Tag Archives: Bedford NY

The Town of Bedford NY

Mortgage insurers won’t stand in the way of Fannie and Freddie short sales | Bedford NY Real Estate

Leave a reply

Starting tomorrow, mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have a green light from nine private mortgage insurers to approve short sales for distressed borrowers without a separate review.

Fannie and Freddie require that borrowers take out mortgage insurance if they are making down payments of less than 20 percent of the value of the home they are financing. Letting loan servicers working for Fannie and Freddie approve short sales and deeds in lieu of foreclosure without a separate review by mortgage insurers has the potential to reduce costs, delays and uncertainty, Freddie Mac said in announcing the move.

The nine mortgage insurers that have agreed to expedite short sales are CMG Mortgage Insurance Co., Essent Guaranty Inc., Genworth Mortgage Insurance Corp., Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corp., PMI Mortgage Insurance Co., Radian Guaranty Inc., Republic Mortgage Insurance Co., Triad Guaranty Insurance Corp., and United Guaranty Corp.

In announcing the new agreement, Fannie Mae said it previously had individual delegation agreements with the “majority of its top mortgage insurers.” Having a standard delegation agreement in place all nine mortgage insurers makes the approval process “more consistent and efficient for servicers and borrowers.”

The new delegation agreement allows loan servicers to approve any short sale or deed-in-lieu that meets Fannie and Freddie’s requirements without individual mortgage insurance approval.

“We applaud the nation’s mortgage insurers for committing to work with us and our servicers to help more borrowers obtain short sales and other foreclosure alternatives,” said Tracy Mooney, senior vice president for loan servicing and REO at Freddie Mac, in a statement. “By paving the way for more borrowers to avoid foreclosure, today’s announcement will support the housing recovery and help reduce taxpayer losses.”

Fannie and Freddie’s new streamlined short sale approval process also goes into effect tomorrow. The mortgage giants will offer up to $6,000 to second-lien holders to expedite a short sale, and reduce or eliminate paperwork requirements for borrowers who have missed several loan payments, have low credit scores, or have serious financial hardship.

via inman.com

Fannie and Freddie becoming ‘wards of the state’? | Bedford NY Realtor

Leave a reply

The government’s failure to overhaul mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is pushing the U.S. toward nationalization of the mortgage market, and would-be homeowners will be the losers if competition between private companies isn’t restored.

That’s according to Jim Millstein, the former Treasury Department official who oversaw the reorganization of American International Group Inc., who thinks the government will have to get into the business of reinsuring mortgages if it wants to restore the private sector’s role in mortgage securitization, and reduce taxpayer exposure to Fannie and Freddie.

Millstein, the Treasury Department’s chief restructuring officer from 2009 to 2011, says neither the Obama administration nor Congress has put forward a workable plan to lift mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac out of conservatorship.

Increasing the fees charged by the companies and taking all of their earnings threatens to make Fannie and Freddie “permanent wards of the state,” Millstein argues in an editorial he co-wrote with Phillip Swagel, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy.

Millstein and Swagel have proposed legislation that would create a new government reinsurance program, and turn Fannie and Freddie into one of many private “first loss” insurers that would pay into it.

Four years after the takeover of Fannie and Freddie, they say, “the government now backstops 90 percent of all new mortgages and has no plan to reduce its market share, no plan to protect taxpayers against future losses on the trillions of dollars of mortgage credit underwritten since the firms were placed under government control.”

The Treasury Department’s decision to claim Fannie and Freddie’s earnings as dividends is intended to make sure that taxpayers recoup the $141 billion they’re still owed from bailing the companies out (Treasury has invested $187 billion in the companies and received in $46 billion in dividends). But the government’s “cash sweep” prevents Fannie and Freddie from building up capital reserves that would protect taxpayers against potential losses on $4.5 trillion in mortgage guarantees, Millstein and Swagel argue.

