Foreclosure

The debate between two federal officials — Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Chairman Sheila Bair — over whether to use money from the $700 billion bailout fund to help at-risk homeowners avoid foreclosure took center stage when both regulators testified before the House Financial Services Committee today.

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office announced last week that it has secured a preliminary injunction against subprime lender Option One Mortgage Corp. and its parent company H&R Block Mortgage Corp.

ForeclosureRadar, a website that is said to track every California foreclosure with daily auction updates, issued its California Foreclosure Report for October this week. Foreclosure sales dropped by 39.

RealtyTrac released its October 2008 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report today, which shows foreclosure filings — default notices, auction sale notices, and bank repossessions — were reported on 279,561 U.

Foreclosures fell for the second month in a row in October to nationwide lows not seen since last February, according to the latest U.S. Foreclosure Index from ForeclosureS.com. Nationally, October pre-foreclosure filings — which can include notice of default and/or foreclosure auction — were down more than 10 percent from August’s highs, and nearly 7 percent from September’s numbers.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger unveiled an aggressive proposal yesterday that he says will bring down foreclosure rates in the state by helping both borrowers and lenders modify existing home loans in ways that benefit both parties, and at the heart of his plan is a state-wide 90-day halt on foreclosure proceedings.

The White House has said it is currently reviewing several foreclosure prevention programs, but reportedly has major drawbacks to the national loan modification program that Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), has submitted.

Michigan Paves the Way with Creative Techniques to Legally Avoid Costly Delays, Hasten Foreclosure and REO Sales When it comes to loss mitigation, quicker is almost always better. If the ultimate goal of every foreclosure is a clean, quick REO sale, avoiding delay by using creative methods can substantially improve results.

GMAC Financial Services, a financial services company, said it experienced a net loss of $724 million in the fourth quarter of 2007 and an annual net loss of $2.3 billion for the entire year. The financial services giant blames troubles experienced at its lending subsidiary Residential Capital, LLC, (or ResCap) for the company’s many losses last year.