Price Steering
A new
Focusing primarily on unbanked Latino households in Virginia and North Carolina, the year-long study zeroed in on the impact of services offered by Latino Community Credit Union. The credit union's membership soared from 917 depositors in 2000, when it was established, to 53,073 in 2009.
The study found that each time an LCCU branch opened in North Carolina, the number of robberies dropped by an average of 57 per year, or almost 4% in each of the five counties that were surveyed.
That decline in crime led to a significant boost in property values in those same counties.
"We estimate that between 2000 and 2008 in North Carolina, the opening of credit union branches with explicit strategies to serve Latinos contributed $9.8 billion in property appreciation, representing nearly a 3.8% increase in property value for the counties in which these branches were located," wrote the authors, Gregory Fairchild and Kulwant Rai.
Open Portal
After several setbacks and
Though lenders and appraisal management companies are not yet required to upload information through the web portal, it officially launched on Monday.
With the UCDP, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be significantly increasing the due diligence they do on loan files.
The current system is so vague that one appraiser can write "good" into a data field while another appraiser might write "brick" to describe the material of the house.
The 23 different permutations of the word "average" that are currently allowed will be condensed to six different alternatives available through a drop-down menu. Also, appraisers will now have to list the appraisal management company they work for, so that any potential issues can be more easily reviewed.
Appraisal report forms for all conventional mortgages delivered to the government-sponsored enterprises on or after March 19, 2012, must be submitted to the UCDP if the loan application is dated on or after December 1, 2011.
The portal, in combination with the new standards under the Uniform Appraisal Dataset, which becomes a requirement on September 1st, should should make it easier to spot problem loans before they get originated. The Uniform Appraisal Dataset defines all fields required for an appraisal submission for specific appraisal forms and standardizes definitions and responses for certain fields.
Federal Housing Finance Administration officials say the new system should reduce mortgage put-backs, which, in about 35% of cases, are related to faulty appraisals.
However, the appraisal management industry views the changes as a mixed blessing. "Fannie and Freddie have admitted that their process has failed," said Bill Garber, director of government and external relations at the Appraisal Institute, which is conducting seminars across the country to get appraisers up to speed with the new rules. "The fact that they are paying more attention to the appraisal is a good thing.
"But I think that the costs are going up," he added. "What is important is that it is not going to improve the appraisal process. What it is intended to do is to improve their analytics."
Property In the Bank
Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America Corp. have agreed to hand off some of the foreclosed properties they own in Cuyahoga County, Ohio.
The banks have joined others in
The land bank's mission is to acquire properties and revitalize them in an effort to reduce blight and boost property values. Wells and B of A join Fannie Mae, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and JPMorgan Chase & Co. in supporting the land bank.
"Each partnership we are able to establish provides us with more resources to tackle the issues of blight created by foreclosure and abandonment within our communities," said Gus Frangos, president and general counsel for the Cuyahoga County Land Reutilization Corp., in a press release.
So far, Wells Fargo has donated 26 properties and $127,000. B of A agreed to donate up to 100 vacant and foreclosed low-asset properties, as well as monetary contributions toward demolition costs.
Online Reward
Loan Value Group LLC's Responsible Homeowner Reward program is gaining some fans on the Internet.
The patent-pending incentive
The nearly three-minute, animated video, which features two stick figures standing in a bare, gray room, discussing the limited options they have to keep their home, addresses a common dilemma many borrowers face: whether to consider a strategic default.
One character presents the RHR program, which provides homeowners with a cash reward for making timely monthly mortgage payments over a specific period of time agreed upon by the homeowner's mortgage company, as a possible solution.
