Continuing care retirement community WindsorMeade is planning to file for chapter 11 protection early next month, the Virginia Gazette reported today. The community will operate uninterrupted during the process, and will continue to provide services and care to its residents. The company's restructuring plan is aiming to facilitate financing for the future expansion of WindsorMeade’s health care facility, with construction expected to begin next year.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. is seeking to sell securities tied to new U.S. home loans without government backing in its first offering since the financial crisis that this type of debt helped trigger, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The deal may close this month, according to a person familiar with the discussions. Servicers of the underlying loans may include the New York-based lender, First Republic Bank, and Johnson Bank. The market for so-called non-agency mortgage securities is reviving as the Federal Reserve's $85 billion a month of bond purchases help push investors to seek potentially higher returns. Redwood Trust Inc. and Credit Suisse Group AG, the only non-agency issuers since the market collapsed in 2008, have also been working on deals this month. Redwood created $1.1 billion of the debt in January, after issuance tied to new loans totaled $3.5 billion in 2012, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That compares with less than $1 billion in all of 2010 and 2011.
Five of the largest U.S. banks have provided $19 billion in mortgage debt write-downs to some 240,000 borrowers under the terms of a federal and state settlement of foreclosure-processing violations reached one year ago, according to a watchdog's report released today, the Wall Street Journal reported. Bank of America Corp., which was required to provide the majority of relief under the foreclosure pact, has accounted for the lion's share of principal write-downs, with about $13.5 billion in homeowner debts written off. The Charlotte, N.C.-based lender reported that another $2.2 billion in loan forgiveness modifications were in a trial stage as of Dec. 31. The figures released today by the independent monitor were established to ensure that banks were meeting the terms of their deal. Today's figures were reported by the banks to the monitor, Joseph A. Smith Jr., earlier this month and have not yet been independently verified by his office. Under the settlement, completed last March, banks must provide at least $10 billion in loan write-downs and $10 billion in other homeowner aid, such as short sales, where banks allow borrowers to sell their house for less than the amount owed. Overall, the report said that banks had provided various forms of aid worth $45.8 billion to more than 550,000 borrowers.
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A sharply divided Congress is not likely to jump at President Barack Obama's challenge to quickly pass a mortgage refinancing bill that supporters say could help millions of homeowners save big each year and boost the economy, the Associated Press reported yesterday. Obama praised the legislation in his State of the Union speech last week, saying that the proposal would help more homeowners with mortgages backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac take advantage of low interest rates and refinance their loans. Even with mortgage rates near a 50-year low, Obama said, too many families that have never missed a payment and want to refinance are being turned down. While the bill could gain traction in the Democratic-controlled Senate, it faces a rough road in the GOP-run House, where many Republicans favor scaling back the government's role in the housing market as a way of aiding the economy. Similar versions of the measure died in the House and Senate's lame duck sessions last year.
Ally Financial Inc.'s banking subsidiary said that it agreed to sell a mortgage unit to Walter Investment Management Corp. as the U.S. auto lender continues to pull back from the home loan business, Reuters reported yesterday. Ally Bank said in October that it was selling its business lending operation, which buys mortgages from other lenders and makes loans through brokers. The transaction, which includes 300 employees, is expected to close on Feb. 28. Ally Financial, which is 74 percent owned by the U.S. government after a series of bailouts, is focusing on U.S. auto lending and Internet banking as it works to pay back taxpayers.
Many states with faster foreclosure processes are seeing sharper increases in home prices than states where foreclosures take longer to get done, USA Today reported yesterday. There are exceptions, and other factors—such as job growth—are likely stronger drivers of home price trends, economists say. But home price data generally show stronger price increases in states where courts do not have to approve foreclosures than in states where they do. Last year, home values tracked by Zillow, a web-based real estate tracker, rose an average 5.4 percent in the 24 states where foreclosures do not go through the courts. Where they do, the average increase, according to Zillow, was 3.2 percent. Asking prices, a leading indicator of price trends, show a similar pattern. In January, asking prices in non-judicial states were up an average of 7.3 percent year-over-year vs. 3.1 percent for judicial foreclosure states, according to data from real estate website Trulia.
The head of the U.S. Federal Housing Administration downplayed a coming budget estimate that is expected to show that the agency will need taxpayer aid for the first time since it was founded in the 1930s, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. FHA could avoid taking Treasury aid even if the budget President Barack Obama releases next month shows it has a shortfall, FHA Commissioner Carol Galante said at a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee yesterday. FHA will take additional steps this year to avoid foreclosures on loans that have defaulted and raise the fees it charges borrowers to insure their loans against default, Galante said. FHA has until Sept. 30 to determine whether it needs aid.
The government is seeking help from an unlikely group in its effort to distribute billions of dollars to struggling homeowners in foreclosure: the same banks accused of abusing homeowners with questionable foreclosure practices, the New York Times DealBook blog reported today. In doing so, the regulators are trying to speed the process after a flawed, independent foreclosure review delayed relief for millions of borrowers. But housing advocates worry that the banks, eager to end the costly process, could take shortcuts as they comb through loan files for errors, potentially diverting aid from the neediest homeowners. Last month, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency scuttled the foreclosure review by independent consultants because it was marred by delays and inefficiency. Instead, the regulator struck a multibillion-dollar settlement directly with the nation’s largest banks, a deal that includes $3.6 billion in payments to aggrieved homeowners.
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. has agreed to sell 237 Park Avenue, a 21-story Midtown Manhattan office building, to RXR Realty and Walton Street Capital LLC, Reuters reported yesterday. The purchase price is $820 million and the pending sale comes just months after Lehman agreed to sell its biggest property holding, apartment owner Archstone, to AvalonBay Communities Inc. and Equity Residential for $6.5 billion plus the assumption of debt. Lehman, which collapsed in 2008, emerged from bankruptcy in March 2012 and is selling assets to repay creditors.
