Portland Looking at Vacant Property Registration Program.

Mayor Adams blog post HERE, includes links to background documents.  Portland Business Journal story HERE.

Medford has had similar requirement with Police Dpt. but I haven't seen any feedback on how it is working; feel free to add comments if you have additional information about how effective the Medford program has been (and any revenue/cost info).

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog. 

SF Materials from Last Housing Council Meeting.

OHCS staff were kind enough to send me a copy HERE of the Single Family materials presented  at the last Housing Council meeting. 

Material includes extensive information about loans and  default and foreclosures on OHCS (bond) loans, including county level origination and default data. Costs of claims to OHCS also shown for different loan insurance programs. 

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

New Report on Mortgage Lending and Foreclosure Disparities.

From Center for Responsible Lending HERE, data includes several state and metro breakouts.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

First Take, FHA HOPE for Homeowners Loan Analysis.

The FHA HOPE for Homeowners program was the original FHA program that was designed to allow underwater borrowers to refinance into an affordable FHA loans, IF lenders agreed to principal reduction. (Program requirements from HUD's regulations can be found HERE).

As my earlier post indicated HUD has said that they have endorsed a TOTAL of 167 HOPE for Homeowner loans in FY 2010 and through November of 2010.  I have gone back into the relevant FHA databases and extracted data for 150 of those loans (data indentifying the remaining 17 loans is NOT in the earlier FHA databases).

I have prepared a table HERE showing the state location of these loans.

Two Initial Observations 

• Oregon had ZERO H4H loans,
• 10 states accounted for 70% of all H4H loans.

More observations to follow ...

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

HUD/FHA Now Projecting 96,875 Loans for Short Refinance Program; No Way Do I See That Happening.

HUD has filed a new information collection request related to the FHA Short Refinance program with the Office of Management and Budget HERE. 

Buried within an associated document HERE is some additional background on the paperwork requirements for lenders under that program. (File is in MS Word 2007/2010 format).

Notably this form indicates that:

1. HUD/FHA expects 96,875 loans applications annually , with several form types submitted for each loan.
2. HUD says that the program expires September 30, 2011.
3. HUD says that that debt to income ratios can be up to 38%/50% for Loan to Values less than 90%

If projected TARP subsidy for the FHA short refinance program is $8.1 Billion that would mean that per loan subsidy cost for these 96,875 loans would be $83,691, a highly unlikely per loan subsidy amount. (Subsidy amounts per loan would actually be higher since not every application results in an actual loan).

With volume during the first two months at 35 loans (my prior post HERE) it also seems likely that far FEWER than 96,800 FHA additional short refinance loans will be insured in the 11 months from November 2010 to September 2011.  

Actual Volume , Less than 1% of Prior Projection?

My prior Sept 2010 post HERE shows WSJ story had data projecting nearly 11 million underwater borrowers, so the actual likely production under this program will clearly have very little impact AND could be less than 1% (5,000-15,000 loans) of the "500,000 and 1.5 million " range projection previously made by administration officials.

With likely loan volume under the FHA short refinance falling far short of Administration projections it continues to appear that a significant portion of the projected $8.1 billion in TARP subsidy could be recaptured. (Wouldn't it make sense to use this money for the still unfunded Housing Trust fund for example)? 

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

CORRECTED: Oregon NSP1 Report Through September.

Correction:
Original title showed through "December", has been changed to correctly read September.
----------------
Report is HERE. It shows:

1. Increase of 12 rehab unit achieved during month, now up to 56 vs goal of 137.
2. Compared to units goal of 480, total achievement to date is 99 units. (21%).
3. Compared to beneficiaries goal of 260, total achievement to date is 60 households. (23%). 
4. Report shows beneficiary goal DECLINING from 275 reported in August to 260 in September with declines in acquisition (6) and rehab (9) sub categories.
5. 40% of beneficiaries are reported as below 50% MFI.
6. "Expenditures" now up to 70% of budget.

Link to my prior post on Oregon performance at end of August is HERE.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Portland Tribune Leads with Data Rich Story Showing Suburban Foreclosure Growth Exceeds Portland's.

Well researched story from Steve Law in Portland Tribune HERE has lots of detailed RealtyTrac Inc. data for individual zip codes and summaries for individual cities.

