Tag Archives: Countrywide Home Loans

Real Estate

Countrywide Financial Executives Settles With State of California for $6.5 Million

Sunset over Scotts Flat Lake from my deck 2/3/11 In the background is the Coast Range
Sunset over Scotts Flat Lake from my deck 2/3/11 In the background is the Coast Range

By John J. O’Dell

Finally some justice against Countrywide Financial Corporation for all of their shady lending practices..  They created mortgage loans which were bound to be foreclosed on.  Here’s a press release from the office of the Attorney General of California explaining what they did:

Attorney General Kamala D. Harris today (February 2, 201) announced a $6.5 million settlement of a predatory lending case against Angelo Mozilo and David Sambol, former officers of Countrywide Financial Corporation. Attorney General Harris announced the settlement money will be used to establish an innovative statewide California Foreclosure Crisis Relief Fund to combat the effects of California’s high rates of foreclosure and mortgage delinquency.

“Our prior settlement with Countrywide provided restitution for foreclosed homeowners and set in motion loan modification programs that have helped tens of thousands of consumers,” Attorney General Harris said. “We will use the current settlement to help Californians affected by the mortgage crisis by providing grants to agencies that help homeowners facing foreclosure with relocation assistance and providing money to state and local agencies to prosecute mortgage fraud.”

This settlement concludes litigation filed by Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. in June 2008 against Countrywide Financial Corp., Countrywide Home Loans and Full Spectrum Lending, as well as Mozilo and Sambol. The financial relief provided under the current settlement augments the Attorney General’s October 2008 settlement with Countrywide to provide loan modifications and other foreclosure relief valued at $8.68 billion nationwide, with $3.5 billion provided to California borrowers.

According to the lawsuit, leading up to the mortgage crisis, Countrywide lured borrowers with low “teaser” rates often as low as 1 percent adjustable rate loans. Its loan officers obscured the downsides of these loans, which included rapidly rising rates after teaser rates expired, big prepayment penalties, and negative amortization in which a borrower’s total loan costs rose even as additional payments were made. Countrywide also loosened its mortgage standards and verification procedures in order to write more loans.

As a result of these practices, tens of thousands of homeowners with Countrywide loans ended up in default and foreclosure. The Attorney General’s lawsuit alleged that Mozilo and Sambol knew of these practices and allowed them to continue.

The complaint alleged that Countrywide sought to increase its share of the nationwide mortgage market to 30 percent through a deceptive scheme to mass produce loans – with little concern about borrowers’ long-term ability to afford them. It then would sell the loans on the secondary market to earn the highest possible premiums.

The settlement with Mozilo, the CEO of Countrywide, and Sambol, its president, was filed today in Los Angeles Superior Court. Mozilo and Sambol left Countrywide when it was purchased by Bank of America in July 2008.”

Source: Attorney General’s Office

So what do you think?

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Real Estate

Foreclosures, The Good and The Bad

Former mortgage company Countrywide Home Loans failed because of their risky mortgage practices and was taken over by Bank of America
Former mortgage company Countrywide Home Loans failed because of their risky mortgage practices and was taken over by Bank of America

The good and bad of foreclosures is a mixed bag.  The bad is that banks which pushed these risky loans are going to take a bath.  The bad is that people who are being foreclose on either because of being tricked into a bad loan or loss of income, are going to have bad credit ratings.

The good is that those people who have lost their homes will now have more money to spend.

According to the Wall Street Journal

“Analysts at Deutsche Bank Securities expect 21 million U.S. households to end up owing more on their mortgages than their homes are worth by the end of 2010. If one in five of those households defaults, the losses to banks and investors could exceed $400 billion. As a proportion of the economy, that’s roughly equivalent to the losses suffered in the savings-and-loan debacle of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The flip side of those losses, though, is massive debt relief that can help offset the pain of rising unemployment and put cash in consumers’ pockets.

For the 4.8 million U.S. households that data provider LPS Applied Analytics estimates haven’t paid their mortgages in at least three months, the added cash flow could amount to about $5 billion a month — an injection that in the long term could be worth more than the tax breaks in the Obama administration’s economic-stimulus package.

“It’s a stealth stimulus,” says Christopher Thornberg of Beacon Economics, a consulting firm specializing in real estate and the California economy. “The quicker these people shed their debts, the faster the economy is going to heal and move forward again.”

So as everything in life, there is the good and the bad, what do you think?