The notion of buying a home with no money down is understandably alluring. But what looks sexy in a lender’s advertisement does not always translate into what is best for your financial well-being. What is a zero-down loan? Also known as 100 percent financing, zero-down loans require no down payment to purchase a home. For those with little to no cash in savings, these loans are touted as a Continue Reading

Up 4% but still down 19% from a year earlier and 32% from the post-crash high. A total of 189,870 U.S. properties with a foreclosure filing during the first quarter of 2018, up 4% from the previous quarter but still down 19% from a year ago and 32% below the pre-recession average of 278,912 per quarter from Q1 2006 to Q3 2007, ATTOM Data Solutions reported Thursday. It was the sixth consecutive Continue Reading

How is the housing market poised at the end of the first quarter of 2018 and what can one expect in the near and long-term future? A webinar about The State of the U.S. Housing Market by Carrington Mortgage Holdings hosted by Rick Sharga, EVP, Carrington Mortgage Holdings looked at the various indicators that are affecting the housing market today and how they would impact it in the Continue Reading

According to a new report by Moody’s Investor Service, Freddie Mac loans refinanced under the Home Affordable Refinance Program will continue to outperform pre-crisis Freddie loans that did not enter the program, but will also continue to lag behind post-crisis Freddie loans. The Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) was instituted by the Federal Housing Finance Agency in March 2009, designed Continue Reading

This past week the United States Senate passed legislation designed to help protect military servicemembers, veterans, and their families from foreclosure. Sponsored by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island), the legislation was included as part of the larger banking regulation bill passed by the Senate and makes permanent a one-year foreclosure grace period for service members leaving active Continue Reading

Although they did see a small uptick as last year ended, first mortgage default rates remained flat year-over-year, according to the S&P/Experian Consumer Credit Default Indices covering data up through January. According to the S&P/Experian Consumer Credit Default Indices released on Tuesday, the default rate for first mortgages inched higher between December 2017 and January 2018, Continue Reading

Attom Data Solutions today released its 2017 U.S. Year-End Home Equity and Underwater analysis, which revealed that the number of seriously underwater properties — meaning they had a loan-to-value (LTV) of 125+ — decreased 0.3 percent year-over-year in Q4 2017 to 9.3 percent, the smallest year-over-year decrease in the share of seriously underwater properties since Attom began tracking in Q1 Continue Reading

Mortgage delinquencies hit a 23-month high as 2017 wrapped up, surging by 164,000 year-over-year, according to the latest Mortgage Monitor Report from the Data and Analytics Division of Black Knight, Inc. However, that figure only tells part of the story. Outside of hurricane-affected areas, Black Knight reports that the national mortgage delinquency rate was actually 11 percent below long-term Continue Reading

Convinced struggling borrowers to sign over title, then stole their equity The former owner of a California foreclosure rescue firm admitted in court last week to stealing struggling borrowers’ homes during the housing crisis. Sergio Barrientos pleaded guilty last week to conspiracy to commit wire fraud affecting a financial institution and bank fraud. According to court documents, from about Continue Reading

According to mortgage delinquency data compiled by Black Knight, Inc., in November 2017, 90-day delinquent loan inventory saw the largest month-over-month increase in nine years due to the impacts of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. November increases in severely delinquent mortgage inventory have been observed in nine out of the past 10 years, according to Black Knight, but the spike in 90-day Continue Reading