Mortgages - Unbelievable: The big banks are becoming desperate to avoid foreclosures - 0 views
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Gary Edwards on 10 Feb 12Just days prior to the Obama Foreclosure Settlement Act, Bloomberg filed this stunning report demonstrating that, if left alone, the markets have a way of working things out. Looks to me like Obama and the big Banksters have found a way to stop the wave of successful short sales. The door is now open for the big Banksters to go full tilt boogey on Foreclosures. Even without legal documentation or fix of illegal document mills. It's foreclosure time in America! From Bloomberg: Banks, accelerating efforts to move troubled mortgages off their books, are offering as much as $35,000 or more in cash to delinquent homeowners to sell their properties for less than they owe. Lenders have routinely delayed or blocked such transactions, known as short sales, in which they accept less from a buyer than the seller's outstanding loan. Now banks have decided the deals are faster and less costly than foreclosures, which have slowed in response to regulatory probes of abusive practices. Banks are nudging potential sellers by pre-approving deals, streamlining the closing process, forgoing their right to pursue unpaid debt and in some cases providing large cash incentives, said Bill Fricke, senior credit officer for Moody's Investors Service in New York. Losses for lenders are about 15 percent lower on the sales than on foreclosures, which can take years to complete while taxes and legal, maintenance and other costs accumulate, according to Moody's. The deals accounted for 33 percent of financially distressed transactions in November, up from 24 percent a year earlier, said CoreLogic Inc., a Santa Ana, California-based real estate information company.