwriting of home mortgages. The Federal Housing Administration would simply police mortgage activities.

Proposal 2: The Government would act as an insurer of mortgages.

Proposal 3: The Government would act as an insurer of only targeted mortgages. Under this proposal, the government would be involved more as a reinsurer of mortgages.

Congress and the Obama Administration are now discussing these proposals.

New York Foreclosure Defense Lawyers

Our law office can help you with mortgage modifications. We are familiar with mortgage modification programs that fail to meet consumers’ needs. We represent New Yorkers in foreclosure litigation. We defend them from these proceedings. We litigate defective foreclosure lawsuits, predatory lending, bad faith and defective mortgages. We attend foreclosure court conferences on behalf of our clients. We have decades of experience regarding real estate transactions involving mortgages. We maintain a foreclosure blog to educate New Yorkers concerning relevant issues involving mortgages, foreclosures and real estate matters.

We file Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 bankruptcies on behalf of our clients. We explain to our clients why they should or should not file bankruptcy. We utilize bankruptcies to stop foreclosures in their tracks. When the bankruptcy is completed, we are available to assist our clients in re-establishing their credit.

Should you have a foreclosure or mortgage modification problem, feel free to call us a 1-800-344-6431, 516-561-6645 or 718-350-2802.

Fixing Up Your Home for Sale

Do you want to sell your house? If the answer is yes, you may want to consider fixing it up to make it more sale worthy. It may be necessary to modernize or improve certain aspects of your home or to upgrade your property to make it more marketable in the over crowded real estate market.

How Much Should You Spend

The rule of thumb with regard to spending to make your home more marketable is to spend no more than one or two percent of your home’s value. There are various things you can do to make your home more marketable.

Kitchen Appliances

Your kitchen appliances should match each other (hopefully, this is not the first time you have heard this suggestion!). Attractive, stainless steel kitchen appliances or color coordinated kitchen appliances make the kitchen more presentable.

Landscaping

Real estate brokers talk about the concept of curb appeal. When a purchaser walks towards your home, do they like what they see? Your gardening should be neat and attractive. Shrubs should not be overgrown. Weeds should be removed from your lawn. Flowering shrubs, flowers and attractive pots also add to the curb appeal of your home. You may have to hire a gardener to obtain this look.

Painting

Homes with fresh coats of paint in their rooms have a cleaner, more attractive look. Stick to neutral colors, such as off whites or baige. Take a look at your moldings. Are they scratched or beaten up? Replacing or repairing and painting moldings adds a finishing touch to a room.

Storage Space

Perspective purchasers like to see organized storage areas. Make sure your closets and storage areas are neat and organized. Buyers will be looking into them! Closet systems can be an inexpensive upgrade.

Bathrooms

The grout around your toilets and your bathroom tiles should not be discolored, cracked, uneven, and there should be no missing grout. Beat up toilets and black grout have a negative impact on prospective purchasers. You don’t have to remodel your entire bathroom. Just fix it up and make it more attractive! If the shower head is dirty or rusty, replace it! Take a look at the light fixtures in your bathroom. Are they out of date, dirty or damaged? If so, upgrade and replace them with new, attractive light fixtures.

Selling Price

The minor upgrades, enhancements and fixing-up suggestions in this article may help you sell your home. However, in today’s market, one should be realistic as to what a home is worth. Your home is worth only what someone else will pay for it. Real estate values are based on numerous factors, including supply and demand. If you want more money than the market values your home at, you’re making a mistake. If you want to sell your home now, take the best reasonable offer! Do not be greedy!

Foreclosure Help in New York

Our office assists clients with mortgage modifications. We deal with mortgage modification programs that fail to meet our clients needs. We litigate defective foreclosure lawsuits, predatory lending issues, defective mortgages and bad faith by financial institutions. Our office has been involved in handling real estate matters for more than three decades. We also maintain a foreclosure blog. We advise our clients whether filing a Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy is necessary to stop their foreclosure proceedings from moving forward. We assist our clients in stopping foreclosure and sometimes we can help eliminate second mortgages. If a bankruptcy is filed at the end of the bankruptcy, we can help our clients reestablish credit. Feel free to contact us for a free consultation.

