News Topic: Mortgage Debt & Home Equity

After seeing yet another prominent news article grousing about the tax consequences of short sales and other forms of mortgage relief , I thought I'd pass along a discovery I made a few years back that seems to be ignored over and over in the popular ... Read full article

This just in from Ireland :  A large mortgage bank there, AIB, has agreed to a plan to split some mortgages into a "good" tranche, equal to 80% of the current market value of the home (forgiving the other 20% of that tranche) and another, ... Read full article

My friend, Frank Venis, sent me a link to a Planet Money/NPR story that 42.1% of home purchases are now in cash. I have been meaning to write up a quick post on the story since the story appeared, but my day job kept interfering. ... Read full article

There have been many news stories reporting on how the CFPB’s new “ability to pay” mortgage rules, now in effect, will make it harder for regular hard-working Americans to get home loans. ... Read full article

        One of the huge questions hanging over the mortgage market today is what will happen to access to credit for credit impaired or non-traditional borrowers.  There is a real concern that the Dodd-Frank Act’s mortgage reforms will reduce the ... Read full article

We still have a ways to go, five years after the Global Financial Crisis.  Total mortgage debt has eased down from 10.5 trillion dollars to 9.3 trillion , but that 10% drop aligns poorly with the 25% drop in home values, not to mention stagnant real ... Read full article

I've got a new article out in the Duke Law Journal entitled The Paper Chase:  Securitization, Foreclosure, and the Uncertainty of Mortgage Title .  The article is about the confusion securitization has caused in foreclosure cases because of the shift ... Read full article

Banks and insurance companies are apparently gnashing their teeth at the news that the Mt. ... Read full article

For the last 18 months, I've served as the California Monitor for the National Mortgage Settlement at the request of California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris. Disclaimer: This post does not necessarily represent the views of the CA AG or CA DOJ. ... Read full article

The American Banker's lead article today is about how the Qualified Mortgage (QM) concept is really an enactment of the "plain vanilla" mortgage provision that the White House had unsuccessfully pushed to have included in what become the ... Read full article

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I testified on housing finance reform today before Senate Banking. It was a strange experience being in the Hart and Dirksen Senate Office Buildings with the shutdown. The halls were eerily empty. Fortunately, the Senate Banking Committee is continuing to ... Read full article

The Dodd-Frank Act provides that failure to verify a borrower's ability to pay on a home mortgage entitles the borrower to a "asset a violation... as a matter of defense by recoupment or set off".  15 USC 1640(k).  ... Read full article

Year Six of the great foreclosure crisis came to a close on June 30 with no real end in sight.  Five million homes have been foreclosed and another million or more were surrendered by distressed home owners in short sales or otherwise.  We are still far ... Read full article

Gretchen Morgenson had an interesting column today about judicial frustration with banks.  One of the opinions she references is a recent order by Judge William Young (Dist. Mass.) in a predatory lending suit. ... Read full article

The Supreme Court granted certiorari today in MOUNT HOLLY, NJ, ET AL. V. MT. HOLLY GARDENS CITIZENS , on the question whether Fair Housing Act claims of race discrimination in the sale, rental or financing of housing can be proven based on evidence of ... Read full article

The foreclosure fraud settlements were already farcical, but it just gets worse and worse. Now we learn that the Fed approved the amendments to its consent orders with mortgage servicers without it actually going before the Board of Governors for a vote . ... Read full article

On May 1, President Obama nominated Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.) to be the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the conservator for the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. ... Read full article