Michigan Today — Home And Health Care

Real Hope and Change

Archive for the ‘Loss Mitigation’ Category

Where To Get Foreclosure Help 800.826.1929

Tuesday, March 13th, 2012

Michigan  State Housing Development

Authority (MSHDA) has so far received

3 Federal awards of nearly a half billion

dollars to help MI homeowners hardest hit

by this economy.   It is estimated by 2013

that about 49,000 homeowners in Michigan

with help from nonprofit organizations and

lenders will be able to avoid foreclosure through

3 Step Forward Programs:

1.  The Unemployment Mortgage Subsidy
Program
2. The Mortgage Loan Rescue Program
3. The Principal Curtailment Program

To learn more about these programs we

encourage distressed homeowners to call

their local realtor to investigate all programs,

options and alternatives to foreclosure.

Michigan Association of Realtors (MARS) and

MSHDA have collaborated in numerous regional

educational foreclosure prevention seminars. 

Your realtor can help refer you to one of the

above programs; or the homeowner who is

unemployed, has fallen behind in mortgage payments

or taxes due to an involuntary hardship, or can

no longer afford to make payments due to reduced

income can apply directly at MSHDA’s Web site

at www.stepforwardmichigan.org for any of the

above programs.  If you have any further questions

regarding foreclosure feel free to call Foreclosure

Prevention Institute, LLC at 1.800.826.1929 or call

Depot Realty Inc. at (800) 881-3089. Talk to Dave,

Janet or Ron.  Also, visit our

websites at ForeclosurePreventionInstitute.com

and DepotRealty.com.

http://ForeclosurePreventionInstitute.com

Saving America!

Hot Line:  800.826.1929

Foreclosure Prevention Institute, LLC
271 Viking Dr
Battle Creek, MI 49017
800.826.1929

Depot Realty Inc.
956 Innes St NE
Grand Rapids, MI 49503
800 881-3089

Bank Foreclosure Settlement Pending

Monday, March 12th, 2012

The big banks such as Citi, Chase, Wells Fargo,

and Bank of America may finally have an agreement

with the US government and States  to resolve the alleged abuses

involving bank foreclosures.   The banks will be paying some

fines as well as gaining credits for helping homeowners facing

foreclosures.   Investors backing the loans may also be required

to take a hit by settling for less or may benefit if banks turn

nonperforming loans back into performing loans.  Five percent

or about 500,000 homeowners may benefit from this 25 billion

dollar settlement.   Three billion dollars will be made available to

help with Principal Balance Reductions.   Until now banks have been

dragging their feet regarding reducing mortgages for homes that 

have had significant drops in market value.  So both servicing companies

and banks will be having to consider principal balance reductions for homes

underwater as well as short sales and deed-in-lieus in place of foreclosures.

 The loan modifications will help homeowners obtain affordable and

reasonable new mortgage payments.  Homeowners foreclosed

upon will also not readily receive deficiency judgements from banks.

Overall, this settlement looks fairly good for resolving the issue and

could help to improve the stability of the real estate industry.

 

No Help? Homeowners Turning To Strategic Default!

Tuesday, January 10th, 2012

Isn’t it about time homeowners got some help or,
if not, start making some wise strategic business
decisions
on their own regarding whether or not to keep
their homes?   Afterall at the expense of taxpayers,
homeowners, Wallstreet, and investors, banks within the
last couple of years have received several bailouts to
ensure their doors are kept open.

The government has been protecting most large banks from
bankruptcy or failing from the housing bubble by printing
and distributing money like “mad” to the major banks. One
could say the government is responsible for causing this
mess due to their liberal policies and legislation.  Banks
were forced to lend to almost anyone who had some income.
Home loans too should never have been securitized on Wall Street,
but since banks are now too big to fail, the government is
supporting the securitization of loans on Wallstreet.

So what is a homeowner supposed to do? Years ago, homeowners
had a relationship with a local bank so both sides could sit
down and talk and perhaps renegotiate a forebearance or loan
modification. Not today, because not only is there no
relationship, but it is almost impossible to negotiate because
the deeds are either lost or have been sold piecemealed. No
one really knows who owns the deeds or who can make a decision.

