San Joaquin Homes Community Blog

· Banks and loan servicers may be beginning to catch up with troubled loan workouts, but the numbers of borrowers who require assistance continues to rise. During the first six months of this year, Countrywide says it modified the terms of 86,000 loans, and Bank of America, which recently acquired Countrywide, reports that counselors are completing more than two workouts for every completed foreclosure. Hope Now, an alliance of lenders, says it conducted 70,000 loan modifications in May, although an estimated 85,000 families lost their homes that month. Even if loans are modified borrowers still may not be able to make their mortgage payment if they have lost a job, for example. According to a working group of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors, 32,000 loans that were modified in recent months already are delinquent again. That may be because few loan modifications actually result in lower monthly payments due to a cut in the principal loan balance. In California, only 1.3 percent of loan modifications involved such a reduction.

· IndyMac Bancorp’s new management, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), has halted foreclosures and said it is focusing on modifying existing loans to make them more affordable for IndyMac borrowers. The bank has about $15 billion in mortgage loans in its own portfolio and manages servicing for another $185 billion in mortgages owned by other institutions. FDIC officials said they were examining troubled loans contained in the broader servicing portfolio loan by loan to determine whether they can be modified. However, borrowers serviced by IndyMac who need help may want to move quickly: The FDIC hopes to sell the troubled thrift and its assets within 90 days. IndyMac reopened under federal oversight on Monday after regulators closed its doors on Friday. Last year, it ranked as the tenth-largest mortgage lender and eight-largest mortgage servicer in the county. 

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Our office has been very active renting property, along with working with buyers in this current real estate market in San Joaquin County.  Our availablility of properties changes daily, please check the website on a regular basis, or if you have a question please email or call us.  Thank you for all your support and business.

Norbert G. Huston, Realtor/Broker

www.SanJoaquinHomes.info