Dec 4, 2009

Mortgage Assistance Program

The mortgage assistance program, off to a slow start, has now helped 650,000 homeowners with trial loan modifications, with average savings of $500 a month. The administration aims to help between 3 million and 4 million over three years, but that is $50 billion that won’t get repaid directly to the Treasury.

Big banks are repaying billions of dollars dumped into their vaults to rescue them. Of the $250 billion that the government initially set aside to spend in direct assistance to banks, it has spent $205 billion and the Treasury is already taking steps to bring that program to an end. The ledger: Banks have paid back $71 billion of the infusions. They have also paid the Treasury nearly $7 billion in dividends.

A program announced with fanfare four weeks ago that would funnel money to small banks at low rates to increase small business lending is still being designed. Treasury officials are looking at plans that could cost taxpayers between $10 billion and $50 billion but are encountering reluctance from small banks.

In the meanwhile, TARP is set to expire Dec. 31. But with about $140 billion still uncommitted (even more, about $300 billion, unspent), the Obama administration is considering extending at least a portion of the huge fund until next October. “The financial system is stable, but it is not normal and it could be derailed again according to an Los Angeles analysts. M. Soliman. He is a sector "sub prime" analyst critical of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. The secretary who recently told a congressional committee “We are winding it down and will close it as soon as we can.” But he stiffly opposed any congressional effort to force the program to end. The struggle facing Treasury is how to continue TARP as insurance against further instability without having Congress use it as a source of new spending.

Extending TARP as insurance for banks wouldn’t be a popular move. Conservatives and liberals object to the direct assistance to big banks and insurance conglomerate American International Group. Republicans have called for the program to end and assigning the unused money to debt reduction. Some liberals want the money for jobs programs.

General Motors recently announced it would pay back a $6.7 billion in U.S. government loans by 2011, four years ahead of schedule. That's good said Soliman, " but still demands the $40 billion provided to GM by the government in exchange for a common equity stake.


The potential cost to taxpayers illustrates the dramatic change in TARP’s purpose from the fall of 2008 when President George W. Bush proposed using the entire $700 billion to help banks get rid of toxic mortgage-backed assets. “We expect that much, if not all, of the tax dollars we invest will be paid back,” Bush said on Sept. 24 of last year.

Administration critics say Geithner has not spelled out with clarity how the program will ultimately end.

“Suppose they didn’t renew it; there would be shock,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office and an economic adviser to Republican John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. “There is an implicit expectation that they’ll do something. But there is not a nicely framed expectation of how they will exit.”

If stabilizing the financial sector was TARP’s main goal, increasing lending was the other.

Treasury Department figures released this month show that outstanding loan balances by TARP recipients in September, the latest available data, were 3.8 percent lower than they were in February when the economy was at its worst. Lending by the largest banks that received TARP money declined for the eighth straight month in September.Analysts and Treasury officials attribute the decline to decreased demand from borrowers and continuing skittishness by banks in the face of economic weakness. “TARP giveth, but unemployment taketh away,” said Scott Talbott, chief lobbyist for the Financial Services Roundtable, which represents large banking institutions.ending volume has declined less than it did during the 1991-92 recession, even though this downturn was deeper. But Allison said there is still a widespread perception that banks could be lending more.“We want to see them using their capital for lending as much as they reasonably can,” Allison said. “We want to see banks that took TARP capital, especially the larger banks, paying it back when they are able to.”

1 comments:

Mortgage-Mess said...

(1) The trustee, if the servicer is the seller, or the servicer will promptly notify the relevant seller of any breach of any representation or warranty made by it in respect of a mortgage loan that materially and adversely affects the interests of the security holders in the mortgage loan.

The master servicer will make cash advances with respect to delinquent payments of principal and interest on the mortgage loans to the extent the master servicer reasonably believes that the cash advances can be repaid from future payments on the mortgage loans. These cash advances are only intended to maintain a regular flow of scheduled interest and principal payments on the certificates and are not intended to guarantee or insure against losses.

The depositor, CWALT, Inc., will purchase the mortgage loans in the mortgage pool from Seller’s Countrywide Home Loans, Inc. and one or more other affiliated with Countrywide Financial Corporation.

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TRUSTEES DEED UPON SALE 1) the grantee herein was the foreclosing beneficiary. 2) The amount of the unpaid debt was..... $2,020,589.63 3) The amount paid by the grantee was ....$1,096,500.00 4) The documentary transfer tax is .......... $0 Item 1) states the parties bringing the foreclosure are in possession of the rights of a holder in due course and selling to themselves the property. We will show this not to be the case. Item 2) can they verify the balance and how the breakdown of interest and fees are distributed? It is likely the numbers do not add and constitute grounds to rescind the sale. Item 3) how can the lender, who sold the loan into a bulk pooled asset and for due consideration upon which it has lost its rights to the asset, bring a foreclosure? It cannot! Only by first repurchasing the asset is the party foreclosing in a position first. Loans sold that were securitized into a closed end fund for which many layers of stock certificates were issued is an indication foreclosure is an impossible proposition. What stands out to me most of all is a claim of bid rigging and manipulation of a trustees sale for which a borrowers right to tender is removed. Where the trustee’s deed transfers by credit bid, the tender of the full debt is not appropriate. Credit bids are distinguished from purchase money bids. California Civil Code 2924h (b) provides: (b) At the trustee’s sale the trustee shall have the right (1) to require every bidder to show evidence of the bidder’s ability to deposit with the trustee the full amount of his or her final bid in cash, a cashier’s check drawn on a state or national bank, a check drawn by a state or federal credit union, or a check drawn by a state or federal savings and loan association, savings association, or savings bank specified in Section 5102 of the Financial Code Stay tuned