The Associated Press reports that the number of Americans who lost their properties daily average 2,700 from July to September 2008. This is an increase of 1,200 for the same period in 2007.

Figures released by the Mortgage Bankers Association showed over 4 million delinquent homeowners as of June 2008. Almost half-million homeowners have filed for foreclosure proceedings.

The Minnesota Homeownership Center expects a 39 percent rise in the number of vacant properties in 2008.

Several factors indicate that the housing market crisis could worsen. They include declining home values, deteriorating job market and economy. About 52,000 homeowners in Minnesota have mortgage balances more than the market value of their homes.

The private sector implemented some efforts to rework mortgages, including direct assistance to affected homeowners, or through HOPE NOW, a coordinated alliance among mortgage market participants, such as investors, servicers and counsellors.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. head Sheila Blair has proposed a plan that calls for the U.S. government to guarantee mortgages renegotiated by borrowers and banks. A bipartisan political support is needed for any market recovery plans to succeed. These plans should also be acceptable to majority of American homeowners who are financially secure

A commitment by President Bush to prioritize foreclosure legislation during the transition period will be a big help to incoming president Barack Obama to address the country’s economic challenges.

Also, Americans should accept the fact that it is a must to help those who are facing foreclosures as well as those homeowners who are financially secure. Unabated foreclosures would only result to lower home market values for every Americans, which may worsen the economic crisis that could create conditions for a potential global recession.

The said program is spearheaded by Judge Frank and Francis Ciuffani, who reached out to about 70 lawyers in the Middlesex County Bar Association who, in return, volunteered to represent homeowners in negotiations. However, these volunteers have a limited scope, only for those who contested foreclosure actions.

Negotiations really matter for it can lead to changes in terms of loans or refinancing. In some cases, this can mean thousands of dollars being forgiven. Unfortunately, some great debts cannot be saved by any mediation anymore. It greatly depends on the capacity of a homeowner to pay.

Another good thing about the new program is that it is mandatory for people to contest foreclosures. A lot of people do not combat foreclosure actions. In fact in New Jersey, uncontested foreclosures are about 95 percent of the total actions. Sometimes, they just make a move when it is already too late.

The said program aims to help people before they ran out of options. Even if there has been a default judgment already to someone who has stopped paying mortgages, one can still ask for mediation.
Not all the benefits go to the homeowner because even banks are helped by making a loan “perform” again, Therefore, the program works both ways – clearly showing that the courts always remain neutral.

The growing number of foreclosures every year is not favorable therefore homeowners must step up in fighting foreclosures, now that there are a lot of easy ways doing it.
Homeowners in Middlesex County should understand first that they will have to go through one of these nonprofit agencies for some counseling regarding their financial state: New Jersey Citizen Action (Highland Park), Faith Fellowship Community Development Corp. (Sayreville), Puerto Rican Action Board (New Brunswick).

There is no guarantee for all happy endings with the new program; but as always, trying matters.

Homeowners should understand that the fence does not only serve as a security measure. You will be surprised to learn that they could actually add to a home’s market value. Since you are facing foreclosure and needs to sell your home as soon as possible, you might want to consider how your fence looks.

If you have a wooden fence, you should check it for any signs of rotting as well as termite infestation. In case there are, make sure you replace the rotten wood. Some home building experts recommend that homeowners request for galvanized post to be placed in the ground, to prevent the termite from eating the new wooden fence.

The ornamental fences will require some major touch up especially if they are of the traditional wrought-iron kind. This will involve sanding and painting. On the other hand, ornamental fences made from aluminum will not require much repair or maintenance.

If you have a vinyl fence, you are in luck for it requires minimal maintenance work. The only problem with this fence is that they could not be as appealing to home buyers especially if your home is made up of wood.

Improving how your fence looks is just the start. You should also make sure that the rest of your home is attractive. Considering the tough competition in the housing market today, it will be wise if you try your best in improving your home’s curb appeal in order to attract more buyers.

After its implementation, ForeclosureRadar.com reported a 61.8 percent decline in default notices and a 47.3 percent drop in trustee sales notices.

Although this should be interpreted as good news, the website does not consider it as such. Instead, it believes that it has only made it even more difficult to understand and determine the real state of the local housing industry.

For them, the long term effect of the said bill is to only delay the foreclosure process and not really provide troubled borrowers with genuine assistance.