Underwater Mortgages Keep Rising

The high level of unemployment in the United States, coupled with the increasing foreclosure rate, is leading to a reduction in the value of homes. The percentage of Americans who owe more on their mortgages than the value of their homes continues to rise. This is causing more and more homes to be underwater. “Underwater” refers to a home having a greater mortgage indebtedness on it then its actual value.

There are 11 million families, which represent 23% of all foreclosures in the United States, that have mortgages that were underwater during the last quarter of 2010. That was an increase from the previous quarter, in which 22.5% of the homes in foreclosure in the United States were underwater. This is the third quarter in a row where the number of homes underwater have increased.

Underwater Mortgages Leave Homeowners with Few Options

When the mortgage on a home is underwater, a homeowner has few options. The homeowner won’t be able to qualify for mortgage refinancing. They simply must continue making the payments on their property and hope that it will eventually start appreciating in value and be worth more than the indebtedness on it.

Experts expect that home prices will continue to fall throughout the 2011 calendar year. The greater the percentage of homes in a given area that are underwater, the more significant impact they have on the valuation of homes in general for that area. As homes in a locality fall into the category of being underwater, they tend to bring down the values of the neighboring homes too.

Purchasing a Home in Today’s Market

To obtain a conventional mortgage, most financial institutions require the perspective homeowner to put down 20% of the purchase price of the home. In today’s economic situation in the United States, with falling salaries, high unemployment and high foreclosure rates, few perspective homeowners fall into this category. The down payment requirements for prospective new home buyers is having a negative effect on the housing market. President Obama’s administration seeks to have all perspective homeowners provide a minimum of a 10% down payment before they can obtain a conventional mortgage that is guaranteed by either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.

The amount of negative equity in the United States in the last quarter of 2010 increased from $744 billion nationwide to $751 billion nationwide. This is a major step in the wrong direction! Families, at one time, measured their wealth by the equity in their home. Today, home ownership means you have an asset that is decreasing in value!

Foreclosure Defense Attorneys on Long Island

The Law Offices of Schlissel DeCorpo handles foreclosure defense litigation. We submit detailed answers to summonses and complaints filed by financial institutions. We litigate defective foreclosure lawsuits, predatory lending, defective mortgages and bad faith by financial institutions. Our office in experienced in handling real estate litigation. If a case is in litigation, our attorneys will attend foreclosure court conferences on behalf of our clients. We also maintain a foreclosure blog that contains articles concerning foreclosures, mortgage modification issues and other issues effecting homeowners. We also file Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 bankruptcies which stop foreclosures and can have an impact on eliminating second mortgages. We can also assist our clients in re- establishing credit.

Feel free to call us if you are having difficulties with your financial institution, paying your mortgage or in dealing with a foreclosure issue.

Mortgage Reform by President Obama

President Obama seeks to reform the mortgage industry in the United States. He plans on accomplishing this by significant changes in government backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. President Obama has presented several different options to the United States Congress for reducing the country’s dependence on Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. His program is one of fundamental reform of the mortgage industry. He hopes these reforms will provide greater protection for consumers and allow middle class Americans to obtain affordable mortgages.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Government backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are involved in approximately 90% of the mortgages, one way or another, in America. As of now, these two government backed agencies have over $150 billion dollars in losses! It is anticipated these losses will climb to $400 billion dollars before the housing bubble is completely corrected.

New Programs

Some of the recommendations made by President Obama’s reform team will require Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to charge banks the same amount for loan guarantees as paid by private financial institutions. Currently, federally backed mortgage loans can go up to $729,750. One of President Obama’s reforms would be to reduce this amount to $625,500. It is anticipated that this action will motivate the private banking sector to make more high-value mortgage loans.

The administration also seeks to have a minimum down payment of 10% regarding all government backed loans. One of the problems that caused the mortgage bubble is that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have been making loans with zero down payment. Query – if a homeowner has no money to put down for the purchase of a home, isn’t this an indication that if things do not go well, they will quickly walk away from making their mortgage payments? This is what caused the housing crisis. The giving of inappropriate mortgage loans to unqualified prospective homeowners!