Bank regulations are also a major stumbling block. A massive
amount of loans are nonperforming or are underwater due to the
great recession. The banks are required to have a certain amount
of money in reserve to cover the bad loans. If banks actually
showed a 30% drop in loan to value, most banks would have to
shut their doors. Thus they can’t negotiate loan modifications.
Their books would be way too far in the red.

How do I know this? A major bank called up a friend of
mine who is an appraisor. He was asked to do appraisals on
commercial property that he did 6-8 years ago. The catch
though was that for him to get paid, the values he finds
must be the same as previously done. Another bank executive
who I know who did in-house appraisals, just found out he’s
been demoted. His numbers were far too conservative for the
president of the bank. Banks are simply unwilling to face
reality. They simply cannot withstand a hit. Home and
commercial values have dropped over 30%, but banks continue to
refuse to accept this fact. If they did, they would have to
close up shop.

Banks are worried though, because more and more homeowners
are giving up and thinking strategically just like banks.
Sure homeowners should honor their loan commitments, but many
have to move due to job loss, need to upgrade or downgrade,
or are not wanting to throw good money away since their homes
are completely underwater. Homeowners took a risk when
buying, but so did the banks. Many loans were predatory or
have simply lost value.

Banks make business decisions everyday, and homeowners
should too. Like banks, nothing personal just financial –
it’s protecting one’s money and family. Furthermore, there
is no moral clause in a mortgage packet, just numbers,
interest, and procedures to follow should a homeowner
default.

If you are thinking about strategically defaulting on
your home loan seek legal advice by contacting an
attorney to protect your credit, and to limit any
financial ramifications. Banks can go after the loss,
but not as likely if it is a primary residence and
if one has tried to work-out the problem. However, banks
don’t have to cooperate. Heck, I have seen banks
foreclose on homeowners who simply didn’t make a late fee
payment, were two weeks late on their mortgage, or forgot
to add 80 cents into their payment. Banks at times
make no sense, so two can play this game. If Washington
can’t solve the problem, the current administration and
the banks are going to find out that many homeowners won’t
pay or make “cents” either!

Have a question about strategic defaults or foreclosures?
Call 1.800.826.1929
ForeclosurePreventionInstitute, LLC
271 Viking Dr
Battle Creek, MI 49017
http://ForeclosurePreventionInstitute.com

Disclosure:  We are not attorneys.

 

 

Stopping Foreclosure

In Foreclosure? You’re Not Alone

Monday, January 2nd, 2012

Are you wanting to save your home, but your lender
won’t accept anymore payments? You are not alone.
I just finished helping a homeowner save their home
by doing an “accidental” strategic default. The bank
wouldn’t cooperate AT ALL, so we had to take it into
our own hands, and come back through the back door.

Read their story here:

Merchant Circle on Strategic Defaults

Then read the next story regarding Wells Fargo.

How Could You Do This To A Mother of Four?

See you are not alone.

Need help:
Call 800.826.1929 Ask for Dave Brigle

Foreclosure Prevention Institute
271 Viking Dr
Battle Creek, MI 4901

We have been specializing in Foreclosures for years!
Can’t hurt to give us a call.

Stopping Foreclosure

New California Lawsuit Attacking Servicers

Wednesday, October 12th, 2011

It’s about time. Maybe this will be
the answer to homeowners across the nation.
Attack the servicing companies for fraud.

Obama’s HOPE Gig Is Over

Sunday, August 14th, 2011

Today’s Detroit Sunday Free Press Story Headline Story reads “Homeowners

forced out while seeking relief!  Fannie Mae pressures banks to foreclose,

contrary to its promises to keep families in homes, preserve neighborhoods.”

