Astepahead

Bank of America has begun a pilot program in Florida offering extra incentive payouts to distressed homeowners who agree to and successfully close on a short sale. Incentive payments for relocation assistance range between $5,000 and $20,000. The program is being offered on a limited basis for in...

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation requested public comment on a proposed regulation implementing the so-called "Volcker Rule" requirements of section 619 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. That section of the Act generally prohibits two activities of banking...

FICO’s latest quarterly survey of bank risk professionals offered a decidedly pessimistic outlook, reversing the growing optimism seen in late 2010 and early 2011. The survey, conducted for FICO by the Professional Risk Managers’ International Association (PRMIA), shows that bankers expect delinq...

Great news.....The industry’s shadows are shrinking, according to CoreLogic's most recent report. Data Highlights: The shadow inventory of residential properties as of July 2011 fell to 1.6 million units, or 5–months’ worth of supply, down from 1.9 million units, or a 6-months’ supply, as compare...

The delinquency rate on loans held in U.S. commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) fell 23 basis points in August to 9.01 percent, according to Moody's Investors Service. Even with a slip in the numbers, Moody's notes that August was the eighth consecutive month that delinquencies have been...

Financial institutions filed 29,558 mortgage loan fraud suspicious activity reports in the second quarter of this year, up from 15,727 last year, according to a report released Wednesday by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. A large majority of the MLF(Mortgage Loan Fraud) SARs(Suspicious ...

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) is calling for independent reviews of almost 4.5 million loans. After examining 200 loans from each of 14 major servicers, regulators determined enforcement actions were necessary, but said their review was not nearly enough to answer all questi...

Banks held about 476,000 homes that they repossessed from delinquent mortgage borrowers as of the end of July, according to Barclays Capital. That tally represents a 17 percent contraction from 574,000 REOs on the books just 10 months earlier, in September of 2010, just as the robo-signing scanda...

Freddie Mac sent a letter to investors regarding bulk sales of foreclosed homes. According to the letter to investors obtained by American Banker, Freddie Mac does not intend to offer discounts on bulk purchases on any of their 60,569 REO properties. The GSE offers investors the opportunity to pu...

Tuesday, U.S. regulators are set to unveil a final rule that requires banks and some other large financial companies to write "living wills" that provide a road map for how they could be quickly liquidated if they run into trouble. The rule applies to banks with more than $50 billion in assets --...