The removal of government guarantees from the loan market is opposed by various special interest groups. Real estate agents, home builders, home supply companies, mortgage brokers and other individuals who make a living from the housing market oppose any changes to the current system. The Obama Administration seeks to make changes to the mortgage market over a five-year period.

Mortgage Modification and Foreclosure

If you have problems making your mortgage payments, reducing the amount of your monthly payments is a good idea. All financial institutions currently have mortgage modification programs. Unfortunately, some mortgage modification programs fail to provide belingered homeowners with realistic alternatives to their current mortgages. Our law office can help you deal with the complexities of the various mortgage modification programs.

Foreclosure is the process by which a bank takes back a home for the nonpayment of a mortgage. Should you be facing foreclosure, we can keep you in your home. Our foreclosure defense lawyers have developed an expertise in fighting these lawsuits. Once a lawsuit is initiated, we attend foreclosure court conferences on behalf of our clients. We defend defective foreclosure lawsuits. We deal with issues of predatory lending, defective mortgages and the failure of financial institutions to obtain the proper assignments and paperwork necessary to initiate litigation. We also update this foreclosure blog on a regular basis to keep our clients informed about the real estate industry in the United States. Call us for a free consultation at 1-800-344-6431, 516-561-6645 or 718-350-2802.

The Real Cost of Home Ownership

Individuals and families purchasing their first home usually ponder over how large a mortgage they can afford to pay. There are a variety of other costs that should be taken into consideration when purchasing a home. Homes require maintenance. Appliances break, roofs leak and there are numerous other types of maintenance problems homeowners must anticipate. These include landscaping, pest control, plumbing problems and the maintaining of the heating and air conditioning systems. These costs must be taken into consideration when purchasing a home.

Utilities

Homes must be heated and in the summer they may need air conditioning. The price of fuel oil and gas have been going up for the past few years. You should obtain the expense records from the previous owner for the utilities including heating, gas, oil and electric before purchasing a new home. These costs should be built into your monthly budget.

Homeowners Insurance

It is necessary to maintain casualty insurance on your home. This would repay either you or the bank should your home be damaged in a fire or through other circumstances. Sometimes this expense is built right into the mortgage payment. If you’re paying this expense directly, you should take this into account when budgeting for a new home.

Home Improvements

When a car gets old, you either fix it or you purchase a new car. When you own a home, besides from maintaining it, sometimes it becomes necessary to make improvements to maintain your quality of life. Home improvements involve planning, time and money.

Emergency Fund

One never knows when an emergency will take place. In these situations, it’s important to have a nest egg to bide you over during an emergency.

New York Foreclosure Defense

If your home is in foreclosure, you need a foreclosure defense lawyer. Call us. This is what we do! We litigate numerous foreclosure defense issues including, but not limited to, defective foreclosure lawsuits, predatory lending, bad faith, defective mortgages, and other real estate related issues. We attend court conferences on behalf of our clients and we keep them up to date concerning the status of the foreclosure. We handle mortgage modifications for our clients and we deal with mortgage modification programs that fail to meet our clients needs. When appropriate, we also file Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcies on behalf of our clients. If you have a mortgage related problem call us at 516-561-6645, 1-800-344-6431 or 718-350-2802.

Credit Consequences of Foreclosure and Deficiency Judgments

Foreclosure And Deficiency JudgmentsFamilies facing foreclosure are concerned about being thrown out of their homes. Credit issues and concerns about deficiency judgments are secondary. When a bank initiates a foreclosure proceeding, they file a lis pendens on the property. A lis pendens filing notifies all prospective purchasers that the property is in foreclosure. This has the effect of making the title to the home unmarketable. This means the foreclosure proceeding must be dealt with before the house can be sold.

Late Mortgage Payments

Each time a mortgage payment is paid late, the financial institution notifies credit reporting agencies concerning this late payment. When mortgage payments are not made, credit reporting agents are also provided this information. Each late payment and each non-payment has a negative effect on credit ratings.

Sale of Property

At the end of the foreclosure proceeding the home is sold. Courts usually appoint referees in New York to sell these homes. If the financial institution does not receive enough funds from the foreclosure sale to pay off the mortgage in total, they may enter a deficiency judgment against the homeowner. The deficiency judgment is the portion of the mortgage that was not paid from the proceeds of the foreclosure sale. For example, if your home sells for $200,000 in the foreclosure sale and you owe $250,000 on your mortgage, the bank can enter a judgment against you for the $50,000 deficiency. This is called the deficiency judgment.