Why did the HOPE program not work and why wouldn’t the banks

not work with homeowners?  As the story and truth unfolds, Fannie Mae

is in essence bankrupt.  To save Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, these two

government entitties are desperately trying to get debt off of their books

to look good and to protect their shareholders so that they can stay in

business.  Thus, even today they are forcing banks to foreclose especially

on people who are behind in their mortgages by 1 year or more.

 

One might say well of course if a homeowner is a year or more behind

in their mortgage they should be foreclosed.  However,  most of the loan

modification programs were taking 5 to 6 months to close, and to apply for

a loan modification homeowners had to be at least 1 to 3 payments behind

to even be considered for the loan modification program.   Furthermore,

homeowners were being led on and promised a loan modification by their bank

especially if they had experienced a loss in income due to the economy.

 

One must understand too that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are owned by

the government and therefore are in direct conflict with the nationalized banks.

Fannie Mae hungry for money knows that once a foreclosure takes place the

taxpayers rather than Fannie Mae is on the hook to bailout the bad loans.

In addition,  the O’bama administration wants to spread the wealth around.

Obama is looking at the possibility  of taking all of the foreclosures and making

them into Section 8 houses to diversify neighborhoods and to give low income

people nicer homes and neighborhoods to live and prosper as wealth is

spread around and redistributed.

 

The HOPE program was/is a sham  …just that… “hope and change.”

The banks said one thing, but the government turned around and said

the exact opposite.  The government is at war with the citizens of the

United States.  And that is the truth.   That’s the design of the whole

program — all smoke and mirrors.

 

The only problem is that the huge number of foreclosures are depressing the

neighborshoods and slowing economic recovery.  The housing market is causing

the government to lose more revenue than predicted.   Yet, at least Fannie Mae

and Freddie Mac can still remain in business to start this whole viscious cycle

over again.  You can thank Senator Barnie Franke, the man behind Fannie Mae.

Obama and the Federal Reserve are also going to do Qe3 to stimulate the

economy some more by again flooding the market with more dollars.

So be prepared for more foreclosure as people continue to lose their jobs

and spending power to inflation as a direct result of this administration’s bad

policies.

 

Homeowners are now just figuring-out what we in this industry having

been saying all along.  If you want to save your home, you will have to fight and

sue the bank/lender to save your home by going directly to the bank’s legal

department.   The servicing companies don’t have the authority or power to

complete loan modifications.

 

If you need assistance call Foreclosure Prevention Institute’s hot line today.

1.800.826.1929.  We will answer your most pressing foreclosure questions

and direct you on the best course of action and the options you may have

to save your home.

Foreclosure Prevention Institute, LLC

271 Viking Dr

Battle Creek, MI  49017

800.826.1929

Stopping Foreclosure

Ask for Dave Brigle, Managing Member.

I

MERS Settlement On The Horizon

Wednesday, June 8th, 2011

Several States are readying to settle the
lawsuit involving MERS and the fraudently
robo-signing of documents that enabled them
to foreclose on people’s homes without
proper recording of documents. Banks will
need certain terms before they sign-off since
it is a 20 billion dollar problem.

It looks like some people who are involved in
the lawsuits or who may want a principal
balance reduction in future circumstances might
be able to obtain a principal reduction at the
Federal level; and others settlements by
State Attorney Generals
may get more money
to help homeowners loss mitigate future foreclosures
through “Hope” organizations. Foreclosure hotlines
may also be set-up to help struggling homeowners.

Also ran across an interesting article involving Michigan
foreclosure mills involving Orlans Associates and possibly
Trott & Trott law firm practices. Evidently someone is/was
investigating a possible conflict of interest in Title
companies used by these law firms to allegedly help
speed-up the foreclosure process. In general, the saga
continues regarding the whole foreclosure mess.

Homeowners who have been fighting foreclosure through
legal channels might fare well, but my overall feeling is
that in the long run banks will be protected. Maybe a few
more homeowners will be able to save their homes through
loan modifications or forebearance agreements, but the
the pace of foreclosures although slowed will continue to
steadily rise in this bleak economy.