Hillsboro On Track for 1,000 Foreclosure Actions This Year; Lake Oswego, 600.

To me most stunning detail in story is that Hillsboro is on track for 1,000 foreclosure actions this year, and Lake Oswego 600. (There could be some double counting of actions on individual properties despite RealtyTrac efforts, but irregardless, this level of foreclosure activity in two of the most prosperous cities in Oregon is indeed stunning).

(Story has a quote from me too, along with reference to a prior Oregon Housing Blog web post HERE pointing out that serious delinquencies and foreclosures on recent FHA loans are higher for loans with higher mortgage amounts). 

Hardest Hit Funding Allocation?

With suburbs outpacing City of Portland in the growth of foreclosures by 31% (8.5%/6.5%-1), and recent $50 million increase in Hardest Hit funding, OHCS will need to look more closely to see if suburban Portland markets should be selectively added to the Hardest Hit areas.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

HUD Official Testifies on Impact of Foreclosure Crisis on Rental Markets; That NSP is Pretty Good , Eh?

House Financial Services subcommittee held hearing in Minneapolis today; web page for hearing is HERE.

HUD Official Erika Poethig, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy Research and Development testified at the hearing on the impact of the foreclosure crisis, ostensibly on the impact on rental markets; her testimony is HERE.

One Neighborhood Strategy Program Tidbit
If I am adding correctly the data on page 6 and 7 of the Poethig testimony, it appears that communities in Minnesota got $94.5 million in NSP 1 and 2 funding from HUD. (A significant share of their NSP 2 funding is for a land banking approach to acquiring foreclosed properties).

Minnesota's 2008 5.22 million population is 38% higher than Oregon's 3.79 million and Oregon received a total of $26.4 million in NSP funding. So, with a population 37% higher than Oregon, communities in Minnesota received 258% MORE NSP funding than Oregon.

NY Times Gets Busy on NY Metro Foreclosure Coverage.

When I run across a real success in making complex data accessible at the human level, I'm prompted to say, "That's what I'm talkin' about"!

NY Times has nailed it with a new series with stories, pictures, an interactive map and a slide show; only wish is that map was NOT limited to NY metro area.

One of many stories HERE using the data says that minorities affected the most; look at left pane for related stories on subareas within NY metro. Other resources:

• Interactive map, down to street level, is HERE.
• American Dream Threatened slide show is HERE.
• Faces of Foreclosure is HERE.

Kudos to NY Times for great coverage.

Oregon 4th Qtr 2008 Foreclosures: Starts are Up 111% and Seriously Delinquent Loans Up 140% from a Year Ago.

I have updated the Excel Current Oregon Foreclosure Tool in the right pane (and HERE) to include 4th quarter MBA data. (My prior 3rd quarter post, with explanation of what the tool does is HERE). Key feature of the tool is ability to compare for loans and problem loan rates between loan categories (all loans, prime loans, and subprime loans) and over time.

Four Items to Note

1. For all loans, foreclosure starts increased by 111% from 26 a DAY to 55 a DAY from 4th quarter 2007 to 2008. Prime loan foreclosure starts increased even higher, by 182% (see item 3 below).
   
2. Seriously delinquent loans (foreclosure inventory + 90 day delinquencies) increased by 140% from 8,578 to 20,331. Prime loan seriously delinquent loans grew even faster at 214% (see item 3 below).
   
3. Subprime loans continue to have higher rates of problems than prime loans, but the rate of increase in PRIME problem loans is much higher than for subprime loans. Suprime loans account for 9% of all loans but 40%+ of problem loans; prime loan problem loans however grew by 180%-240% in several problem loan categories.(The PDF HERE provide the data to demonstrate this conclusion).
4. Total loans serviced as reported by MBA declined by 8,454 loans. As the all loan total includes all loan categories, either reporting changes were made, loans switched to servicers not reporting in the MBA survey, OR we had 8,454 fewer homeowners with loans than a the same quarter a year ago. (or some mix of all three reasons). The national survey also saw a decrease of 592,000 loans but no explanation was offered for the change. This kind of change in loans surveyed may be a regular occurrence that slips public attention; I will look at future reports and call out changes for Oregon in future quarterly updates.