Titus seeks the story of your loan

Nevadan says goal is to identify lenders that are helpful — or not

Sunday, Aug. 9, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Go to Titus’ Foreclosure Fighter Web site, and enter yours here.

To see if you qualify for a loan modification or refinancing under the Obama administration’s Making Home Affordable plan, go to makinghomeaffordable.com or call (888) 995-4673.

Real Estate in Crisis

Titus introduces her first bill (4-29-2009)
Titus: Bailout should help underwater homeowners (4-27-2009)
Titus wants homeowners told of mortgage relief (3-2-2009)

Washington — Las Vegas-area homeowners struggling to have their mortgages modified are being invited to share their stories so the federal government can determine which lenders are helpful, and which are not.

The invitation comes from Rep. Dina Titus. She is asking homeowners from her district to share stories of their dealings with mortgage lenders on a new Web site and — if they wish — ask the congresswoman’s office to get on the phone with the banks on their behalf.

The freshman congresswoman’s goal is to produce a running tally that would show which mortgage lenders are helping Southern Nevada homeowners and which are not answering their calls.

“I believe that it is important that lenders communicate with their clients, and I will do what I can to encourage them to do so,” Titus says on her Foreclosure Fighter Web site. “Your story can shine a light on lenders that have not been responsive to their customers in hopes that they will be encouraged to take action.”

Neighborhoods across Nevada are filled with tales of homeowners whose lenders refuse to work out a plan to save their homes or, even worse, simply ignore their pleas.

Many have called or written to the Las Vegas Sun asking for help. Nationwide, the same story has been playing out, as homeowners complain of being required to submit arduous amounts of paperwork only to sit in limbo waiting for the non-reply.

The Obama administration released a Treasury Department report last week as the first of what will be monthly checkups showing how many homeowners are being helped by the White House plan and whether banks are responding to homeowners’ requests.

President Barack Obama launched the Making Home Affordable program in March, an ambitious effort to slow the spiral of foreclosure activity nationwide.

The administration is providing $75 billion in incentives to help lenders rewrite the loans of those at imminent risk of foreclosure. The program gives banks $1,000 for every loan they rewrite, with extra pay for those that succeed in halting foreclosure.

The goal is to help homeowners stay in their homes by reducing the interest or extending the life of the loan so the mortgage payment consumes no more than 31 percent of their monthly income.

The report released last week showed that as the result of the nearly 1.4 million requests for help since March, 400,000 offers for loan modifications were extended. Of those, 230,000 trial modifications are under way.

At that rate, the program is on target to meet Obama’s goal of helping 3 million to 4 million homeowners over the next three years.

But as the foreclosure crisis continues, the administration wants to ratchet it up.

Perhaps the most striking development in this first report was the disparate rate of participation among the 38 loan servicers in the program.

The big banks, including Bank of America and Wells Fargo, had some of the lowest levels, modifying just 4 percent and 6 percent of the troubled loans.

Watching the banks sit on the sidelines often infuriates struggling homeowners because many of the same financial institutions received government bailouts.

The Obama administration recently hauled a group of lenders to the White House for a one-on-one discussion about the shortcomings.

Lenders have said they are rewriting more loans than the program shows, and consumer advocates explain that banks have had difficulty staffing offices fast enough to handle the onslaught of calls.

Some consumer advocates say lenders would be more responsive if Congress would pass a bill allowing bankruptcy judges to rewrite mortgages, legislation the banking industry has opposed.

The Obama administration has given lenders a new goal of modifying a cumulative 500,000 loans over the next three months — encouraging them to double their current output by Nov. 1.

“Servicer performance has been uneven,” the Treasury Department said in a statement. “The administration has asked servicers to ramp up.”

Titus, Nevada’s newest congresswoman, has made the foreclosure crisis the top priority of her office.

Nevada has led the nation with the highest foreclosure rate for two years in a row, and Titus’ Southern Nevada district is among the hardest hit in the nation. One in every 16 homeowners in Nevada has faced a foreclosure filing, she said.

Virtually every week Titus has made a move on housing — delivering floor speeches, arranging workshops at home to help homeowners get aid, sharing her concerns during talks with Obama and his staff.