Foreclosure Prevention Institute, LLC

Dave Brigle, Managing Member
Foreclosure Prevention Institute, LLC
271 Viking Dr
Battle Creek, MI 49017
800.826.1929

Michigan Court of Appeals Reverses Court Ruling Involving MERS

Thursday, June 2nd, 2011

Michigan is a non-judicial state in that Foreclosures must be advertised prior to foreclosure proceedings. Further, one must be the owner of the note and must have properly recorded the note in order to foreclose on property. The Court decision determined that MERS was neither an owner or a servicing agent of the mortgage. In layman’s terms, MERS was found to be only a computer system or a mortgage electronic registration system used to speed up the selling of securities or mortgage notes to circumvent the cumbersome laborious task of recording notes. Thus, MERS never owned the plaintiffs’ mortgage notes nor acted as a lender/servicing company to hold “interest” in the notes. Furthermore, MERS was found in other states to sometimes fraudently produce or forge documents to cover themselves in a foreclosure proceeding. But as the lawsuit in Michigan simply concludes:

“The parties agree that MERS is neither the owner of the indebtedness, nor the servicing agent of the mortgage. Therefore, MERS lacked the authority to foreclose by advertisement on defendants’ properties unless it was “the owner of … of an interest in the indebtedness secured by the mortgage.”The parties agree that MERS is neither the owner of the indebtedness, nor the servicing agent of the mortgage.” MCL 600.3204(1)(d).

This argument has been a long time in coming. Judges are finally seeing the “light” and the tides are changing to some extent in favor of the homeowner. Homeowners will be able to stay in their homes a while longer as the true note holders are found and the foreclosure process is redone by the proper servicing agent. In many cases, the notes may never be found since mortgages were divided and sold to numerous International Investors.

For more questions regarding MERS contact Dave Brigle at Foreclosure Prevention Institute, LLC at 1.800.826.1929.

Foreclosure Prevention Institute, LLC

Dave Brigle, Managing Member
Foreclosure Prevention Institute, LLC
271 Viking Dr
Battle Creek, MI 49017
800.826.1929

http://www.ForeclosurePreventionInstitute.com

Why No More Principal Reductions

Thursday, April 28th, 2011

Today, a hard money lender called
from California to find out how he
could help 60 homeowners facing
foreclosure. The homeowners want
to keep their homes, but are underwater
(owe more than their homes are worth).
He needs principal reductions for his
clients, but cannot find any lending
institution or bank willing to cooperate.

Last year, principal reductions were
feasible with the use of stimulus
money. Banks would sell their
toxic loans for 40 cents on the dollar
to hedge funds newly created
through the use of TARP funds.
The hedge funds bought the banks’
discounted paper in bundles, and
created new 30 year fixed-rate
mortgages at the current market
value. Principal Reduction companies
stepped-in as third parties to put the
deals together for the struggling
homeowners. Hedgefunds worked at
arms length of the individual home-
owners. Understand, at this time,
banks were fearful that homeowners
would walk away from their contractual
obligations.

Unfortunately since the beginning of
this year, government policies forbid
private third parties from doing principal
reductions. Today, banks are not
worried about homeowners walking
away and for whatever reason are
wanting foreclosed homes. I suspect
they are willing to hold onto the houses
until the market turns around in 10 years
or more. Consequently, no more
principal balance reductions or
short sales with today’s market and
financial policies.

In a broader pespective, Banks are
30 trillion dollars in debt. The government
is 14 trillion dollars in debt and growing.
The government and banks are in bed
together. The government wants money
to continue their social programs by buying
votes, and they need the banks to launder
the money from the taxpayer to the banks
to the democrats to finance their elections.
The banks make money because they are
able to borrow money from the government
at zero percent interest.

Right now, Treasury Secretary Timothy
Geithner is putting into play the confiscation
of federal employees’ pension funds. This
is just a prelude to the confiscation of everyone’s
401K, 403B, IRAs and pensions in general.
They are promising that this money will be rolled
into your social security check. It will be a
treasury note with a 2% interest rate.
Czechoslovakia Republic recently did just this
to their citzenry.

