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Housing in the New Millennium: A Home Without Equity is Just a Rental with Debt – JOSHUA ROSNER

Housing in the New Millennium: A Home Without Equity is Just a Rental with Debt – JOSHUA ROSNER


Housing in the New Millennium: A Home Without Equity is Just a Rental with Debt

Joshua Rosner
Graham Fisher & Co.

June 29, 2001

Abstract:     
This report assesses the prospects of the U.S. housing/mortgage sector over the next several years. Based on our analysis, we believe there are elements in place for the housing sector to continue to experience growth well above GDP. However, we believe there are risks that can materially distort the growth prospects of the sector. Specifically, it appears that a large portion of the housing sector’s growth in the 1990’s came from the easing of the credit underwriting process. Such easing includes:

* The drastic reduction of minimum down payment levels from 20% to 0%
* A focused effort to target the “low income” borrower
* The reduction in private mortgage insurance requirements on high loan to value mortgages
* The increasing use of software to streamline the origination process and modify/recast delinquent loans in order to keep them classified as “current”
* Changes in the appraisal process which has led to widespread overappraisal/over-valuation problems

If these trends remain in place, it is likely that the home purchase boom of the past decade will continue unabated. Despite the increasingly more difficult economic environment, it may be possible for lenders to further ease credit standards and more fully exploit less penetrated markets. Recently targeted populations that have historically been denied homeownership opportunities have offered the mortgage industry novel hurdles to overcome. Industry participants in combination with eased regulatory standards and the support of the GSEs (Government Sponsored Enterprises) have overcome many of them.

If there is an economic disruption that causes a marked rise in unemployment, the negative impact on the housing market could be quite large. These impacts come in several forms. They include a reduction in the demand for homeownership, a decline in real estate prices and increased foreclosure expenses.

These impacts would be exacerbated by the increasing debt burden of the U.S. consumer and the reduction of home equity available in the home. Although we have yet to see any materially negative consequences of the relaxation of credit standards, we believe the risk of credit relaxation and leverage can’t be ignored. Importantly, a relatively new method of loan forgiveness can temporarily alter the perception of credit health in the housing sector. In an effort to keep homeowners in the home and reduce foreclosure expenses, holders of mortgage assets are currently recasting or modifying troubled loans. Such policy initiatives may for a time distort the relevancy of delinquency and foreclosure statistics. However, a protracted housing slowdown could eventually cause modifications to become uneconomic and, thus, credit quality statistics would likely become relevant once again. The virtuous circle of increasing homeownership due to greater leverage has the potential to become a vicious cycle of lower home prices due to an accelerating rate of foreclosures.

Presented: 2002 Mid-Year Meeting American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association National Association of Home Builders Washington, DC May 28-29, 2002.

[ipaper docId=77849340 access_key=key-a7jp2xnwsvk0bxa0r7r height=600 width=600 /]

 

© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.



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CoreLogic’s New Credit Score Exposes Even More of Your Financial Life – NYTimes.com

CoreLogic’s New Credit Score Exposes Even More of Your Financial Life – NYTimes.com


NYTIMES-

There’s no hiding now.

Anyone who has recently applied for a mortgage knows that lenders are already looking much more closely at your financial affairs. But soon, they’ll be able to easily delve into the deepest recesses of your financial life, accessing information that never before appeared on your credit report.

[NEW YORK TIMES]

image: smallbiztrends

© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.



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OKLAHOMA CLASS ACTION | Dutton v. Wells Fargo, Equifax, Experian, Trans Union

OKLAHOMA CLASS ACTION | Dutton v. Wells Fargo, Equifax, Experian, Trans Union


IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF OKLAHOMA

1. WILLIAM DUTTON, JR.,
2. STACY WHITE, and
3. SHANNON WHITE, on behalf of themselves
and others similarly situated,
Plaintiffs,

vs.

4. WELLS FARGO BANK, N.A.,
5. EQUIFAX INFORMATION SERVICES, L.L.C.,
successor in interest to EQUIFAX CREDIT
INFORMATION SERVICES, INC.,
6. EXPERIAN INFORMATION SOLUTIONS, INC,
7. EXPERIAN INFORMATION SERVICES, INC.,
8. TRANS UNION L.L.C.,
Defendants.

