Archive for January, 2008

Individual mortage companies have reached out to borrowers in an effort to assist them. Were those initial efforts sincere or driven public relations? The reason we ask the question stems from new reports after the Bush administration got involved. It seems that homeowners are not getting information, help, or the same answer twice. “The governor and the president are putting out information, but that definitely hasn’t trickled down to ground zero,” said Ed Smith Jr., vice president of governmental affairs and industry relations for the California Association of Mortgage Brokers.”

It is quite apparent that directors and officers are getting sued over decisions related to subprime, while investors such as pension funds are suing lenders due to subprime losses. The finance sector led the way for class action suits, with 47 Wall Street firms sued in 2007, more than four times the number sued in 2006. Mom and pop operations are not the targets of big lawsuits, however, as law firms target major banks and investment houses. To that end this effort from Rhode Island seems to be a preventive measure:

Discover Card is running a full-page advertisement in the national media, telling Discover Card holders that they can earn a cash reward equal to their monthly interest fee if they make timely payments on their credit card debt six months in a row. Another way to look at it is to say people are enticed to do what they are supposed to do in the first place. What percentage of individuals and families want to play with fire while running the risk of 30-plus percent interest rates? Quite a few.

A great article by Huliq focuses on the mortgage blame game. “You can blame who you want but mortgage lenders made these products available to mortgage companies who hired individual mortgage brokers with no formal education to sell the mortgage product that made the mortgage lender, the mortgage company and the mortgage broker the most money with total disregard to the consumer” says part of the article. We recommend reading the entire narrative, as this assessment is right on the money.

It has been said that mortgages with PMI insurance are generally prime loans. Although I doubt the validity of that assessment, the number of borrowers with PMI attached to their loans, and in some form of defualt, continues to rise. Borrowers who opted to carry Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI) on their homes set a record as 61,300 borrowers were at least 60 days or more on their mortgage payments. The 34.7 percent increase in defaults reflects on the inability of home owners to keep current on their loan payments.

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