Mortgage Registry Muddles Foreclosures
MORE good news from the housing front last week. Pending home sales rose 2.4 percent in July, to their highest level since April 2010. Mortgage delinquency rates are down: the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported a decline of 6.3 percent at the end of June from the March quarter.
Granted, new foreclosures continued to be filed — 256,000 people had a foreclosure added to their credit reports in the June quarter — but that figure was the lowest since mid-2007, the Fed said.
In stark contrast to this improving backdrop are the legal battles still being waged over wrongful foreclosure practices. The glacial progress in these cases is not surprising, given the crowded courts and combatants’ usual stalling tactics.
What is surprising is the fresh evidence these cases are turning up of cockeyed mortgage practices, during both the boom and the bust. As these matters are adjudicated, perhaps we will finally learn whether these practices were intended or accidental.
Rest from the NY Times here…
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I first head of Gretchen Morgenson who wrote this article on the Mandelman Matters blog and then read her book: Reckless Endangerment which I really liked. Talking about Mandelman blog: anybody knows what happened? That blog has been silent for over a month now….I miss it.