Avoiding Deficiency Judgment

There are a variety of ways to avoid deficiency judgments. You can enter into an agreement with the bank to have a short sale. This is when the bank agrees to forgive the balance of the mortgage not covered by the sale. You can also turn your house over to the bank by a deed in lieu of foreclosure, with the bank agreeing to forgive any deficiency from the sale of your home. Should your house be in foreclosure, it is important to consult with a knowledgeable attorney to avoid being subject to a deficiency judgment.

New York Foreclosure Defense

Losing your home in foreclosure is a scary prospect. Having an experienced foreclosure defense lawyer will not only help you in court it will give you piece of mind. Our office litigates foreclosure defense matters on behalf of our clients. We attend foreclosure court conferences. We litigate all types of real estate related issues including, but not limited to, predatory lending, defective foreclosure lawsuits, defective mortgages and bad faith on behalf of financial institutions. We maintain a foreclosure blog to update the general public concerning issues involving foreclosures, mortgage modifications and real estate matters. We also file Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 bankruptcies to deal with foreclosure problems. Call us we can help you!

Cities With High Foreclosure Rates

Cities With High Foreclosure RatesLas Vegas, Nevada and Phoenix, Arizona are running neck and neck for the title of having the highest foreclosure rates in the United States of America. Although it has been widely written about these two cities enormous foreclosure rates, there are numerous other small cities in America that have similar problems.

Albuquerque, New Mexico

Albuquerque is a city of approximately 500,000 people. They have a foreclosure rate of one in every forty-six homes. During 2010, their foreclosure rate increased by over 60%. Albuquerque was one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the continental United States. It has a warm climate and, for many years, it had a very favorable job market. Albuquerque has been devastated in recent years due to the falling economy.

Albuquerque is suffering from a high unemployment rate. More than 13% of all of construction jobs were lost in Albuquerque during 2010, pursuant to the Associated General Contractors of America. High lay-offs in the construction industry contributed to Albuquerque having a high foreclosure rate.

Savanna, Georgia

Savanna is a beautiful city. It is known for its beautiful old south architecture. The city has a population of approximately 350,000 people. Unfortunately, one in every forty homes is in foreclosure. This amounts to a home being in foreclosure on every three blocks in the city of Savanna. In 2010, Savanna’s foreclosure rate increased by 37%. Some homes in Savanna are now selling for less then $50,000. The cost of the raw materials to build these homes would be more then double this amount!

Tulsa, Oklahoma

Tulsa has a population of about a million people. One out of every fifty homes in Tulsa is in foreclosure. This amounted to a 37% increase during the 2010 calendar year. Although the unemployment rate in Tulsa has been below the national average for the past few years, the foreclosure rate has been increasingly high. Job losses in Tulsa increased by 38% in 2010.

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, is dependent on vacation home buyers. It is a vacation destination for the majority of the families who spend time there. In 2009, the unemployment rate was over 12% for this city. The unemployment rate dipped to 11.8% in 2010.

During 2010, there was an increase of approximately 45% in the amount of homes going into foreclosure. This is a small increase compared with the increase of 446% for foreclosures in 2009. The huge foreclosure increases in 2009 and 2010 is indicative of the fact that Myrtle Beach is a tourism dependent community. When Americans have financial difficulties, they have less discretionary funds to spend on vacation homes and tourism.

Foreclosure rates throughout the United States are causing pain in many communities. This will delay the economic recovery in the United States.

Stop Foreclosure In Its Tracks

There are legal defenses to foreclosure lawsuits. We litigate foreclosure lawsuits. We assist our clients with mortgage modifications. We attend foreclosure court conferences on behalf of our clients. We litigate defective mortgages, predatory lending issues and defective foreclosure lawsuits. We advise our clients as to whether Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcies are the appropriate means to deal with their financial situations.