In a similar fashion, recent increases in Fannie and Freddie’s guarantee fees mandated by the Federal Housing Finance Agency would seem “sensible and long-overdue,” the two maintain. Fannie and Freddie, they say, “had grossly underpriced the insurance they provided on mortgages before the crisis, putting taxpayers at risk for the bailout that inevitably came and making it difficult for other private companies to compete with them.”

But the fees are still “significantly below” what private companies would charge, and the increases are all going to the government, rather than helping Fannie and Freddie build up capital and reserves.

“With Washington hungry for revenue, there will be inexorable pressure to milk Fannie and Freddie’s guarantee fees to support other government spending,” Millstein and Swagel warn. “The losers will be potential homeowners, as mortgage availability will be determined by government regulators rather than by private firms competing for their business.”

Ironically, they say, the quickest way to get Fannie and Freddie out of conservatorship and restore competition among private firms is for the government to get into the mortgage reinsurance business. Millstein and Swagel envision a system in which private mortgage insurers would take on a growing proportion of the first loss on bad mortgages before government reinsurance would kick in.

Fannie and Freddie would themselves be transformed into private, “first loss” insurers, and forced to compete with other private companies willing to pay the government for reinsurance.

With “strict regulation to ensure that community banks can originate and securitize mortgages on an even playing field with the giant banks,” competition would breed new entrants in mortgage finance. Any of them, including Fannie and Freddie, could fail without the threat of a housing market collapse, Millstein and Swagel maintain.

A government reinsurance program will be a tough sell to conservatives, they acknowledge. But the government, having placed Fannie and Freddie in conservatorship, is already “creeping” toward nationalization of the mortgage market.

A government reinsurance program with private insurers ahead of the government is perhaps the only way, they say, to shrink Fannie and Freddie’s portfolios, reduce taxpayer exposure, and jump start a competitive private market.

“Today, we’re doing massive guarantees through the conservatorships of Fannie and Freddie,” Millstein tells the Wall Street Journal’s Nick Timiraos. “But it’s a ham-fisted, convoluted way of delivering the guarantee. Taxpayers aren’t being protected at all. There’s no capital ahead of us.”

via inman.com

Real estate’s a natural for content marketing | Bedford NY Real Estate

Leave a reply

Editor’s note: The following guest perspective is published with permission of 1000Watt Consulting. See the original post, “The broker as publisher.”

By JESSICA SWESEY

We hear a lot about “content marketing” these days. It’s the new black.

In reality, it’s the same stuff great marketing has always consisted of but with a new name. Anyone who’s dabbled in social media is already doing content marketing to some extent.

But something about the term content can be intimidating. It should be. Creating things your audience looks forward to, enjoys and shares with others is tough, sweat-inducing work.

It’s important, though. And worth a second look after the initial knee-jerk reaction many companies have: “We’re not a publisher, we’re a __________.”


Jessica Swesey

Think of this: Red Bull is not a publisher. Neither is Whole Foods, Nike or BMW. Yet each of these brands has gone “all in” with content, resulting in some of the most creative, buzz-worthy marketing out there today. (Click the links to see a content example from each of the brands.)

Why would a car company bother making a documentary? To further brand recognition, establish brand personality, authenticity and ultimately, to be shared on the Web.

Something to share

According to data The Atlantic recently cited in an article about the history of social behavior on the Web, 69 percent of social referrals on many media sites came from places like email and IM. By comparison, 20 percent came from Facebook.

Content is still being shared significantly more outside of Facebook than it is within Facebook.

So not only is content king, it’s the social queen.

The only way to optimize your efforts in attracting that large portion of sharing that happens outside of Facebook is to create great content. In other words, it’s not just about posting to Facebook and Twitter throughout the day, it’s about creating fantastic, unique content that you can share there and more importantly can be shared well beyond the walls of the social network.

Two simple ideas

I’m bullish on content for real estate companies. In an industry plagued with consumer skepticism and reputation problems, a sound approach to content can help create authenticity and authority. It’s a grueling path that, when taken, can lead to consumer trust, social sharing, and business.

While I’d love to see some heavy-hitting creative content campaigns in real estate like Nike’s Better World or BMW’s Activate the Future, it doesn’t have to be this ambitious.

