By Rob St. Mary December 14th, 2009
The Detroit News is reporting that sales prices are up in SE Michigan for homes — both homeowner and bank-owned properties.
Tags: Detroit News, Foreclosure
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By Rob St. Mary December 14th, 2009
This story was on Weekend Edition: Sunday on December 13th, 2009.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121361487
Tags: Foreclosures, NPR
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By Rob St. Mary December 10th, 2009
The Associated Press reports that a University of Arizona professor is telling homeowners to walk away.
http://www.detnews.com/article/20091210/BIZ/912100347/Professor–Don-t-pay-underwater-mortgage
Tags: AP, Detroit News, Foreclosure, Underwater
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By Rob St. Mary December 10th, 2009
Read the story from the Associated Press and NPR.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121279016
Tags: AP, Foreclosures, NPR
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By Rob St. Mary December 2nd, 2009
The WDET news team received this press release today. Dennis Capozza with the University of Michigan expects foreclosures to fall in 2010. Read the release below.
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Home foreclosures will begin to fall next year
ANN ARBOR, Mich.—As the Obama Administration announces new measures this week to help troubled home borrowers, there is more good news for homeowners—foreclosures will begin to fall next year, says a University of Michigan researcher.
After rising more than 30 percent a year for the last four years, foreclosures across the country will drop from a peak of about 2.75 million this year to about 1.75 million in each of the next two years, before declining further to less than 1.5 million by early 2012, predicts Dennis Capozza, professor of finance and real estate at Michigan’s Ross School of Business.
According to Capozza, improving national and local economic conditions—a reviving economy, slowing house-price depreciation and tighter underwriting of recent loan vintages—will help stem the tide of foreclosures.
“The improvement in foreclosures will provide relief to the severely battered mortgage and housing markets,” Capozza said. “For the time being, however, steep increases in unemployment are continuing to mitigate the positive factors, which means that housing markets will continue to take a beating for some time, despite federal stimulus incentives.”
Each quarter, Capozza and colleagues at UFA (University Financial Associates)—a risk-management firm that forecasts mortgage and consumer loan performance—analyze representative mortgage loans in the serviced portfolio of all mortgages outstanding and estimate the probability of default and prepayment for each zip code in the United States.
In related research, Capozza says the surge in foreclosures in the past four years has been equally caused by economic conditions and underwriting quality.
Tags: Foreclosures, U of M
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By Rob St. Mary November 30th, 2009
The New York Times is reporting that President Obama is going to get tougher on lenders under the “Making Home Affordable” program which was created to help keep homeowners out of foreclosure.
Read the story by following this link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/business/economy/29modify.html
Tags: Foreclosures, New York Times, White House
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By Rob St. Mary November 24th, 2009
In the final installment of “Facing the Mortgage Crisis”, “Detroit Today’s” Craig Fahle talks to WDET reporter Rob St. Mary about the struggles and solutions Detroiters have come to when dealing with the foreclosures crisis.
Tags: Foreclosures, WDET
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By Rob St. Mary November 22nd, 2009
“If we could fight to use a public restaurant or a public theater… we must fight for our homes.” – Rev. Jesse Jackson on the foreclosure crisis on Sunday, November 22nd, 2009 in Detroit.
After enjoying Saturday evening’s event honoring Motown’s 50th Anniversary, the Reverend Jesse Jackson and Congressman John Conyers decided to spend Sunday afternoon talking about the foreclosure crisis. The pair paid a visit to the Rolando Campbell family in Detroit’s Palmer Woods neighborhood.
Listen to the entire news conference below:
Rev Jackson News Conference by WDET
According to Jackson, Campbell will be evicted from his home on the day after Thanksgiving if nothing is done to help him. Therefore, the civil rights leader says he plans to contact Campbell’s leader personally and ask for a stay of the eviction.
In the meantime, he says there is a need to hold banks accountable and put a moratorium in place on all foreclosures. Jackson says he wants Washington to act.
“Stimulus one bailed out the banks. Banks driven by greed without oversight without checks and balances drove this agenda by circumventing CRA laws and fair lending laws. We’re urging Congressman Conyers to hold hearing in Detroit on those banks that receive stimulus money.”
Jackson says there needs to be more civil disobedience in order to bring a remedy to the foreclosure crisis. Therefore, he is calling for protests against the banks and for people to squat in their foreclosed homes, if necessary, in order to stop an eviction.
Congressman John Conyers… who was also in attendance… says his committee will hold a hearing in Detroit about the foreclosure issue, soon.
Rev. Jackson says he plans to hold similar rallies on cities throughout the U.S. in the coming months.
Tags: Foreclosures, Jesse Jackson, John Conyers
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By Rob St. Mary November 18th, 2009
In our special series…“Facing the Mortgage Crisis”… WDET has created a series of conversations between Detroit Today host Craig Fahle and reporter Rob St. Mary to highlight aspects of the foreclosure crisis. Today, Craig talks to Rob about some people pushing for a moratorium on foreclosures… and how one woman is fighting to keep her home.
Moratorium Now Redux DT by WDET
Tags: Countrywide, Foreclosures, Moratorium Now, WDET
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By Rob St. Mary November 12th, 2009
The Detroit Free Press talks about the trouble with vacant, bank-owned homes in Detroit and the Metro area.
Tags: Foreclosures, Freep, Vacant
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