Oregon: Foreclosures in suburban areas increase 20% in the first half of 2010

Tuesday, February 07, 2012

Mortgage loan applications have increased 23% this last week due to record low rates.

Orlando, FL (MBNews.org) -- Historic record low have encouraged many homeowners to refinance according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

We have seen refinancing activity climbed 26.4% just this week week ending January 13, to its highest level since early August, the MBA reported. Meanwhile applications for new mortgages climbed 10.3% week-over-week.

Time to buy a house? Home prices have fallen and mortgage interest rates are lower than they have ever been.

Miami (MBNews.org) — Time to buy a house? Home prices have fallen and mortgage interest rates are lower than they have ever been.

A recent report from J.P. Morgan Asset Management, titled “Housing: A time to buy,” written by David Kelly and David Lebovitz, made the case for why a home may be a wise purchase. Read more: Mortgage rates plunge beyond expectations.

Although the U.S. housing market remains extremely depressed, we believe that given current valuations and demographic dynamics, now may be the time to consider an investment in housing,” the report said.

Goldman, Two Firms Agree on Foreclosure-Signing Practice

Goldman Sachs will compensate some home loan borrowers for wrongful foreclosures under an agreement reached with a New York state banking regulator.

The agreement, which New York financial services superintendent Benjamin Lawsky reached with Goldman [GS 112.16 -4.06 (-3.49%) ] and Ocwen Financial [OCN 13.28 -0.52 (-3.77%) ], contains several measures to strengthen the oversight of foreclosure proceedings.

It also will allow Goldman's planned sale of its Litton Loan Servicing LP unit to continue.

U.S. asks Bank of America to report back up plans if conditions worsen

The U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency plans to sue "more than a dozen" major banks for billions of dollars over alleged misrepresentation of mortgage-backed securities sold before the housing bubble burst, the New York Times reported late Thursday.

U.S. asks Bank of America to report back up plans if conditions worsen

U.S. regulators have pushed Bank of America Corp. to show what measures it could take if conditions worsen for the Charlotte, N.C., lender, according to people familiar with the situation.

U.S. regulators have pushed Bank of America Corp. to show what measures it could take if conditions worsen for the Charlotte, N.C., lender, according to people familiar with the situation. Read more...

More Americans at Risk of Foreclosure

The number of Americans at risk of foreclosure is rising, reflecting the U.S. economy’s continued struggles.

The Mortgage Bankers Association said Monday that 8.44 percent of homeowners missed at least one mortgage payment in the April-June quarter. That figure, which is adjusted for seasonal factors, rose 0.12 percentage point from the January-March period. Read more...

New York AG Kicked Off Foreclosure Probe Panel

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said late yesterday that his New York counterpart, Eric Schneiderman, had been removed from the executive committee working on a multistate foreclosure probe – and potential settlement – with U.S. banks.

Oregon: Foreclosures in suburban areas increase 20% in the first half of 2010

Secondary Market

Thursday, 26 August 2010 19:20

By Elizabeth Martinez

Miami, Fl -Although an increase in foreclosures has been observed throughout the state of Oregon, a particularly greater increase has been observed in the suburbs.
RealtyTrac counted nearly 300 Lake Oswego properties socked with foreclosure actions from January through June and more than 500 Hillsboro properties. In addition, from January through June, foreclosure filings grew 6.5 percent in the city of Portland, compared with a year earlier, and 8.5 percent in Portland suburbs, not counting Clark County, according to RealtyTrac data. Foreclosures also shot up at a rate faster than Portland in suburban Oregon City, Milwaukie, Tigard, Tualatin, Sherwood and St. Helens.

“The foreclosure activity that is occurring in suburban markets in Oregon is unprecedented,” says Tom Cusack, a retired federal housing manager in Portland who continues to track the issue via his Oregon Housing Blog. “It’s affecting not just rural areas, not just inner-city neighborhoods, but suburban neighborhoods, probably more substantially than any time in the past.”

One factor that might be able to explain this situation could be that many borrowers of modest means took out subprime loans, which were the first to go through foreclosure when those loans “exploded” and reset to much-higher interest rates. Working-class neighborhoods had the highest foreclosure rates in the early months of the Great Recession.

“They got hit the hardest first,” says Rick Skaggs, a real estate broker at John L. Scott in Forest Grove.

Furthermore, in the Portland area, reports show that an unusually high number of middle-class and affluent borrowers took out interest-only loans and Option ARM or negative-amortization loans. Option ARMs (adjustable rate mortgages) allowed the borrower to pay a minimum monthly mortgage payment – akin to a credit card minimum payment – while tacking more principal onto the loan. These mortgages were more common for more expensive properties.

Option ARMs and other alternative loans take longer to unravel than subprime loans, and many of those types of loans are now winding up in foreclosure. They were ticking time bombs, like subprime loans, but they had longer fuses, says Angela Martin, of the Portland public interest group Our Oregon.

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