Are Mortgages Coming Around?

We must keep asking this question. The Destin Condo market, like many other real estate markets, is controlled by interest rates and monthly payments. This article goes into a little more depth on what is coming in the mortgage industry. Hopefully things will continue to get a little bit better as we go down this path!

Lenders Move Slowly to Modify Loans U.S. mortgage service companies permanently eased terms on about 79,000 home loans in August, slightly less than in July.Total workouts in August, which include new payment plans for existing contracts, slipped to 188,931 compared to July’s 192,220, according to Hope Now, the voluntary coalition of mortgage servicers and investors.In all, the industry has performed some form of workout on 2.3 million loans since July 2007. About one-third of those were permanent modifications, Hope Now announced Thursday.Paul Koches, general counsel of subprime mortgage servicer Ocwen Financial Corp., said a loan modification benefits both the borrower and the lender because losses on foreclosed homes are running at more than $100,000 per property. "It sure beats the alternative," Koches said.Nevertheless, the level of loan modifications varies dramatically in the industry, according to a Credit Suisse report released this week. Among 18 loan servicers, modification rates among subprime loans made since 2005 ranged from under 2 percent to nearly 18 percent as of August. Ocwen Financial had the third-highest level of loan modifications in the Credit Suisse report.Source: Reuters News and The Associated Press (10/02/08)

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