Servicing

RealtyTrac reported today that foreclosure activity decreased by 3 percent compared to the previous month, and by 14 percent compared to November of 2010, but that a nine-month high in scheduled foreclosure auctions suggested that a “new set of incoming foreclosure waves” may be coming. I’m not so sure I agree.

Many organizations are feeling the impact of a stagnant housing market. Homeowners associations (HOAs) are no exception, but the pain they experience is also felt by mortgage servicers and investors.

Large servicers are now embracing the notion of using special servicers to leverage their internal capacity, and finding that doing so creates an opportunity to involve all the necessary parties in the process through a single, integrated approach.

Accountability is about responsibility, the responsibility to answer for your actions. The largest bank failure in U.S. history happened in 2008 with the colossal collapse of Washington Mutual. Three high-ranking executives, who were brought to task, recently reached a $64.7 million settlement with bank regulators.

The complex issue of how Wall Street relates to Main Street brought into the limelight by the Occupy Wall Street movement was in fact delivered by the ongoing economic crisis and the seemingly never-ending foreclosure disaster.

November was the second best month of last year in terms of new private mortgage insurance written, but new applications received declined from October, according to the Mortgage Insurance Cos. of America.

House prices may go up and down over the next two years. But looking back it will appear relatively flat. That’s why it is a good time for patient investors to buy foreclosed properties, according to Rick Sharga, EVP, Carrington Mortgage Services.

As 2012 begins, the California Department of Real Estate is still warning consumers to be wary of promises for loan modification, mortgage relief and foreclosure rescue scams as fraudsters to continue prey on vulnerable, financially stressed homeowners.

A global settlement has been reached between Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin and thousands of homeowners who filed a lawsuit who claimed that the company’s tainted Chinese drywall product was used to construct their properties and severely damaged their homes.

Between foreclosures and paying down their loans through “cash-in” refinancings, the nation’s mortgagors are continuing to whittle down their housing debt—and that’s bad news for the nation’s servicers.