Despite debt-to-income ratios rising in recent years, delinquencies have remained low in the five years since the Ability to Repay (ATR) requirements were introduced under the Dodd-Frank Act, according to the findings of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's (CFPB's) long-awaited report on the Ability to Repay (ATR) and the Qualified Mortgage (QM) Rule (ATR-QM Rule). The report, which looks Continue Reading

Michaela Christian lost a long battle with Wells Fargo in 2013 to save her Las Vegas home, a defeat she says changed the course of her life. When the bank refused to modify her mortgage, Christian moved in with a friend and scrambled to rebuild her life. Five years later, Wells Fargo admits it made a mistake. Christian, 46, qualified for the kind of mortgage help that may have saved her home Continue Reading

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac took action to prevent more than 63,000 foreclosures in the third quarter of the year, raising the total number of foreclosure prevention actions to more than 4.24 million since September of 2008, the Federal Housing Financial Authority reported on Thursday. Additionally, there were 2,159 completed short sales and deeds-in-lieu during the quarter, bringing the total Continue Reading

Wells Fargo says a computer glitch is partly to blame for an error affecting an estimated 545 customers who lost their homes. The giant bank filed papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission last month, revealing it incorrectly denied 870 loan modification requests. About 60 percent of those homeowners went into foreclosure. Legislators, housing advocates, regulators and most importantly, Continue Reading

Mortgage delinquencies rose more than 13 percent in September registering the largest single-month rise since November 2008 according to Black Knight's First Look at the mortgage performance data for September. Black Knight said that while September delinquency increases are quite common, three factors led to the large surge seen during the month this year. "Sixteen of the last 19 Septembers Continue Reading

A report by Zillow explains how the effects of the Great Recession were not just twofold but deeply profound—and also reveals how the crisis served to benefit those who bought foreclosed homes during that time. According to the report, nearly half (45.4 percent) of all homes foreclosed in the wake of the subprime mortgage crisis were valued in the lowest third of the U.S. housing market, Continue Reading

For the GSEs, delinquency has dropped, according to the latest Foreclosure Prevention Report from the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA). According to data from the FHFA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s overall delinquency rate fell in Q2, with the 60-plus-day delinquency rate dropping to 1.2 percent at the end of the quarter. However, the 30-59 days delinquent increased to 1.3 percent. The Continue Reading

As many as 10 million Americans are believed to have lost their homes because of the financial crisis that erupted a decade ago, according to the St. Louis Federal Reserve. The crisis wiped out almost $8 trillion in household stock-related wealth and $6 trillion in home value after banks, mortgage lenders and financial companies provided loans to speculators, house flippers and people who couldn't Continue Reading

Ten years after the financial crisis, Brookings Center on Regulations and Markets [1] looks back on the measures taken in the years since designed to prevent another crisis, both nationally and globally. Michael Calhoun, President of the Brooking Center for Responsible Lending, notes in his piece titled “Lessons From the Financial Crisis” that an important takeaway from the crisis was the role the Continue Reading