EXCERPT:

CLASS ACTION ALLEGATIONS

20. Plaintiffs seek relief on behalf of the themselves and to represent the following class:

All homeowners in the State of Oklahoma who have been adversely
affected by predatory mortgage servicing and improper foreclosure
process by Defendant Wells Fargo, N.A., and are at risk of losing
their homes to foreclosure; and have suffered damage to their
creditworthiness due to the concomitant failure of Defendants credit
reporting agencies in their fiduciary duty to investigate independently
the factual accuracy of Defendant Wells Fargo, N.A.’s negative
information concerning their creditworthiness relating to home
mortgage loans between 2006 to the date of class certification in this
action.

[…]

[ipaper docId=63852432 access_key=key-5j2821fads99n3sv2hs height=600 width=600 /]

© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.



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Even after a loan mod, mortgage servicer errors put homeowners at risk of foreclosure

Even after a loan mod, mortgage servicer errors put homeowners at risk of foreclosure


ProPublica

Chanel Rosario was supposed to be one of the lucky ones. After years of sending and re-sending documents, waiting on hold and attending court hearings to avoid foreclosure on her Staten Island home, she’d finally received a much-needed reduction on her mortgage. Eagerly, she and her husband signed it and mailed it in last September. “We thought it was over.”

It wasn’t. After months of making payments, Rosario called the bank handling her mortgage, Chase Home Finance, and found out Chase was still reporting her as delinquent, damaging her credit score and putting her home in jeopardy. Despite months of trying to get an explanation with the help of a legal-aid attorney, she still doesn’t know why Chase isn’t abiding by the agreement.



© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.



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FULL TRANSCRIPT: Home Mortgage Disclosure Act Public Hearings, September 24, 2010

FULL TRANSCRIPT: Home Mortgage Disclosure Act Public Hearings, September 24, 2010


Excerpt:

How to report? One of the things we strongly recommend is that you look at the MISMO standards, the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization, for definitions, for format, and I think this might address issues, for example, with HUD reported credit score. That if you like at the MISMO, we don’t simply look at one field for credit score. There’s a field for a number. There’s also then a field of whether it’s a vantage score, whether it comes from FICO, what vendor reported the score. So that there are a number of variables then that are really behind it, and if you simply then pick up all of these variables associated with the credit score the way we do, you can then use the information internal to then generate whatever percentile or whatever calculation you would like to do, but that that would not be put back on the lender to reenter data, to rekey it, but instead use what’s already out there in the industry. Also it would provide for easier changes later on, if any additions are needed.

What about a universal mortgage identifier? That has been brought up. We would strongly recommend that you look at the mortgage identification number that’s been put out by the Mortgage Electronic Registration System, MERS. It allows us to track mortgages throughout the system from application all the way to sale of servicing, sales of the secondary market and I think for these purposes it would allow us to really sort of track some of the under coverage that we do see in the HMDA data. We did some analysis and found that by throwing out all the correspondent loans, we are eliminating a number of loans that had no counterpart in the retail broker data.

What to make public? Well, we really think that’s your decision. In a sense that there are a number of data elements here that we would very much not want to make public as companies because of the limitations we face, but that certainly that’s an issue that the bureau and the Fed will have to face going forward is the tradeoff between risks of identity theft associated with some of these elements and that, but that’s really your decision to make rather than the industry, and to some degree, we would benefit, I think, in terms of what would explain what’s going on in the industry with a greater data release.

Finally on multifamily, we did an analysis and we think that HMDA already covers about 95 percent of the multifamily loans that are made. In contrast, though, it covers only about 60 percent or so of the dollar amount of the loans. So that if you look then at the average loan amount that’s in HMDA, it’s about $1.7 million for a multifamily loan. If you look at the average loan size of what’s missing, it’s about $19 million. So we don’t know how much effort really should be put into trying to capture this remaining 5 percent of really high dollar loans that are done for just an entirely different set of investors out there. So I think you really ought to look at what do you really want to do with the multifamily data? Do you really want to expand it or is there a questionable usefulness of what’s already there? Thank you.

