Mortgage Info
Vacant Homes Haunt Once-Vibrant Neighborhoods
December 29, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
New homes in the borough once sold as fast as they went up and rapid-fire development stressed many Staten Islanders.
Today the borough’s residents are adjusting to a new reality — stalled construction sites and foreclosed, sometimes abandoned homes in their midst.
Properties caught in the real estate downturn often go dormant due to a lack of financing or foreclosure, and the resulting empty foundations or boarded homes also can affect the neighborhood psyche — and property value.
Struggling with high mortgage bills? You may be a victim of mortgage fraud. Contact MFI-Boston for help. We’ll investigate and do a forensic mortgage audit. We may be able to help you save your home. Contact us today!
Florida Foreclosure Workshop Set for Jan. 19
December 21, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
South Florida residents in danger of foreclosure can attend a workshop Jan. 19 in West Palm Beach organized by Alex Sink, Florida’s chief financial officer and candidate for governor.
The event will be from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Clayton Hutcheson Agricultural Services Center, 559 N. Military Trail. For information, call 877-693-5236 or visit MyFloridaCFO.com/FloridaHousingHelp.
Read more about the Florida foreclosure workshop…
Struggling with high mortgage bills? You may be a victim of mortgage fraud. Contact MFI-Boston for help. We’ll investigate and do a forensic mortgage audit. We may be able to help you save your home. Contact us today!
Foreclosure Sales Being Cancelled
December 21, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
Foreclosure sales have been cancelled at an increasing rate as loan modifications take hold, according to ForeclosureRadar, a Stockton-area data company that monitors California’s distressed housing market.
For San Diego County, the daily cancellation count increased nearly a third, from 34 in October to 45 last month. There were 741 cancellations in October and 824 in November. In November 2008, there were 773 cancellations.
Meanwhile, 1,283 foreclosures became final last month, down from 1,346 in October and up from 1,115 in November last year.
Read more about foreclosure sales being canceled…
Struggling with high mortgage bills? You may be a victim of mortgage fraud. Contact MFI-Boston for help. We’ll investigate and do a forensic mortgage audit. We may be able to help you save your home. Contact us today!
Government Mortgage Plan Provides Little Permanent Help
December 18, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
The Obama administration’s embattled mortgage relief plan has provided permanent help to only 4 percent of borrowers who have signed up, weak results that could threaten the housing market’s recovery.
Among big lenders, Bank of America Corp. had the worst performance in the Treasury Department report card released Thursday. The nation’s largest lender completed just 98 modifications for the 160,000 borrowers who had signed up by the end of November. GMAC Mortgage had the most modifications of any lender, just 7,100.
As of last month, just over 31,000 homeowners had received permanent loan modifications. That compares with about 760,000 who have signed up for the program since it launched in March.
Read more about the government’s mortgage plan…
Struggling with high mortgage bills? You may be a victim of mortgage fraud. Contact MFI-Boston for help. We’ll investigate and do a forensic mortgage audit. We may be able to help you save your home. Contact us today!
Ex-Fed Chief’s Words on Derivatives Industry
December 9, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
Paul Volcker, the chairman of President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, stunned a business conference in Sussex yesterday, saying there is “little evidence innovation in financial markets has had a visible effect on the productivities of the economy.”
The former US Federal Reserve chairman told an audience that included some of the world’s most senior financiers that their industry’s “single most important” contribution in the last 25 years has been automatic telling machines, which he said had at least proved “useful”.
Echoing FSA chairman Lord Turner’s comments that banks are “socially useless”, Mr Volcker told delegates who had been discussing how to rebuild the financial system to “wake up”. He said credit default swaps and collateralised debt obligations had taken the economy “right to the brink of disaster” and added that the economy had grown at “greater rates of speed” during the 1960s without such products.
Struggling with high mortgage bills? You may be a victim of mortgage fraud. Contact MFI-Boston for help. We’ll investigate and do a forensic mortgage audit. We may be able to help you save your home. Contact us today!
Avoid Foreclosure: Properly Handling An Underwater Mortgage
December 3, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
The unstable environment of a bad economy can leave homeowners dreading how low their home value will go. Over the summer, Zillow, an online real estate marketplace, revealed that people who purchased a home just two years prior, when most markets peaked, had the highest rates of negative equity. This occurs when the home value is less than the original mortgage amount, and is also known as an “underwater mortgage.” This problem, along with other financial setbacks such as a job loss or a medical emergency, left many people at the brink of foreclosure. Homeowners can maneuver through the troubling times by considering the following “dos” and “don’ts.”
