10.25.08
Posted in Education at 9:42 pm by Jeanne
Hennepin County Taxpayer Services, in partnership with Minnesota Home Ownership Center and Hennepin County Public Affairs Dept. , is offering a web-based, mortgage foreclosure Video Workshop. The web-based video gives residents 24/7 access to the same foreclosure information offered at workshops at Hennepin county libraries. The workshop helps homeowners worried about foreclosure, and renters affected by property owners’ foreclosures – to understand the foreclosure process, their rights, and how they can find assistance.
The video is easy to access over the internet, offering valuable information that can be viewed at a convenient time and private location. I was impressed with the content. The 1 hour video is a very realistic look at the foreclosure process. It walks consumers through each step, telling them what to expect. It warns them of a number of fraud schemes that are most likely to occur once the notice of foreclosure has been published in the newspaper. Foreclosure scams to look out for include a buyback scheme, where someone comes in asking for a deed to the property, and telling you you can lease the property from them; someone coming to a homeowner and asking for a fee to negotiate a better deal with the lender; or anyone promising a quick and easy sale.
The video is well worth the time for any one behind on even a single payment on their mortgage. It’s an excellent tool that explains what paperwork is needed for review, how to contact legitimate nonprofit free counselors for assistance, and how to talk to or lender when you get behind in payments. It also addresses the needs and rights of renters who are losing a place to live because the owner is in foreclosure, even though the renter has made every payment on time.
Kudos to Hennepin county and the Minnesota home ownership center. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Education, Money and Finance at 9:26 pm by Jeanne
The third quarter transcript of Fidelity National Financial, Inc. (FNF) gave us a clear picture into what is happening with all Title Insurance Underwriters. To give you an overview of what is happening at FNF, here is a recap. The entire transcript can be found at http://seekingalpha.com/article/101536-fidelity-national-financial-inc-q3-2008-earnings-call-transcript?page=1
Regarding expense reductions
- FNF eliminated 1000 positions in the third quarter (800 frontline staff and 200 agency and corporate positions)
- It instituted a 10% company-wide pay reduction, most likely to be continued through the first quarter of 2009
- It is asking board members to take a similar cut in pay
- Its fourth-quarter dividend was reduced 50% .. from the previous quarter
- The company continued to close offices…more than 115 offices
The current situation The largest decline in revenues came in agency premiums as they fell by 24% and 40% versus the third quarter of 2007. Actual title claims paid in the third quarter were $85 million versus $79 million in the third quarter of 2007.
When asked about claims by type and percentage of claims, FNF responded the “primary three, I would say, are search and exam errors… That’s about roughly 30% of our claims experience. Fraud and forgery,.. moved to number two in the last three years or so …running somewhere close to 20% currently. Then in closing-related errors and underwritten risk, are kind of three and four, (and) make up about two-thirds of our total losses.”
Regarding claims, it was noted “…given the pattern we had seen where our actual claims results continued to exceed our forecasted results; we realized that the current model needed to be adjusted. So we really stepped back from the current model and said… We’re going to disregard all prior reported claims experience other than the last three years, those years being 2006 through 2008. “ (IBNR will now be reserved at an increased 8.5%)
To increase revenue
- FNF is renegotiating agents splits
- Is increasing filed rates …generally 15% - 20% or more across the country.
No surprises given the state of affairs in the real estate market, and this bloggers expectation is that the four remaining major title underwriters are or will be doing exactly the same thing. Increases will happen across the board for all costs related to title insurance and closings.
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10.16.08
Posted in Education, Industry News, Money and Finance, Mortgage and title Fraud, Regulation of Insurers and Banks at 1:38 pm by Jeanne
Beware, title insurers who handle wired funds on a daily basis. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has put out an FDIC alert to consumers that handle large sums of money, saying that FDIC has received numerous reports of a fraudulent e-mail that has the appearance of being sent from the FDIC.
The subject line of the e-mail states: “Funds wired into your account are stolen.” The e-mail tells recipients that the proceeds of identity theft crimes have been wire-transferred into their bank account. The e-mail then directs recipients to open and review an attached copy of their bank account statement. to confirm. The attached file is actually an unknown executable file and is likely a malicious attempt to collect personal or confidential information, some of which may be used to gain unauthorized access to on-line banking services or to conduct identity theft.
