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One of America’s largest homebuilders is getting into the loan restructuring business. Lennar Corporation said Wednesday that it has purchased two loan portfolios from the FDIC with a combined unpaid balance of $3.05 billion.
Lennar paid $243 million for the portfolios, which include 5,500 distressed residential and commercial real estate loans from 22 failed bank receiverships. But the Miami-based builder says it’s no stranger to working with troubled mortgages.
“Acquiring and working out distressed real estate loans was a large and extremely profitable part of our business during the last major real estate down cycle in the early 1990s,” said Stuart Miller, president and CEO of Lennar
Corporation. “We are pleased to return to this business and honored to partner with the FDIC to manage, work through and add value to these portfolios of real estate loans.”
Miller says the company has been preparing to invest in the distressed loan space for the last two years and has been closely watching the market to identify “the opportune point of entry.”
As part of the deal with the FDIC, Lennar receives a 40 percent stake in the limited liability companies created to hold the loans. The FDIC will retain a 60 percent equity interest in the companies and will provide $627 million of nonrecourse financing at zero percent interest for seven years, Lennar explained.
Rialto Capital, a subsidiary of Lennar, will conduct the day-to-day management of the portfolios and the loan workouts, and will contribute up to $5 billion toward the acquisition, Lennar said. Rialto is a real estate investment management company focused on distressed real estate assets.
A Rialto related entity is also a sub-advisor to Alliance Bernstein in one of the eight Public Private Investment Program (PPIP) partnerships sponsored by the U.S. Treasury to purchase residential and commercial mortgage backed securities.
http://www.dsnews.com/articles/index/homebuilder-buys-3b-in-troubled-loans-from-fdic-2010-02-11
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has launched an official investigation into the federal government’s foreclosure prevention program.
According to a statement from the head of the committee, the probe was triggered by complaints that servicers have been slow and inconsistent in modifying loans under the Making Home Affordable (MHA) program, and are not communicating clearly with eligible homeowners.
Chairman Ed Towns (D-New York) says he’s a strong proponent of efforts to ease the burden on struggling homeowners but has received “concerning information” that the administration is not fully living up to its pledge to help borrowers mitigate foreclosure.
“While I applaud Treasury’s efforts, numerous concerns have been brought to my attention regarding the effectiveness and efficiency of the MHA program and the extent to which it has assisted struggling homeowners,” he said.
In a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Towns wrote, “… it is my understanding that Treasury has thus far refused to reveal in detail how it defines ‘net present value’, one of the key criteria for homeowner participation in the mortgage modification program.”
Towns added, “Moreover, if a homeowner is denied a permanent mortgage modification, the specific reasons for the denial are not revealed. Finally, Treasury has not established a process for homeowners to appeal the denial of a permanent mortgage modification.”
The latest figures from Treasury show that servicers have initiated just over 900,000 trial modifications, but according to the Congressional Oversight Panel, home foreclosures across the nation have increased faster than the rate of new HAMP trials, by more than 2 to 1.
Towns also noted that the servicer progress report issued last month demonstrates that certain institutions have made “dismal progress” in modifying loans, even though they service a large number of homeowners potentially eligible for HAMP.
Chairman Towns says he expects specific data requested for the investigation and a response to his inquiry from the Treasury Department by February 18.
Towns’ concerns echo similar accusations made by foreclosure counselors and distressed homeowners alike over the past several months that servicers still may not be equipped to handle the excess workload brought on by the government program and may be letting an unsettling number of borrowers slip through the cracks.
WASHINGTON – As part of the Administration’s ongoing housing market stabilization plan, the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) today released updated guidance for servicers participating in the Administration’s mortgage modification program. This guidance refines the documentation requirements in order to expedite conversions of current trial modifications to permanent ones.
“With more than 850,000 homeowners in trial and permanent modifications, we are providing immediate relief to struggling homeowners,” said Phyllis Caldwell, Chief of Treasury’s Homeownership Preservation Office. “Today’s guidance represents our commitment to more efficiently move qualified homeowners into permanent modifications.”
“Increasing the number of borrowers receiving permanent modifications under HAMP is critical to our efforts to preserve affordable and sustainable homeownership,” said HUD Senior Advisor for Housing Finance William Apgar. “While we continue to meet our goals to provide immediate assistance, the updates announced today should enable servicers to transition borrowers more quickly and easily from trial to permanent modification.”
On December 23, 2009, the Administration required most trial modifications to be placed in a temporary review period to ensure that all borrowers are being fairly evaluated for the program. During this temporary review period, servicers were not permitted to cancel an active HAMP trial modification for any reason other than failure to meet the HAMP property eligibility requirements. This allowed servicers to convert a significant number of trial modifications to permanent ones. In fact, the total number of conversions more than doubled in December. Guidance released today will help improve this conversion process for the future.
The updated process requires that key documents, including proof of income, be obtained from the borrower before a borrower evaluation can begin. This more robust requirement of upfront documentation will make it easier and quicker to convert trial modifications to permanent modifications and enable servicers to use their resources more effectively.
Guidance Details
Supplemental Directive 10-01 provides guidance on two major issues:
1) New Requirements that Documentation be Provided Before Trial Modification Begins
Today’s guidance refines the documentation process and makes it easier for eligible borrowers in trial modifications to get permanent modifications quickly. Under this guidance:
A simple, standard package of documents will be required prior to the servicer’s evaluation of the borrower for a trial modification. This process will be required for all new HAMP modifications that became effective after June 1, although mortgage servicers may implement it sooner.
2) Converting Borrowers in the Temporary Review Period to Permanent Modifications
In December, Treasury implemented a review period through January 31 to provide servicers additional time to collect and submit missing documentation for borrowers in trial modifications, to require that borrowers be notified of any missing documents, and to give borrowers an opportunity to dispute and correct any erroneous information in their applications. Today’s guidance clarifies for servicers the proper procedures for conversion of those borrowers who are current on their monthly payments to permanent modifications.
Background
The Home Affordable Modification Program aims to help responsible American homeowners maintain a sustainable monthly mortgage payment through a pay-for-success framework that aligns incentives of borrowers, lenders and servicers. Over 900,000 Americans have begun trial modifications since the program’s inception and over 110,000 have been approved for permanent modifications as of December 31, 2009. The median monthly savings for individual homeowners is more than $500 per month. Over 100 servicers have signed up to participate in HAMP, covering more than 89% of mortgage debt outstanding in the country.
January 28, 2010
Supplemental Directive 10-01 is available at https://www.hmpadmin.com/portal/docs/hamp_servicer/sd1001.pdf