To make matters worse, the new legislation also encourages loan modification. The problem is that most of the troubled mortgages show negative equities which will make it close to impossible for lenders to change any terms of the mortgage.

The only way a loan modification can work is if the lender agrees to significantly reduce the principal balance or lower the interest rates – both of which pose considerable risks to the lenders. If the lender agrees, it could encourage the other non-defaulting borrowers to default just so they could enjoy lower mortgage rates or principal reduction.

For homeowners facing foreclosure in California, it is probably best for you to consider availing of the mortgage relief program sponsored by the government. There are certain requirements you mist meet before qualifying but if you do qualify, you will be able to shift your existing mortgage to a government-backed housing loan, which has a fixed interest rate.

Check with your local county office for more details about this program.

For most of these troubled borrowers, such possibility is very little. This is considering that the bailout plan is meant to stabilize the economy and allow banks to have enough money to lend. The problem is that many of these lenders have become more cautious when it comes to approving loans including mortgages, car loans and even credit card applications.

To make matters more difficult for these struggling homeowners, the inventory of new and existing homes for sale in the market has continued to grow and has even caused home prices to decline considerably, especially in areas hit hardest by the subprime mortgage mess. With such market conditions, selling their homes is out of the question.

Both consumer and housing advocates are not pleased with the decision of the government to bailout these large corporations instead of using the money to help distressed homeowners. For them, these giant investment firms were the ones who funded the hybrid and subprime loans, which were considered to be the culprit for the current foreclosure crisis.

Although the government has already approved a $300 billion housing rescue program, the current mess in the financial industry will surely result to more homeowners facing foreclosure. As it is, the money allocated for the said mortgage relief program is considered to be insufficient.

According to Deutsche Bank, it can be expected that about 20 million American borrowers will have an “upside down” mortgage after about 12 to 18 months. Most of them will be from California, Nevada and Florida.

The New York State Commission of Investigations has found that it is the minority communities that are predominantly besieged by this trend. They found that there was double the number of Hispanic and African-American borrowers in the sub-prime market as compared to white borrowers.

Mary Biunno, speaking on behalf of the commission said instances have come to the fore where estate agents are doubling up as mortgage brokers, especially in minority dominated neighborhoods, managing to attract a fair amount of hopeful people. Bills are presented to clients for services rendered in the form of commissions and fees for loans or sales being organized. Also, they have on their side the attorneys and appraisers who the borrowers think are working for their benefit.

The commission also stated that there should be an increase in regulatory safeguards to protect New York’s lenders from preying lenders. Loans in the sub-prime market have been linked to growing menace of New York bank foreclosures. Speaking of figures, last year foreclosures on sub-prime loans was 59% of the total New York bank foreclosures.

The chairman of the commission, Alfred Lerner, said in a press release that the prime objective of the report was investigating mortgage fraud in the sub-prime market; however it was not possible to ignore the statistics in lending patterns. Greedy brokers pushing people of minority communities who qualify for prime loans into taking sub-prime ones which are high risk is catching on. A fair amount of conspicuously bad cases showed voracious practices on part of lenders where it was quite clear that the borrower couldn’t possibly pay the loan off.

In order to prevent similar problems in the future the commission made some recommendations. These include, brokers being banned from donning the dual role hat because when one person acted as both the agent and the broker, there was an increased chance of criminal behavior and conflict of interest.

For the group, the foreclosure numbers is being dictated by the states hit hardest by the subprime mess. They include California, Nevada and Florida. Even if the foreclosure situations in states like Massachusetts, Maryland and Texas have improved considerably during the same period, they were still overwhelmed by the increases.

Subsequently, 39 percent of all foreclosure filings during the second quarter recorded came from Florida and California. Other states that contributed considerably include Michigan, Nevada, Rhode Island, Ohio, Arizona and Indiana. These states have foreclosure rates that are above the nation’s average.

Aside from this, the subprime mortgages also accounted for 36 percent of the total foreclosure filings. This figure is quite depressing considering that subprime loans represent just 6 percent of the total outstanding loans. Compared to fixed rate mortgages, the figure for the subprime loans is nearly 20 times more.

To make matters worse, it would seem that the subprime loans are not the only ones defaulting. There was also a significant increase in delinquency rate for the prime loans in the second quarter – 3.9 percent compared to 3.7 percent of the first quarter and 2.7 percent from last year.