The obvious opportunity for brokers is neighborhood content and real estate “how to.” (Nest Realty does a great job with neighborhood profile pages.) But there are two additional killer content opportunities every broker can access right now: customer testimonials and reviews.

Rather than approach neighborhood content and real estate “how to” as two small aspects of an overall marketing plan, think of them as content opportunities — a chance to tell your story through other people.

Go for authenticity.

Use Red Oak Realty’s client stories as the benchmark for what compelling testimonials can be.

Include full names, detailed stories of exactly what challenges your clients had and how you helped them overcome them. Interview them in their new homes, where they will feel relaxed and excited to talk about the process. Take their pictures.

This is how you create authentic stories that make those who don’t already know you feel more confident in your abilities.

Reviews are another area-rich content vein. But you can’t leave it up to fate. You’ve got to create a process for getting clients to create reviews on third-party sites. You can’t do it for them, but they’re much more likely to actually do it if you make it easy for them and give them a gentle nudge at the end of every closing.

The Good Life Team in Austin does this well, as you can see in the number of recent reviews it has on Google.

Point is: Content is a major player in marketing today and going forward. It’s critical for authenticity, trust, Web traffic and social marketing.

If you’re a broker who’s not thinking like a publisher or feeling like there’s value in doing that, then think about the fact that publishers are already thinking about real estate as content. Look no further than this Chicago Real Estate page on Huffington Post, which features listings (your content) with articles and commentary contributed by Trulia and Zillow.

You have plenty of great content (and publishers want it — bonus!). You just have to start — and commit.

via inman.com

Woman Killed By Car In Bedford Is Identified | Bedford NY Realtor

Leave a reply

BEDFORD, N.Y. – The victim of Friday’s fatal pedestrian accident in Bedford has been identified, according to the Office of the Westchester Medical Examiner.

Deborah Seidlitz, 49, was struck and killed by a car shortly before 8 p.m. in front of Truck restaurant at 391 Old Post Road in Bedford.

The Westchester Medical Examiner’s office is conducting the autopsy Saturday.

The incident is still being investigated by the Bedford police.

Check back with The Daily Voice for more on this story.

via mtkisco.dailyvoice.com

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac take finger off automatic repurchase trigger | Bedford NY Real Estate

Leave a reply

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said the government-sponsored enterprises won’t require lenders to automatically repurchase loans with early payment defaults, reversing course on a key provision in the government-sponsored enterprise’s new representation and warranty framework.

Early payment defaults occur when a borrower misses a payment during the first three months of the loan.

The GSEs had previously said that under their new guidelines, early payment defaults would automatically trigger a repurchase request from the agencies — no matter how well documented the loan was. In letters released to lenders Friday, both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said that “upon further review, it has determined that the automatic repurchase trigger will not be implemented.”

The new representation and warranty guidelines, announced by the Federal Housing Finance Agency in September, are scheduled to go into effect for loans originated on or after Jan. 1, 2013.

Under the reps and warrants clause of the mortgage contract, GSEs have the option to force a lender to buy back a loan that breaches certain representations made about the loan upfront. The changes being pushed through for 2013 are positioned as an effort to relieve at least some of that pressure for lenders, although some have questioned whether the changes will help or hurt the mortgage market.

So-called buyback risk has been routinely cited by lenders as a key reason certain loans aren’t being made, at numerous industry conferences during 2012. This risk has already materialized in the form of reducing bank earnings, with Fifth Third Bancorp ($15.02 -0.1001%) reporting earlier this week that the bank’s third-quarter earnings were affected by a reserve holding against future rep and warranty claims.

Both letters issued by the GSEs also spelled out for the first time key repurchase alternatives either Fannie or Freddie may choose to offer lenders, incuding indemnification and loss sharing, among other alternatives.

The GSEs also warned lenders to expect more loan reviews, saying its sampling of performing loans for rep and warranty review “will likely increase in aggregate across all loans and lenders,” as both mortgage giants expand their discretionary review process on loans they guarantee.

via housingwire.com