[ipaper docId=42211905 access_key=key-2llkeixrro0fj9v82nv6 height=600 width=600 /]

© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.



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Your Social Security Number May Not Be Unique to You

Your Social Security Number May Not Be Unique to You


Via: Comcast

Editor’s Note: This post by Tom Barlow originally appeared on August 12 on WalletPop.com.

How many times do companies use your Social Security number as the unique identifier for you? You doctor, bank, employer, all depend on the number for billing and recording transactions. A troubling new study by ID Analytics, Inc. found that, according to the wide-ranging company and government records it has access to, millions of Americans have more than one Social Security number, and millions of Social Security numbers are shared by more than one person.

Just how many? Out of the 280 million Social Security numbers the firm studied across its network of databases,

– More than 20 million people have more than one number associated with their name.
– More than 40 million numbers are associated with more than one person.
– More than 100,000 Americans have 5 or more numbers associated with their name.
– More than 27,000 Social Security numbers are associated with 10 or more people.

How does this happen? Many are doubtless due to bad memories, careless record-keeping or data input errors. Others are due to identity theft.

The company offers to check your identity for identity fraud free at MyIDScore.com; however, it wasn’t able to verify me (and I’m very verifiable) and the personal information you share is collected in an opt-out manner. That is, you’ll have to send the company an e-mail to stop it from using your data to “make our fraud prevention tools better.”

There is a method to the assignment of Social Security numbers which can help a little bit in spotting frauds. The first three digits are determined by where you lived when you received your number; 596 to 599, for example, are issued to residents of Puerto Rico (yes, it’s part of the United States). The higher the number, the further west you lived at the time you received your number. There are no Social Security numbers starting with 900-999.

The middle two digits identify when the card was issued; 184-50 was issued in Pennsylvania in 1973, for example. There are no numbers with the middle two digits of 00.

The final four digits are assigned in numerical order.

Check yours with this handy decoder.

Do you share a Social Security number with someone else? What are your biggest concerns? Sound off here.

WalletPop.com is one of the leading consumer finance sites on the Web. Find the latest deals, bargains, consumer protection and personal finance information quickly. The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Comcast.


© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.



Posted in EconomyComments (1)

Are Lenders digging into noncredit proprietary databases such as those maintained by Papa John’s or Victoria’s Secret legally?

Are Lenders digging into noncredit proprietary databases such as those maintained by Papa John’s or Victoria’s Secret legally?


Lenders’ data mining goes deep

Mortgage makers are going beyond tax returns and bank statements to determine whether you’re a good risk. They’re checking such things as where you have pizza delivered and where you shop online.

By Lew Sichelman
July 18, 2010

Reporting from Washington —
That pizza you had delivered the other night could mean the difference between whether you are approved for a mortgage or rejected.

There’s a big stretch between making a house payment and paying for a pizza. But it’s not what you pay for carryout that matters, at least not in the eyes of lenders. It’s where the food was delivered.

Ordering takeout proves that you live where you say you do, and that helps lenders uncover the crook who claims to live in the property he is trying to refinance when he really lives hundreds of miles away. Or expose the 35-year-old who says he has a $1,200-a-month apartment when he really lives rent-free with Mom and Dad.

When you order food online, you become part of a vast database that lenders might tap to help them determine whether you are a good risk. Moreover, all sorts of these data reservoirs exist, and none of them is off-limits to lenders who are coming off the worst financial debacle since the Great Depression.

“If the data is available and it can be obtained legally, I’m going to test it,” says Alex Santos, president of Digital Risk, an Orlando, Fla., analytics firm that works with lenders and investors to build better underwriting mousetraps. “If it is inexpensive and makes my credit model better, I’m going to use it.”

Digital Risk is just one of numerous risk-management companies that are continuously probing for ways to help clients quantify their risk, prevent fraud and otherwise ensure the quality of their loans. And they’re going to extraordinary lengths to do so.

For example, they might peek into your online-buying habits. After all, the reasoning goes, someone who buys his shirts from a Brooks Brothers catalog may have more disposable income than someone who shops at JCPenney.