For experts and analysts, any stabilization experienced in the subprime market will still not herald the end of the foreclosure crisis since the prime loans are starting to catch up. This only means that the problem is not only confined to the credit industry and is probably fueled by weak economic conditions.

The only good news that can be observed from the report is the slowing down of home price decline in the past months. With home prices stabilizing a bit, delinquencies might level off as well.

James Hughes, an economist with the Rutgers Uni. predicted that the foreclosure problem and declining property prices could well continue until 2010.
Home owners who are involved in the foreclosure process across the country have doubled in the 2nd quarter of this year as in comparison to the same time period last year, with New Jersey Bank Foreclosures rising up rather dramatically, data from a recently released report show.

With the senate passing the housing relief bill, approximately 400,000 home owners might see help in avoiding foreclosure on their properties. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the two government supported mortgage institutions are also to receive aid due to the bill.

A call to the lenders has been made by Rep. Barney Frank (Massachusetts) and Rep. Maxine Marks (California) to either stall or cancel existent foreclosures and give the bill time to take effect, waiting to see which borrowers could qualify under the program Rep. Barney Frank is also the Chairperson of the House Financial Services Committee. Bonita Holmes, who works as a counselor for Citizen Action said that they’ve had 290 cases relating to foreclosures in the first six months of the year, the total number of cases they handled throughout the whole of last year was 182. New Jersey Citizen Action which works with home owners trying to avoid foreclosure hope that the bill provides them with added tools to work on improving the current New Jersey Bank Foreclosures scenario.

The director of the accounting organization J.H.Cohn, Patrick O’Keefe said that despite there being a rise in New Jersey Bank Foreclosures, the state does not feature among the list of top states suffering under the mortgage crisis. He went on to say that the housing market wasn’t particularly suffering due to foreclosures in the state.

Last week, they both said that if the companies that service loans would work with borrowers in ways that would avoid foreclosures, they would receive increased fees (companies that service loans handle payments made on loans, besides handling administrative duties). Freddie Mac is also to provide servicers additional time to work with borrowers. Both laid emphasis on their desire to help borrowers keep their homes, a statement welcomed by people facing North Carolina Bank Foreclosures.

Freddie Mac’s list of incentive’s include giving 300 days from the time the last payment was due to servicers to work on solutions to avoid foreclosures. In terms of monetary incentives, if the terms of a mortgage are modified so that foreclosure is avoided the servicer would receive $800 as compared to $400 in the past. If short sales are organized by loan servicers and the lender accepts a smaller amount than what is owed on the property, they are to receive $2,200, up from the previous $1,100.

Not all states will benefit from this new program, North Carolina though, is on the list of states that stand to gain from this move, which could have a good effect on Bank Foreclosures in North Carolina.

Graham Fisher & Co.’s analyst Joshua Rosner, who has frequently criticized both the above mentioned organizations, said that they were simply trying to preserve money. He went on to say that they’d rather pay the lenders/servicers more money to roll over their losses to a later period even if a major portion of borrowers aren’t able to cope up with their mortgage payments and end up defaulting on their payments again.

Provisions in the bill for local communities to receive extra funds have been made to assist in foreclosures. Federal Housing Administration has been provided with greater authority to lower mortgages. Around 15 billion have been set aside in tax breaks, with first time home owners receiving a 7500 credit that is interest free. Experts in the housing industry across the state do hope that the bill will have a positive effect on the Bank Foreclosures in Michigan.

Exchange Financial’s president Dan Grzywacz said that they are looking at help for people in the form of FHA having higher lending limits, FHA’s option for rescue and the credit on tax for first time home owners. He went on to say that though it’s not a cure-all, it will still work as dressing on a rather bad sore.

Grandville’s Heritage National Mortgage president, Pava Leyrer said that since the federal FHA Secure program was announced in September 2007, she hadn’t found a single lender showing willingness to work with it. The Heritage National Mortgage too has many struggling clients. Leyrer said she wondered how many lenders would be willing to participate.

In order to avoid time and money consuming steps for foreclosures, banks would have to look at facing large losses. For making payments on newer smaller loans, home-owners could have to pay in excess of 31 of their monthly earnings.

Tracie Coffman, a counselor with Grand Rapids‘ Home Repair Services also displayed doubts of the number of lenders willing to participate, despite the new bill assisting cut losses.

Michigan Bank Foreclosures, meanwhile, wait to heal.