Foreclosure

Freehold, New Jersey-based First Equity Capital, LLC has established a private equity fund to buy pools of non-performing mortgage notes in an effort to stem the tide of foreclosures and delinquencies.

Families on the verge of foreclosure and facing eviction in several cities across the country hosted early Christmas dinners with Congressional lawmakers this week to intimately discuss the impact of the economic and housing downturn on Main Street Americans.

National Short Sale Center, a Scottsdale, Arizona-based company that assists lenders, real estate agents, and homeowners nationwide in short-selling properties for maximum value, has announced that short sales in 2008 hit an all-time high in Arizona, Nevada, California and Florida.

Sheriff Richard Jones of Butler County, Ohio, is refusing to evict homeowners or tenants in his jurisdiction who have been foreclosed on and have no other place to live. The sheriff sent a letter to Ohio Gov.

The nation’s foreclosure hemorrhage has finally slowed and 2009 should see a significant decline in foreclosures as buyers return, pushing home prices up and fueling a real estate recovery, according to the 2009 Outlook from California-based ForeclosureS.

Columbia, Maryland-based CMSI Group Inc., a company that helps financial institutions mitigate credit risk, recently announced the first of two software applications for assessing the underlying loss risk of a lender’s loan portfolio.

ForeclosureRadar, an online company that tracks California foreclosures and provides daily auction updates, issued its California Foreclosure Report for November 2008 today. Despite the clear impact that California State Senate Bill 1137 had on stemming foreclosure activity in September and October, November saw significant increases across all stages of the foreclosure process, the company said.

Bergenfield, New Jersey-based NJLispendens recently announced enhanced search options to its Web site for pre-foreclosure court filings. NJLispendens offers legal insider information that is updated daily, allowing for real estate investors, lenders, and Realtors to locate recently filed foreclosure actions as they are recorded in the courts and pinpoint homeowners in default who need their help to avoid foreclosure.

An estimated 8.1 million homes in the United States, or 16 percent of all outstanding mortgages, will be foreclosed over the next four years, according to a recent research and analytics report issued by the 152-year old financial institution Credit Suisse.

Lenders who have pledged to halt foreclosure proceedings are apparently proceeding with foreclosure actions anyway, according to a recent BusinessWeek:http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/dec2008/db2008123_362200.