Read our foreclosure blog. It will help you understand the nature of the foreclosure crisis in the United States and the fact that there are things that can be done to keep you and your family in your home. Feel free to call our foreclosure defense and real estate attorneys at 516-561-6645, 1-800-344-6431 and 718-350-2802 for a free consultation. Call us now, our phones are answered 24/7.

Foreclosure Defense Attorneys

In January 2011, Fewer Mortgage Modifications Were Granted

Mortgage Modifications Were GrantedFinancial institutions granted fewer mortgage modifications in January of 2011 than in previous months. Throughout the country, approximately 101,000 mortgage modifications were granted in January, while more than 111,000 mortgage modifications were granted in December. Of the modifications granted in January, seventy-three thousand were modifications done with lenders and twenty-eight thousand were new modifications under the HAMP program.

Republicans seek to cancel HAMP. The Republican majority in the United States House of Representatives has approved a statute that would end the HAMP program. The democrats in Congress oppose this measure. In the unlikely event that the elimination of the HAMP anti-foreclosure program is approved by Congress, President Obama has stated he will veto this statute.

Mortgage Delinquencies Increase

While the amount of mortgage modifications went down in January of 2011, the number of mortgage delinquencies rose. There were three million home loans that were more then sixty days overdue in January of 2011.

There were 200,000 new foreclosure proceedings in January of 2011. This is down from the 230,000 foreclosure proceedings in December of 2010. In January 2011, 73,000 homes were sold in foreclosure. This was a major increase from the 56,000 homes that were sold in December of 2010.

Long Island and New York City Foreclosure Defense Lawyers

Should you be facing a foreclosure, it is important that you have high quality legal defense as early in the proceedings as possible. We provide foreclosure defense for our clients. We attend foreclosure court conferences. We litigate issues involving defective foreclosure lawsuits, defective mortgages, predatory lending, bad faith on behalf of financial institutions and other real estate matters. We assist our clients in mortgage modifications and, when necessary, we will file either Chapter 13 or Chapter 7 bankruptcies on behalf of our clients. Call us at 1-800-344-6431, 516-561-6645 or 718-350-2802 for a free consultation.

Mortgage Modification Scams

There are companies advertising on the internet that they assist homeowners with mortgage modifications. Sometimes these companies are run by charlatans who are engaged in mortgage modification scams. These companies target the elderly, minority members, and individuals with bad credit.

Sometimes the mortgage scam companies request the mortgage holder to make their payments to them and not to their financial institution. They claim they will take care of the problem at their end. This is always a mistake. If you are going to pay your mortgage, pay it directly to your financial institution.

Another mortgage scam involves the submitting of an application to your mortgage company showing you have a higher income then you actually have. If you can’t afford the mortgage to begin with, you’ll not be able to make your mortgage payments. This will result in your home ending up in foreclosure. This is a route you should not start down.

Mortgage Modification ScamsInterest Only Mortgage Payments

Obtaining a mortgage that requires that you, for a period of time, only make interest payments is also not a wise choice. These type of loans sometimes have balloon payments. In a balloon payment situation, after a period of time you must make a lump sum payment or refinance. Under this type of scam the scammer will tell you that down the road things will be better and you’ll be able to refinance at a lower rate and obtain a better quality conventional mortgage. Don’t bet on it!

Mortgage Modification Attorneys

Under the appropriate circumstances, we assist clients in submitting mortgage modification applications. We also defend our clients in the event their homes go into foreclosure. We attend foreclosure court conferences on behalf of our clients. We litigate issues involving defective foreclosure lawsuits, bad faith on behalf of financial institutions, defective mortgages, predatory lending and other real estate related issues. We maintain a foreclosure blog which is updated regularly concerning various issues related to foreclosure, mortgage modification and real estate matters.

We review our client’s situations carefully and, when appropriate, we file either Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcies on their behalf. Call us for a free consultation at 1-800-344-6431, 516-561-6645 or 718-350-2802.

Foreclosure Defense in Valley Stream, Lynbrook, Baldwin, Malverne, Freeport, Oceanside, Long Beach, Elmont, Lakeview, West Hempstead, Hempstead, Merrick and Bellmore, New York

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The information you obtain at this website is not, nor is it intended to be, legal advice. You should consult an attorney for individual advice regarding your particular legal issue. This is attorney advertising.

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