But with the launch of the Foreclosure Fighter Web site last week, Titus opened a new front in the housing battle as she begins tracking the data herself. Titus and Housing and Urban Development Department Secretary Shaun Donovan discussed the idea, and she will share her findings with his office.

“It is important that we know which servicers are doing their part to help Nevada and which servicers are lagging,” she said in announcing her plan.

Discussion: 16 comments so far…

By HookorCrook

8/9/09 at 6:19 a.m.

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Many homeowners are on there second or third loan modification. Others have been in loan modification negotions for years. Historically, a loan modification has taken several months to complete. The Nevada Foreclosure Mediation law is supposed to shorten the negotiation time to get a loan modification, or perhaps get the homeowner to realize its time to walk away.
By KillerB

8/9/09 at 8:21 a.m.

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Very few understand the value of their private rights or how to assert them. Assuming without forcing a real answer to the question of whether or note the foreclosing entity is the actual note holder just underscores that ignorance.
By HookorCrook

8/9/09 at 9:54 a.m.

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And that's why the redefault rate is so high: Underwater homeowners are still highly incentivized to default, even with reduced monthly payments. And as home prices fall, their ranks are growing by the day. Modifications in their current form are, more often than not, just delaying the inevitable.
By mred

8/9/09 at 2:04 p.m.

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Maybe the Hampton's will show up with their home loan saga story?

Hey this is a good week for some John Ensign stuff, where's his town hall going to be? In his tree-house behind mommy and daddy's house at Spanish Trails.
By CynicalObserver

8/9/09 at 3:03 p.m.

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Dina Titus has come up with this idiotic "information seeking" as a way to deflect attention from the fact that she is not supporting the public option on Health Care Reform, and that she is not supporting the Obama Administration in getting control of the Blue Dogs who have been bought by the insurance industry and for-profit hospital mega chains.

I bet that if one dug into Dina Titus' campaign contribution records from after she was elected, one would see a whole lot of insurance industry and hospital industry money coming in.

Dina Titus has quickly proved herself to be a political hoar, DINO and Blue Dog.

As to achieving the Democratic Party's public health care reform platform plank, from the 2008 National Convention, all I can say is a modified historical quotation:

Et tu, Titus?
By cpo

8/9/09 at 9:52 p.m.

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Dina Titus betrayed the people that put her in office. She is first class corporate brown nose, who screwed Nevada voters and is in bed with big Insurance . She does not support the public option for health care, and that was the main reason she was elected. She does not bother listening to the little people, and instead opts to hob nob around with areas elite. Personally I am sorry I voted for her, and I know I am not alone. I will actively campaign to make sure she is a one termer.
By rickbinlv

8/10/09 at 2:27 p.m.

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Stop with the studies.
Stop with the reports.
Stop with the investigations

Here is the deal with housing

In 2008 Las Vegas recorded 77,000 foreclosures. In 2009 we are foreclosing at a rate of 6,000 per month. This will put us on line for 70,000 plus again.

There are roughly 700,000 homes in Clark County. That means 10% have been foreclosed on or are being foreclosed on.

80% of all properties are currently under water (worth less than the current mortgage note value)

That's 560,000 homes underwater. Not including the foreclosed properties.

Half are attempting to modify their mortgages thru third party servicers or by themselves that's 280,000 homes.

The other 280,000 are going to struggle by and hopefully make it.

Nationally and Las Vegas is no different, 10% of mortgage modifications have been granted by lenders. That means that 28,000 mortgages will be modified and homeowners granted a cure to mortgage distress.

That leaves 252,000 homeowners in trouble and most likely will lose their homes to foreclosure.

140,000 over the past two years (were not even counting 2006 & 2007 which were not slouch years for foreclosures) plus the 252,000 coming in the next 24 months means that a total of almost 400,000 homes will or have been foreclosed on in Las Vegas in a four year time period.

Of course that is over 50% of the homes in Las Vegas.

So is it now time to call every elected official that you know and start having sit-ins at banks and campaign offices. This mess is not going away and is only gaining speed.

We all hope that things will improve. But their not. Unemployment is up, tourism is down, our elected officials have killed all our "PORK" projects that should have brought money to Nevada. (why not every other state gets theirs-cash for clunkers)

Mortgage companies and banks are getting rich off of this crisis and they are responsible for this mess and the only losers are us the general public.

