Foreclosure

Technology provider IndiSoft, LLC, has announced that effective immediately, its RxOffice platform meets the Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives (HAFA) program requirements, which take effect today, Monday, April 5. In addition, the company announced the roll-out of its new RxOffice Realtor portal, which IndiSoft says will help Realtors manage the anticipated upsurge in short sale transactions expected with HAFA's implementation.

The deadline for servicer implementation of the administration's Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives (HAFA) program has arrived. HAFA aims to help homeowners who are unable to qualify for a loan modification by providing them with the option to pursue a short sale or deed-in-lieu. To encourage HAFA participation, the Treasury Department raised financial incentives. Borrowers are now eligible for $3,000 in relocation assistance, and servicers will receive $1,500 to cover administrative and processing costs for a short sale or deed-in-lieu completed under the program.

There is a growing consensus among lenders that home prices have stabilized, according to analysts at Barclays Capital. Research by the investment firm also indicates that loan mod efforts have risen significantly, and banks are more aggressively disposing of troubled real estate assets. Barclays' analysts sifted through the Q4 earnings transcripts for 20 regional and national banks to decipher their take on the housing market, and the conclusions point to significant improvements when it comes to real estate holdings.

There are thousands of troubled mortgages in need of modification, but some lawmakers think there is a conflict of interest, in the form of second mortgage ownership, that may be preventing large mortgage companies from voluntarily offering modification services. In hopes of eradicating this issue, two members of the House Financial Services Committee have introduced the Mortgage Servicing Conflict of Interest Elimination Act, which prohibits servicers from owning debt secured by a home that backs a mortgage they already service.

Prudential Real Estate and Relocation Services, Inc., the integrated real estate brokerage franchise and relocation services business of Newark, New Jersey-based Prudential Financial, Inc., and Irvine, California-based RealtyTrac, an online real estate marketplace, recently announced an expansion of their business relationship.

In new policy guidelines released this week, Fannie Mae told servicers that they can no longer name MERS as the plaintiff in any foreclosure action, whether judicial or non-judicial, on a mortgage loan owned or securitized by the GSE. MERS is widely used by the industry to keep track of the servicing rights on home loans, and is often listed as the ""mortgagee of record."" But the system has become the centerpiece of a number of lawsuits, with foreclosed homeowners challenging the naming of the electronic system as mortgagee.

At a briefing of state housing counselors held this week at the HomeFree-USA office in Prince George's County, Maryland, Congressman Steny Hoyer and Raymond Skinner, Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development secretary, both expressed their support for HOPE LoanPort, making Maryland the first state in the nation to publicly endorse the program.

Vermont Attorney General William H. Sorrell announced Wednesday that Countrywide Financial Corporation, now a part of Bank of America, has entered into a settlement with his office to resolve claims concerning Countrywide's origination of home loans in past years. The agreement calls for Countrywide to pay $100,000, which will be disbursed to borrowers in the state whose Countrywide loans were foreclosed upon and used for general foreclosure prevention efforts.

Freddie Mac is riding the wave of the homebuyer tax credit, hoping it will be incentive enough to entice deal-seekers to snatch up foreclosed properties it has repossessed in the hard-hit Las Vegas and Southern California markets and put a dent in the GSE's swollen inventory of REO properties. Freddie officials announced Thursday that they plan to auction off hundreds of HomeSteps REO properties to individual homebuyers in these areas during the last week of April - just ahead of the contract deadline for the federal tax credit.

New data from HOPE NOW shows that servicers completed more than 95,000 loan modifications through their own proprietary programs in February. That's almost double the 52,000 modifications finalized under the government's Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) during the same month. The report also showed declines in the number of 60-day delinquencies and foreclosure starts and sales.