Read more about avoiding foreclosure…
Struggling with high mortgage bills? You may be a victim of mortgage fraud. Contact MFI-Boston for help. We’ll investigate and do a forensic mortgage audit. We may be able to help you save your home. Contact us today!
Federal Grant to Provide Foreclosure Counseling
November 30, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
State housing officials say a new $1.4 million federal grant will help fund free foreclosure counseling assistance for homeowners across Illinois, including those in this region.
The grant is provided through the National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling program, and the funding has been allocated by the Illinois Housing Development Authority (IHDA) Board of Directors. It will fund 5,000 mortgage delinquency and foreclosure prevention counseling sessions in Illinois. These sessions will be conducted by 39 partner agencies, including two in the Rockford area that cover the Northwest Illinois region. Read more about foreclosure counseling…
MFI-Boston & MFI-Miami Launch Investigation Into Illegal Foreclosures By Deutsche Bank
February 28, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
MIAMI–MFI-Miami, LLC announced today that it’s narrowing its multistate investigation into illegal foreclosures and is focusing exclusively on Deutsche Bank.
“Deutsche Bank is named as the trustee on nearly 50 percent of the fraud investigations we have done in the past six months,” says Stephen Dibert, President of MFI-Miami.
In the majority of these cases, Deutsche Bank or its servicer almost never produces or refuses to produce the original note and mortgage, or proof that the transfer of the note has been validated. They freely admit this in the actions filed in court. However, some minority homeowners don’t have the legal expertise to understand how important these documents are to their case. They assume they have no defense and don’t show up for the hearing.
In most of the cases MFI-Miami examines, Deutsche Bank has purchased these mortgages and notes on the secondary market as part of a pool with other mortgages. These mortgages have been traded by fund managers like baseball cards.
“The practices of Deutsche Bank underscore the disorganized process financial firms used in buying and selling mortgages on the secondary market, which is done secretly behind closed doors,” says Massachusetts Bankruptcy Attorney Glenn F. Russell Jr. “They are turning the foreclosure process into the Wild West, and many of these foreclosures are plainly illegal.”
Stephen Dibert says, “In many of these cases, it appears that Deutsche Bank management gave their approval to buy a lot of worthless paper on the secondary market.”
“Deutsche Bank retains law firms that aren’t interested in defending the legitimacy of their claim,” said Dibert. “Their purpose is to intimidate, obtain default judgments, and foreclose as fast as possible against homeowners who are uneducated about the legal foreclosure process. Joseph DeYounks of West Palm Beach, Florida, is a perfect example. Deutsche Bank purchased his note on the secondary market and is now attempting to foreclose on his home. The bank hasn’t provided proof that it’s the legal owner, and the originating lender violated Florida law by funding this loan without the proper lending license.”
“Deutsche Bank is displacing minority homeowners at a methodical rate,” says Stephen Dibert, President of MFI-Miami.
Banks in South Florida are bringing foreclosure actions at an unprecedented rate. Miami-Dade County averaged about 10,000 to 11,000 foreclosures in 2006. In 2008, according to the Miami-Dade County Clerk of Courts, foreclosures were in excess of 56,000.
Miami Foreclosure Defense Attorney Shaun Rice, of De Armas, Millich, & Rice, PL, says: “I strongly believe that minorities have suffered disproportionately as a result precisely from banks like Deutsche Bank who often never had a legitimate claim to bring a foreclosure action in the first place.”
About MFI-Miami
Headquartered in Boynton Beach, Florida, MFI-Miami, LLC and its sister companies conduct forensic mortgage audits and mortgage fraud investigations. MFI-Miami, LLC is one of a few firms that investigate the transfer of the securitization instruments of mortgages. For more information, visit www.mfi-miami.com, contact 561-317-9978, or email info@mfi-miami.com.
About Glenn F. Russell, Jr.
Glenn F. Russell, Jr. is located in Fall River, Massachusetts. He’s a member of the Massachusetts and Connecticut Bar Associations, where he specializes in foreclosure defense, bankruptcy, personal injury, and divorce law. For more information, visit www.foreclosuresinmass.com, call 508-324-4545, or email russ45esq@gmail.com.
About Shaun Rice
Shaun Rice is a foreclosure defense attorney located in Miami, Florida. He’s a partner in the firm of DeArmas, Millich, & Rice, PL. For more information, call 305-913-6250 or email srice@dmrlegal.com.
25 People Responsible For The Economic Meltdown
February 1, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
The UK Guardian has an interesting article about the 25 people responsible for the economic meltdown. I am happy to see someone else agreed with me on a couple of them. British PM Gordon Brown made the list which surprised me but then again he was Chancellor of Exchequer while Tony Blair was Prime Minister.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jan/26/road-ruin-recession-individuals-economy
