Foreclosure Crisis

Greg Cantori plans to downsize when he retires. Really, really downsize. His retirement home is 238 square feet — one-tenth the size of the average new American house — and sits in his Anne Arundel County yard. He and wife Renee can hitch it to a truck and take it with them wherever they go. "It's so cheap — that's what's so cool about this," said Cantori, 52, who envisions a surf-and-turf future, alternating between the house and a sailboat. "We bought the house for $19,000.

The National Mortgage Settlement's relief is not reaching enough Maryland homeowners and is not as effective as it could be in keeping people in their homes, the Maryland Consumer Rights Coalition said Tuesday. “The number of Maryland families facing new foreclosures continues to dwarf those getting help under the settlement,” said Marceline White, the group's executive director, in a statement. Between March 1, 2012 and the end of last year, about 14,200 homeowners received assistance through the settlement, intended to resolve accusations by 49 states and the federal government that five major mortgage servicers abused borrowers during the foreclosure process.

Imagine that a federal agency wanted to hurt America's working-class families on purpose. How would it inflict maximum damage? It might start by aggressively marketing homeownership to marginal borrowers. It would tell them that bad credit scores aren't a problem. It would push them into homes they can't afford, saddle them with loans that barely build equity and provide no incentives for fiscal discipline. And when many of these homes go underwater and into foreclosure, it would leave families in financial ruin.

Imagine that a federal agency wanted to hurt America's working-class families on purpose. How would it inflict maximum damage? It might start by aggressively marketing homeownership to marginal borrowers. It would tell them that bad credit scores aren't a problem. It would push them into homes they can't afford, saddle them with loans that barely build equity and provide no incentives for fiscal discipline. And when many of these homes go underwater and into foreclosure, it would leave families in financial ruin.

The devastation of losing a house to foreclosure can lead to depression and a host of other conditions, according to the authors of new study who warn of a looming national health crisis. They are advocating for a new unified approach by financial and mental health advisers to provide homeowners with aid. The study, led by a University of Maryland researcher, found that one in five people in default on their mortgages have serious symptoms of depression. About one-third have seen their finances so crimped that they cannot afford to fill prescriptions and get enough to eat, which worsen health problems.

Maryland and other states now receiving federal housing recovery money are taking the first steps toward stabilizing neighborhoods hurt by home foreclosures, says a report released Thursday by Columbia-based Enterprise Community Partners Inc. Enterprise, a nonprofit affordable-housing investor, analyzed plans by some of the 306 state and local governments that received grants through a $3.92 billion Department of Housing and Urban Development program to...

The number of Maryland homeowners behind on their mortgage payments but not yet in foreclosure inched downward in 2011, numbers released Thursday showed. It was the second consecutive year of improvement, but it wasn't enough to bring the state back to the levels seen before the foreclosure crisis began in 2007 — or even close to those levels. More than 100,000 homeowners without pending foreclosure cases were at least one month behind on payments at the end of last year, compared with an average of 50,000 at year-end in the first half of the last decade.

In many respects, Maryland is weathering the recession better than most other states, but not when it comes to foreclosures. The number of foreclosure events -- either final dispositions of foreclosures or court filings -- increased in the final three months of 2009 to nearly 17,000. That's 13.4 percent higher than the previous quarter and nearly 70 percent higher than the previous year. Hardest hit by far is Prince George's County, followed by Baltimore City. The foreclosures have crippled the state's housing market and driven down real estate values, compounding economic woes that could last for years.

Civil Justice might be small — you can count the full-time attorneys at the nonprofit legal assistance group on one hand — but its impact is anything but. The Baltimore organization has trained more than 1,400 lawyers in foreclosure law so they can help Marylanders who are struggling to save their homes. That's a sweeping change in a state that just several years ago had few attorneys with any expertise in the subject — not counting the ones representing banks. Civil Justice also files individual and class action lawsuits in its battle against ever-mutating housing problems.

The National Mortgage Settlement's relief is not reaching enough Maryland homeowners and is not as effective as it could be in keeping people in their homes, the Maryland Consumer Rights Coalition said Tuesday. “The number of Maryland families facing new foreclosures continues to dwarf those getting help under the settlement,” said Marceline White, the group's executive director, in a statement. Between March 1, 2012 and the end of last year, about 14,200 homeowners received assistance through the settlement, intended to resolve accusations by 49 states and the federal government that five major mortgage servicers abused borrowers during the foreclosure process.

