Posts Tagged bank
Big Banks Easing Terms on Loans Deemed as Risks
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Banks, Favourites on Июль 6th, 2011
As millions of Americans struggle in foreclosure with little hope of relief, big banks are going to borrowers who are not even in default and cutting their debt or easing the mortgage terms, sometimes with no questions asked.
Two of the nation’s biggest lenders, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, are quietly modifying loans for tens of thousands of borrowers who have not asked for help but whom the banks deem to be at special risk.
Rula Giosmas is one of the beneficiaries. Last year she received a letter from Chase saying it was cutting in half the amount she owed on her condominium.
Ms. Giosmas, who lives in Miami, was not in default on her $300,000 loan. She did not understand why she would receive this gift — although she wasted no time in taking it.
Banks are proactively overhauling loans for borrowers like Ms. Giosmas who have so-called pay option adjustable rate mortgages, which were popular in the wild late stages of the housing boom but which banks now view as potentially troublesome.
Before Chase shaved $150,000 off her mortgage, Ms. Giosmas owed much more on her place than it was worth. It was a fate she shared with a quarter of all homeowners with mortgages across the nation. Being underwater, as it is called, can prevent these owners from moving and taking new jobs, and places the households at greater risk of foreclosure. Read the rest of this entry »
Six Ways to Improve Your Chances of Getting a Mortgage
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Banks on Апрель 4th, 2011
Remember how Spring was always the home-buying season? Don’t count on that happening this year and you can point the finger, at least in part, at the new lending hoops buyers must jump through. According to MortgageMatch.com, one out of three home buyers will fail to get a mortgage this spring.
Understanding the mortgage process and meeting lenders’ more stringent qualification requirements have become big obstacles for applicants, according to a survey the site conducted. Most recent home buyers — 70% — described the mortgaging process as more difficult than they expected. And those who bought homes during the bubble years, when mortgage loans were given out like candy at Halloween, are especially shell-shocked by the new lending standards.
One of the biggest problems home buyers run into today concern their credit scores and how, in general, they don’t work to improve them before applying for a loan. In the same vein, a recent Fannie Mae survey found that poor credit was the top reason that renters gave for not buying a home.
(Following closely behind poor credit was the self-awareness that they couldn’t actually afford to buy or keep up a home and the perception that now is not really a good time to buy. Hooray for enlightenment on the first point, but with home prices back to 2002 levels and interest rates among the lowest ever seen, how isn’t this a good time to buy?) Read the rest of this entry »
Why Your Bank May Be Wrong About What You Owe on Your Mortgage
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Banks, Favourites on Март 30th, 2011
Attention homeowners with mortgages, whether you’re current or in default: Double-check your mortgage bank’s math. There’s a significant chance that the bank is wrong about how much you owe them, particularly if you’re behind on your payments.
The revelation that mortgage servicers have been incorrectly applying payments and otherwise messing up their records isn’t new. Professor Kurt Eggert of Chapman University documented the problem as early as 2004, and in his recent testimony before Congress, he underscored that nothing had changed. What is new, however, is testimony in New Jersey that gives real insight into how the mistakes are happening.
Late last week, Adrian G. Lofton gave the New Jersey court that is investigating mortgage fraud in New Jersey a sworn statement that details how mortgage servicer records are altered by employees of Lender Processing Services. Although the LPS employees are given logins and passwords to access the banks’ own records for the purpose of correcting and reconciling the files, Lofton, a former LPS employee, explained how they instead destroyed the integrity of the banks’ business records.
How It Works — and Why It Fails
When an LPS client has a mortgage that goes into default, Lofton explains, LPS starts managing the loan. In order to do that, the appropriate LPS employees are given login information for the bank’s database. As a security measure, each login is unique. That login grants access to the bank’s entire database of current and defaulted loans, so that the employee can address whatever problem exists. For example, if a payment that should have been applied to a defaulted mortgage was accidentally credited to a current mortgage, the LPS employee needs access to the current mortgage to fix the error. Read the rest of this entry »
Egypt banks and pyramids open as some protest in Cairo
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Banks on Февраль 21st, 2011
Banks opened on Sunday after a week-long closure as Egypt’s economy struggled to get back on its feet after political turmoil caused by the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak and subsequent labor protests.
New military rulers watched closely as many Egyptians resumed their jobs on the first day of the working week, after issuing a stern warning effectively banning labor protests and telling workers to abandon their revolutionary fervor.
The Egyptian Museum in Cairo and the pyramids at Giza were among the tourist sites that were reopened to the public for the first time in some three weeks. Egypt’s lucrative tourist sector was dealt a body blow as foreigners stayed away due to unrest.
There were some pockets of protest in Cairo.
Attempting to placate pro-democracy reformers who want swift change, the military said at the weekend constitutional changes paving the way for elections in six months should be ready soon and the hated emergency law would be lifted before the polls.
«A new constitution is a long-term goal. Let’s first get the flaws out of the system to bring the process along,» one expert on a key constitutional change committee said. «The say of the people is the most important factor in this process.» Read the rest of this entry »
Morgan Stanley Banker Gave Tip on Merger, U.S. Says
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Banks, Favourites on Январь 28th, 2011
An unidentified Morgan Stanley banker provided information on Advanced Micro Devices Inc.’s purchase of ATI Technologies Inc., U.S. prosecutors in the Raj Rajaratnam insider-trading case said.
In a letter to lawyers for Rajaratnam, the Galleon Group LP co-founder who goes on trial next month for insider trading, U.S. prosecutors said the Morgan Stanley banker in May 2006 gave the information to an unnamed person who passed the tip on to Rajaratnam.
A public copy of the letter contains redactions obscuring the identities of the Morgan Stanley banker and the person who allegedly passed Rajaratnam the tip.
“In or about May 2006, [redacted], a banker with Morgan Stanley, provided [redacted] with information regarding AMD’s acquisition of ATI,” said the letter, signed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Streeter. “[Redacted] provided this information to Rajaratnam.”
Prosecutors filed a superseding indictment against Rajaratnam yesterday. Morgan Stanley has put the banker on leave.
“We have placed the banker on leave and are fully cooperating with the government’s investigation,” said Pen Pendleton, a spokesman for New York-based Morgan Stanley. Pendleton declined to identify the banker or say when he was put on leave. Read the rest of this entry »
Why Treasury Needs a Plan B for Mortgages
Posted by Oksana Grebenjuk in Banks on Декабрь 8th, 2009
AFTER months of playing pretend, the Treasury Department conceded last week that the Home Affordable Modification Program, its plan to aid troubled homeowners by changing the terms of their mortgages, was a dud. The 10-month-old program is going nowhere, the Treasury said, because big institutions charged with implementing it are dragging their feet.
“The banks are not doing a good enough job,” said Michael S. Barr, assistant Treasury secretary for financial institutions, in an article published last Sunday in The New York Times.
After the government spent hundreds of billions of dollars bailing out banks, the Obama administration rolled out the $75 billion loan modification plan to show its support for beleaguered homeowners. But if the proof of the pudding is in the eating, homeowners are going hungry.
A stalled loan modification plan might not be worrisome if the foreclosure crisis were abating. Yet at the end of September, a record 14.4 percent of borrowers were either in foreclosure or delinquent on their mortgages, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported.
It’s time for the government to acknowledge the flaws in its program and create one that might actually succeed. Only then will the supply of homes for sale, and the pressure on prices associated with that overhang, be reduced. Read the rest of this entry »
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