Here is the solution-Pass a law that says if a homeowner is current on taxes and HOA the lender cannot foreclose. Period, end of story. The city/county/state wins the community wins the homeowner wins and the lender will be forced to negoitate.
By Nick

8/10/09 at 7:11 p.m.

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TITUS IS TRASH!

Takes healthcare away from us to feed her campaign donors from the pharmecutical industry.

No more Titus
By LarryVegas

8/10/09 at 7:57 p.m.

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Nicky / cpo,

I believe the topic at hand is the efforts that Dina Titus is going through to help homeowners who are having problems adjusting/refinancing their home mortgages. This is a very worthwhile project as mortgages lenders need a little help in remembering that the Federal Government gave/loaned them money to assist in adjusting or refinancing loans for those homeowners who are underwater with their mortgages.

I did not vote for Dina Titus and don't know if I will next time, but she appears to be doing the job she was elected to perform. SHE IS REPRESENTING HER DISTRICT THAT INCLUDES ALL OF US, NOT ONLY THOSE WHO VOTED FOR HER...
By odeman

8/10/09 at 10:14 p.m.

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Lending institutions are required to keep loan loss reserves on hand to cover bad loans. The more loans that go belly up, the more cash required to be set aside. Cash that could be used for making loans. With so many loans, housing and commercial, heading for potential meltdown, most of the banks are hunkering down just to survive. The recent profits by the big banks are in most cases accounting tricks. The ones who are really making out on this crisis are the bank executives who are collecting handsome bonuses.

Most of the people, who were or about to be foreclosed on, can't afford these homes so stopping the foreclosure process is not a fix. Most of the mortgage reworks have already failed so it's time to throw them out and get new owners. Giving these people more time also gives them more opportunity to destroy the property thus devaluing it furthur.
By paul02085

8/12/09 at 11:03 a.m.

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Wow, i didnt realize how many beggars there are in Las Vegas till i read this. Sickening. You guys should move to Cuba.
By Johnathan_Abbinett

8/12/09 at 4:47 p.m.

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How about making a list of all the banks that will do V.A. loans for our Veterans - AND those that do NOT?

Most do NOT because they can make more profit by NOT offering to participate in the V.A. Home Loan program - that seems to me to be very unfair, even un-American! If it were not for our Veterans none of these banks would be free to do business anywhere in America!

How about we pass legislation that all banks MUST honor and offer V.A. Home Loans to Vets? Now that's something good we could start in Nevada!

At the very lest, make it a requirement for all of the banks we've bailed out PLEASE?
By Belle

8/13/09 at 8:55 a.m.

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As a Democrat, I have written to Rep Titus, to only receive justifications back.

Had my fellow Democrats actually spent TARP funds to stabilize the Housing market, my home would not have gone underwater...to the tune now of 40% below value. The problem...not only is the $160K gone invested in the home, the home does not qualify for a refi under the government program. (Can only lose 10% of value). The Hidden further ramifications? Small business owners use their homes as business loan collateral. With business down, home value gone...once money runs out, so will both the business and the home be foreclosed. The home to the bank...the business to Chapter 7.

Rep Titus voted for Cap and Trade. Already electric bills are triple in 3 years. Now with Cap and trade? Electric might be as much as the mortgage. THAT is unsustainable.

I urge my fellow Democrats to vote out Titus and vote out Reid. Reid did not defend Nevada after Obama's remarks.

I am one of those proud Democrats that attended a Tea Party, and I don't care to be called a Nazi, a staged protester, or a right wing extremist from the very people I voted for.

By the way Titus and Reid...I READ HR 3200...did you? If you had, you would not vote for this bill.
By bsmiset

8/13/09 at 9:14 p.m.

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Sitting around waiting for the government has not proven to be successful. The housing crisis is still escalating. The only way to do something about is to take action. Homeowner are too passive in dealing with their lenders. I was doing some research the other day and came across a website that is FREE to homeowners. It allows them to anonymously post their scenarios for professional companies to prequalify and bid on a loan modification. They also provide free worksheets if you want to do it yourself.
There are action takers out there that are not part of the government.
If anyone wants to know the site shoot me an email and I will send you the link.
bsmiset@gmail.com