In the wake of Mitt Romney's loss to President Barack Obama, many in the Republican Party are soul-searching, to determine where their man went wrong in his attempt to attract a majority of voters. Was it because he was stiff and un-relatable or because he seemed willing to take any position to get elected? Or that he should not have attempted to coast over the finish line after a strong first debate performance? One key area being examined is why Republicans nominated a candidate from big business as the nation was trying to recover from a recession that many think was brought on largely by the excesses of big business (i.e.

The number of U.S. homes lost to foreclosure in September was half the number in September 2010 - the peak month of the foreclosure crisis, according to data released Wednesday. In September, there were 57,000 completed foreclosures across the country, real estate industry analysis firm CoreLogic reported in its monthly National Foreclosure Report. A year prior, in September 2011, there were 83,000 completed foreclosures. "Increasingly improving market conditions and industry and government policy are allowing distressed homeowners to pursue refinancing, loan modifications or short sales rather than foreclosures,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic, in a statement.

If you're a local Bank of America borrower behind on your home mortgage, chances are you've received an invitation to come chat in Baltimore. The company is holding a foreclosure-prevention event next Thursday through Saturday -- June 28 through June 30 -- at the Baltimore Hilton for customers whose loans it services. It's one in a series of face-to-face events that Bank of America and other mortgage servicers have put on. In other cases, they've participated in events organized by groups or political leaders . The appeal of in-person?

Rep. Elijah Cummings wants folks to know that he's keeping it real. Like really, really, really real. Starting with where he lives. He told a crowd at Howard University Wednesday just how down-and-dirty real his Baltimore neighborhood is. “I live in the inner, inner, inner-city. I'm one of the few congresspeople who live in the inner, inner city," The Hill reported Cummings saying. "You know, I ain't living close to the inner city, I'm right there on the 'Do the Right Thing' block.

The number of Maryland homeowners behind on their mortgage payments but not yet in foreclosure inched downward in 2011, numbers released Thursday showed. It was the second consecutive year of improvement, but it wasn't enough to bring the state back to the levels seen before the foreclosure crisis began in 2007 — or even close to those levels. More than 100,000 homeowners without pending foreclosure cases were at least one month behind on payments at the end of last year, compared with an average of 50,000 at year-end in the first half of the last decade.

Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler has agreed to join other states in a $25 billion settlement with the nation's five largest mortgage servicers — a landmark agreement that would provide nearly $1 billion in aid to Maryland homeowners who were victims of shoddy and illegal foreclosure paperwork practices. The banks — Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Ally Financial — would pay to help homeowners across the country who have lost their homes to foreclosure and those who are still at risk of foreclosure.

Here are excerpts from a speech on the nation's foreclosure crisis delivered by James H. Carr, chief operating officer of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, at an April 3 symposium at the University of Baltimore School of Law, co-sponsored by Baltimore Neighborhoods Inc. Foreclosure is the death of an important American dream - the dream of homeownership. It's a financial death for many families, often leading them to financial ruin. It's also a death of the prospect of passing significant wealth to children.

I want to applaud Jamie Smith's Hopkins' article on the Maryland Mortgage Program ( "State mortgage program lags on modifying loans," Dec. 21). It was right on! Governor O'Malley has taken credit for Maryland being in front of the foreclosure crisis. The truth is Maryland lags behind, as the article indicated. Housing Secretary Raymond Skinner and his aide Clarence Snuggs are making Maryland the laughing stock of the affordable housing industry. Not only have the governor and his agency let its citizens down in foreclosure assistance, they lags behind many states in multi-family projects funded by federal tax credits.

A state task force is recommending a raft of changes to give Maryland homeowners a better shot at avoiding foreclosure and — when foreclosures do happen — to give neighborhoods a greater chance at recovering. The suggestions, presented Wednesday to a House committee, range from voluntary mediation before a foreclosure case is filed to tax incentives for homeowners who purchase a foreclosure. Some, including those two examples, would require legislation. But many of the recommendations are intended to be just that — recommendations.

Mortgage servicers have started the countdown to foreclosure on more than 18,000 Maryland homes so far this month, a big uptick that is worrying state officials and could signal an end to about a year of delays related to robo-signing. The increase is in the number of notices sent to borrowers saying that their servicers intend to file a foreclosure case against them — a warning that must come at least 45 days ahead of any action. Fewer than 11,000 notices were filed in all of November 2010, according to state records.