March 10 at 7:38 a.m.
Filed under:
Real estate
By Mary Ellen Podmolik
A foreclosed home up for sale in Elgin in 2009. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
The number of homes in foreclosure plummeted in both Illinois and the U.S. in February, but despite the slowing flow, many analysts believe the foreclosure pipeline has not turned off yet.
In Illinois, 5,568 homeowners received notices that their mortgages had fallen into default and foreclosure proceedings had been initiated, while 1,471 properties were scheduled to go to auction and another 2,553 homes were repossessed by lenders, RealtyTrac said Thursday.
Altogether, the 9,592 notices related to a foreclosure last month showed a decline of 27.13 from January and 44.59 percent from February 2010. Get the full story »
Nov. 16, 2010 at 3:16 p.m.
Filed under:
Real estate
By Mary Ellen Podmolik
An abandoned foreclosed house in Highland Park in 2009. (David Trotman-Wilkins/Chicago Tribune)
Mortgage servicers would not be able to put a home into foreclosure until they could detail specifically why all modification efforts failed, under legislation proposed Tuesday by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan.
The bill, which would amend the Illinois Mortgage Foreclosure Act, also is intended to prevent the practice of cutting corners and rubber-stamping foreclosure files as accurate as they head toward judgment, a practice that has drawn headlines and spawned an ongoing investigation into lenders’ internal practices by the attorneys general of all 50 states. Get the full story »
Nov. 9, 2010 at 11:32 a.m.
Filed under:
Investing,
Real estate
By Reuters
Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s mortgage servicing unit has suspended evictions and foreclosures in some states, according to a regulatory filing on Tuesday. Get the full story »
Oct. 19, 2010 at 11:03 a.m.
Filed under:
Economy,
Real estate
By Becky Schlikerman | Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart is ordering his deputies to stop carrying out mortgage foreclosure evictions — again. Dart did the same two years ago after finding out many of those his deputies were forcing from their homes had paid their rent faithfully and didn’t know their landlords were having financial problems.
Oct. 13, 2010 at 2:37 p.m.
Filed under:
Real estate,
Updated
By Reuters
Protestors at a foreclosure and eviction rally in Menlo Park, Calif., Sept. 24, 2010. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
All 50 states launched a joint investigation of the mortgage industry on Wednesday, a move some experts fear will cause uncertainty and threaten the recovery of the fragile housing market.
The state attorneys general are looking at allegations some banks used shoddy or fraudulent paperwork to remove struggling borrowers from their homes during a foreclosure crisis that is one of the most visible wounds of the 2007-2009 recession.
“We are in the fourth year of a housing and economic crisis that was brought on by lax practices of the mortgage lending industry,” Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson said in a statement. “The latest allegations of corner cutting and slipshod paperwork are troubling, but perhaps not surprising.” Get the full story »
Oct. 12, 2010 at 9:43 a.m.
Filed under:
Economy,
Policy,
Politics,
Real estate
By Reuters
The White House on Tuesday expressed opposition to a broad moratorium on home foreclosures, warning there could be some unintended consequences for the housing market. Get the full story »
Oct. 8, 2010 at 5:26 p.m.
Filed under:
Real estate
By Reuters
U.S. lawmakers pushed for the country’s largest mortgage lenders to suspend foreclosures in all 50 states after Bank of America Corp announced on Friday it would temporarily halt evictions nationwide.
BofA, the largest U.S. mortgage servicer, is the first U.S. bank to institute a nationwide freeze on foreclosures, expanding on a 23-state suspension announced last week while it conducts a review of its procedures. Get the full story »
Sep. 29, 2010 at 4:28 p.m.
Filed under:
Investigations,
Real estate
By Mary Ellen Podmolik
The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation has asked Ally Financial to freeze all foreclosures and not initiate any new ones against Illinois homeowners until an investigation of its foreclosure practices is complete.
According to the state, more than 100,000 Illinois homeowners have mortgages that are serviced by the company, including 78,500 first mortgages.
An Ally employee testified in a Florida court case that he signed at least 10,000 affidavits a month to process foreclosures without reviewing the underlying paperwork and that those documents were then filed with the court as evidence of Ally’s rights to foreclose on the homes. Get the full story »
Sep. 20, 2010 at 2:08 p.m.
Filed under:
Real estate
By Reuters
GMAC Mortgage, a unit of Ally Financial Inc., is continuing with new residential foreclosures despite a report it had stopped them, a spokeswoman said Monday.
But some evictions have been suspended while the company reviews its internal procedures, the company said. Get the full story »
