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Posts Tagged ‘2009’

Loan Modification Watchdog

Two bills designed to address some of the problems resulting from the economic crisis have been signed by President Obama. The first deals with mortgage fraud and the other with helping families who are involved in a foreclosure situation save their homes.

Look out rip-off artists, enforcers of the new mortgage fraud bill means serious business. Almost half a billion federal dollars has been authorized to spend on targeting charges of mortgage fraud. Agencies the likes of the Secret Service, U.S. Postal Service and HUD are all getting additional funding to increase their security measures.

The Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act now sanctions the government to go after companies or individuals currently out of reach. Currently, an incidence of mortgage fraud can result in investigation, prosecution, civil penalties and prison time at a federal level, opposed to the prior gentler state penalties previously enforced. This new Act applies to all types of mortgage fraud, no matter how minor the offence.

In the past, these schemes defrauded home owners, realtors, lenders and builders out of billions of dollars each year. The FBI intends to send a message that mortgage fraud will not be tolerated and it is expected that offenders will receive stiff penalties in order to set an example to others.

The second bill, simply entitled, "Helping Families Save Their Homes Act," is intended to simplify the process for homeowners to receive foreclosure financing and modifications to existing loans. It also makes it easier for the lender to offer these types of options and hopefully prevent an impending foreclosure.

The new law also offers protection for renters who find themselves living in a home whose owners are facing foreclosure. Under the old rules, tenants would have to move immediately following foreclosure, now they have the option to continue renting for a term negotiated with the lender. This makes sense on so many levels. Now hundreds of families who otherwise would have found themselves on the street, still have homes. Lenders no longer have to deal with the problems associated with the upkeep of an empty home. Hopefully this will reduce occurrences of complete neighborhoods of foreclosed houses sitting vacant and facing ill repair and vandalism. In many cases, reliable tenants are happy to stay on and maintain the property.

The law provides additional homeless relief, makes better use of local organizations in this role, and allows them more latitude when allocating federal funds for assistance.

Part of the reason that mortgage fraud became so widespread was attributed to the lack of a single watchdog affiliation to oversee the the sketchy subprime loan offerings, underwriting and lending schemes. Instead there were a number of small agencies, each only seeing part of the problem, but no single unit had the power to actually deal with the issue as a whole. Currently, the Obama administration has a plan in the works to establish a single federal agency designed to watch over everyone involved; from the small brokers to the major lenders.

About the Author:

Search Sandy Springs GA condos at TinaFountain.com, the home of Sandy Springs real estate experts.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Mortgage Fraud Bill Signed, Sealed & Delivered

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Obama Mortgage Relief 2009

Question: Does Obama Know What He's Doing?

The furor over the huge federal spending under President Obama - a $1.75 trillion deficit, 13 percent - obscures an even more basic question: Does he know what he is doing?

That is, does he know how to do anything other than spend?

His stimulus package, of course, took no special ability: He left the details to Democrats in Congress. But his two other major initiatives - his banking and mortgage-relief plans - are both flawed and unlikely to solve their respective problems.

Indeed, they're so wide of the mark as to prompt questions not of Obama's ideology but of his basic competence.

The bank-bailout plan seems to be largely stillborn. Having wished that the private sector would flock to invest in toxic assets if offered the right incentives, the Treasury secretary is still hoping. Crossing his fingers seems to have replaced effective policy in his planning.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/03/boggled_obama_can_president_ge.html

Answer: Barack Obama, and his liberal henchmen, are preparing the US for our transition into socialism. He knows that his ENORMOUS increase in GOVERNMENT spending will do nothing to stimulate our CAPITALIST, Business run, economy. He doesn't expect it to help businesses at all, he expects it to decrease the population's trust of our free market economy so that we will run to the Feds with our tails between our legs. Once our economy hits rock bottom, Messiah Obama will swoop in and "save us" with a "New new deal". Obama seeks the same power over our economy that his european counter-parts enjoy over theirs.
So yes, Obama knows exactly what he's doing.

America is not socialist and hopefully never will be.
We need to oust this would be tyrant ASAP

Speech at the Boston Tea Party April 15 2009 Boston

2009 Obama Mortgage Relief Plan

Homeowners are facing the worst crisis due to the present recession and the economic crisis. Due to the ever increasing foreclosures, house prices are at an all time low. This is because of the depressed sentiment that even one foreclosed home can create in its neighbourhood. This has caused the peculiar situation that many homeowners are saddled with their home that is worth less than their liabilities on account of its purchase. President Obama, having realised the predicament of the homeowners has now introduced the home loan modification plan to solve these problems.

The plan had a quick start in March, 2009 after being announced just a month before, that is, February, 2009. A part of the plan provides for refinance to the homeowners who are at risk of foreclosure. Traditionally, one is asked to at least invest 20% equity in order to be eligible for refinancing. But the fall in prices have robbed the homeowners of their wealth who no longer can afford such investments. Considering this fact, Obama's plan provides for easier terms for refinancing to enable the homeowners to better manage their payment of monthly instalments and thus avoid foreclosures.

About 5 million homeowners are likely to be benefitted by the plan, which offers ways and means of modifying the mortgage loans. The Government will compensate the mortgage lenders who will work with the distressed homeowners by restructuring their monthly payments at lower levels.

The lenders would be made to reduce the interest rates so that the monthly payments of the homeowners using the loan modification plan will not be more than 38% of their gross monthly income. There are still more possibilities to further reduce the interest rates to make the monthly payments to 31% of the monthly income. For this the lenders can get matching dollar amounts from the Homeowner Stability Initiative of the Government. Considering that the present layoffs have considerably reduced the monthly incomes of the people, often a homeowner may have to part with 40 to 50% of their incomes towards mortgage payments, loan modification plan has become has become an absolute necessity to provide relief to them.

The lending institutions are required to complete a series of steps, as laid out by the U.S. Treasury while providing relief to the homeowners through loan modification. These guidelines would help to make the process more efficient compared to the past initiatives of same nature. What happened in the past was to provide loan modification by linking missed payments with the principal amount. However such an attempt failed to reduce the monthly payments. Now Obama's plan strikes the right chord with the people as they would be required to pay lesser bills and thus have the real solace.
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Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Obama's Home Loan Modification Plan

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