In the meantime, the government is having
to prop up the banks, because the government
in the end needs money to spread the
wealth to whomever they see fit. In
effect, both the government and the
banks are stealing money and wealth
from average hard-working Americans
with Qe1 and Qe2 which means quantitative
easing. It is nothing more than Keynesian
economics to fuel inflation. The government
thinks they can actually stimulate economic
growth by inflating the money supply. In
reality, they are destroying the US dollar.

In the end, the banks will be made whole,
and the government will be able to
redistribute the wealth to other third
world countries and to individuals,
companies, or groups of people who they
deem deserving. It is power, control,
and the socialistic way.

How Lenders Structure Loan Modifications

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

Have you ever wondered how exactly
lenders structure loan modifications? As
a person who helps homeowners obtain
loan modifications, I am always interested
in how banks determine:

A. Who qualifies for a loan modification
in regards to their gross income,

B. New Interest Rates,

C. New Mortgage Payments,

D. How taxes and hazard insurance
is figured with regards to escrow
payments,

E. and Why some people have
principal mortgage balances reduced
and others do not.

The servicing companies/lenders do use
mathematical formulas when modifying a
loan. In fact, the HAMP* program although
controversial in terms of its success in lowering
the foreclosure rate within the United States
has helped to set a standard for figuring
mortgage payments and interest rates.

    The standard is as follows:

First, many banks multiply one’s gross income
by 31% and then subtract monthly homeowner’s
taxes and insurance from the given amount. This
is considered the targetted monthly mortgage
payment. This makes sense because one shouldn’t
pay over one third of one’s pay to any
mortgage. (This is a conservative “rule of thumb.”)
People really get into trouble when their
mortgage and rent payments are above 50 percent.

Next to calculate a new interest rate, the lender adds
to the loan balance any back payments that are owed
and interest or escrow advances owed. The interest
rate is then lowered in small increments (.125) until
the target monthly rate is reached or all the way down
to a 2% rate. If the target monthly rate cannot be
reached then the mortgage loan may be extended for
40 years.

Another possibility to reach the target monthly rate
without having to extend the length of the loan is by
reducing the principal balance of the original loan.
HAMP does have guidelines to follow for reducing the
principal balance. Guidelines could include hardship,
assessed value (how far “underwater”), investors’
instructions whom back the loan, the number of months
in default, gross income, debt to income ratios, and other
mathematical formulas. Only 10% of the people who
have thus far received a loan modification have had
their principal reduced. So, the guidelines for a principal
balance reduction are quite stringent.

At Foreclosure Prevention Institute, we do use forensic
audits to force the issue for a loan modification from
the lender. The interest rates and terms are usually
significant compared to homeowners who negotiate on
their own. We also encourage homeowners to use
an attorney to grab the lender’s attention. Time and
again we see homeowners losing their homes to banks
who negotiated in “bad faith.” Homeowners don’t
know their rights or how to begin to “fight” back to
save their home from foreclosure. It has even been
hard for us since T.A.R.P. money has been stripped
away for principal reductions in many states.

Stopping foreclosure is difficult and has a definitive
legal timeline, so requires professional help for
successful outcomes. If you have a question(s) about
foreclosure or need a referral to an attorney, please
call Foreclosure Prevention Institute, LLC. Foreclosure
Prevention Institute’s hotline is 1.800.826.1929. Ask
for Dave Brigle, Managing Member. He has 35 years
experience in the foreclosure market and real estate
industry. He’s also a retired state appraisor, mortgage
company owner, and passed licensed real estate
salesperson. He freely provides information
regarding his experience with foreclosures and
evictions for those who call and ask. He cannot help
you unless you call him at 1.800.826.929.
Dave Brigle, Managing Member

Foreclosure Prevention Institute, LLC

271 Viking Dr
Battle Creek, Michigan 49017

1.800.826.1929

brigle@appraisaloffice.biz

http://ForeclosurePreventionInstitute.com

*HAMP = Home Affordable Modification Program

Forensic Audits & Loan Mods

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