The FDIC does not issue unsolicited e-mails to consumers. Financial institutions and consumers should NOT open the executable file attached to the fraudulent e-mail.
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10.12.08
Posted in Education, Industry News, Land Title Technical Stuff, Money and Finance at 11:53 am by Jeanne
The Minnesota Home Ownership Center put out new Fact Sheets of Interest to Title Insurers, Closers, and anyone dealing with foreclosures.
Here is an excerpt from one fact sheet
“…In other words, debt forgiveness (short sale, deed-in-lieu, permanent loan
modification, etc) still counts as income and lenders are required to issue
Form 1099-C to the homeowner whose debt was forgiven. It is then the
taxpayer’s burden to tell the IRS that they qualify for an exception to paying
tax on this income. To do so, they need to fill out a special form (Form 982),…
A good explanation for a difficult time.
The Minnesota Home Ownership Center oversees a statewide network of non-profit Mortgage Support Advisors that offer free and confidential services to struggling home owners. For more information, visit hocmn.org or call 651-659-9336 (866-462-6466 outside of the metro area).
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10.11.08
Posted in Education at 12:02 am by Jeanne
As Americans, we are always trying to fix everything. Instead of doing something right the first time, we think we can just fix a terrible job. Every time there’s a problem- be it legal, technological, economic or moral, we just want a quick fix.
Even when we clearly see serious problems with what is happening around us -things like insider trading, Enron, pushing bad mortgages on people, collusion within related businesses, we want to overlook the root cause and just fix it. Well, here we are again at election time. And I am sick about the fixing that Congress is doing and the lack of ethics among our highest elected officials. My first thought is, throw the bums out. All of them. They’re not doing their jobs.
Our legislators pamper private interests instead of doing what they were hired to do - looking out for the public good. They take bid trips and trade favors. They take sides, one party against the other. What happened to a sense of the common good for the people? What happened to “of the people, by the people, and for the people? ” There’s a growing disparity between the rich and the poor in the U.S. and around the world, medical costs are out of control, the poor have no insurance, Social Security is in trouble, we’re having to rescue the banks. These are not new problems. These are old wounds that have not been doctored. Our legislators have let us down.
And the response to lack of morality? Let’s just fix it with a new code of ethics! Politicians talk about ethics and pass legislation requiring students to take ethics classes. Do we really think we can fix everything by having someone spends 60 minute in an ethics class? Are we now trying to assign responsibility for morality to a gov’t agency? Professional groups follow suit - land title associations, mortgage banking associations and others form ethics committees, and write fancy new ethics codes. Do we really think we can fix everything by having someone acknowledge a new ethics code?
We now talk about regulations for the mortgage and title industry and rules for consumer protection. We talk about beefing up the regulators. Yes, the regulators are guilty, but we would not need that regulation if everyone were ethical. The root cause of our problem is greed and a lack of ethics. All of us in the mortgage and title industries have seen this train wreck coming for a long time. Too many mortgages written too fast. CEO’s who simply say they wrote bad loans because they were paid more for them. Loans the consumer couldn’t possibly repay. Where was the morality along the way?
But we are guilty too, we have become a society in moral disorder. Somewhere along the way, with easy credit and eyes bigger than our pocketbooks, we seem to have completely lost our way. Many signed mortgages they could not afford, knowing those loan applications were fraudulent. We borrowed money to seek affluence and material things, rather than focusing on the truly important things in life like family, friendship and goodwill. This bailout, or rescue plan, whatever you want to call it, is merely a symptom of our greed.
It will take much more than a bailout for our country to recover. This will not be an easy fix. The fix will come only when we recognize and deal with the fact that ethical behavior and living our lives in a moral fashion is everyone’s responsibility and can only be done over a very long time in a variety of ways. Ethics is not a fix, it is a daily soul searching to do the right thing. Only when we find our character will this country be healed.
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10.10.08
Posted in Education at 10:48 pm by Jeanne
I have seen this short World Class video before, but am always amazed. It shows the tremendous need for education, particularly in a world where the U.S. is struggling to make ends meet, let alone compete across the globe. It is critical that we prepare ourselves and our families for our future with education and learning.
We must learn to keep up with the rest of the world. We talk about it too much, and take too little action.
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