“At least that’s a theory we can test,” Santos says. “We’re looking for any type of data source that you can plug into a computer. It takes only a month of trial and error to determine whether the information can help [determine credit risk] or not. We have a hypothesis, push a button, and the computer tells us whether the data is predictive or not.”

This sort of data mining goes way beyond your credit score, that financial snapshot that measures your ability and willingness to repay your debt. And, Santos says, “there’s a tremendous amount of this kind of analytics going on right now.”

Lenders are still checking credit histories, not just when you apply for a mortgage but also a second time a day or two before the loan closes. But your credit score — known as a FICO score for the name of the company that created the scoring formula — is now considered “too broad.” Consequently, it has moved down in the hierarchy of tests that lenders are using to make certain that someone isn’t hoodwinking them.

First and foremost, lenders are pulling copies of your tax returns directly from Uncle Sam.

Don’t be alarmed. You give the lender permission to do that when you sign Form 4506-T. The idea here is to make sure that you haven’t altered the copy of your last two years’ tax returns that you provided when you signed your loan application. Lenders want to know if you might have exaggerated how much you earned.

Continue reading….LA Times
© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.



Posted in credit score, fair isaac corporation, fico, non disclosureComments (0)

Should You Be Told if Your Bad Credit Affects Your Car Insurance Rates?

Should You Be Told if Your Bad Credit Affects Your Car Insurance Rates?


By DinSFLA

What does Car Insurance and Credit Scores have in common? DISCRIMINATION!

If the government does not step up with a plan to make sure this does not continue, other crisis will begin to brew.

AMERICA will take the roads uninsured because they cannot afford the rates and they still need to get to work and shop for food!

Once our survival instincts kick in nothing else matters but food, clothes and shelter. Get my point?

So this being said and with the high rate of foreclosures out there. Who is going to have stellar credit for car insurance?

The same goes with Employers and Home Insurance!

Enough is Enough…We are suppose to be the Land of The Free not The Controlled and Abused!

THIS NEEDS TO BE EVALUATED IMMEDIATELY! THIS AFFECTS EVERYONE!

Arkansas and Oregon Lead the Way

The attorneys general of Arkansas and Oregon have both filed suits against a leading car insurance company for failing to disclose “adverse actions” taken against customers based on their credit. Five other states have joined them in seeking national clarification on the matter. But this begs the question, “Why would car insurance companies not tell you that your credit was impacting your rates?”

The answer is simple: Every car insurance company treats its customers’ credit differently. A study by Consumer Reports showed a nearly forty percent difference between how two car insurance companies viewed the same bad-credit customer. And that’s two car insurance companies that actually use credit reports – some don’t. In that case, you could save up to forty-seven percent on your car insurance rates!

© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.



Posted in concealment, conspiracy, credit score, fair isaac corporation, fico, foreclosure, foreclosures, insurance, STOP FORECLOSURE FRAUDComments (0)

Awwwe Man… OUR CREDIT SCORE SUCKS Y’ALL!!!

Awwwe Man… OUR CREDIT SCORE SUCKS Y’ALL!!!


DinSFLA here: Before you read into this *new* PR move and get all wound up…you MUST read the post I made FAIR ISAAC CORPORATION aka FICO: Now Worthless…

These banks knew all to well where we were heading and they could have stopped this a long time ago!

Don’t fall into their credit trap to make you think you are worth a stupid number! Just know how to survive and work around it. Yes places like employers and insurance companies now rate you by this but you know what? It is what it is. Your health and your mind will not suffer from this… They want you to live, breathe their credit!

More Americans’ credit scores sink to new lows

By EILEEN AJ CONNELLY (AP) –

NEW YORK — The credit scores of millions more Americans are sinking to new lows.

Figures provided by FICO Inc. show that 25.5 percent of consumers — nearly 43.4 million people — now have a credit score of 599 or below, marking them as poor risks for lenders. It’s unlikely they will be able to get credit cards, auto loans or mortgages under the tighter lending standards banks now use.

Because consumers relied so heavily on debt to fuel their spending in recent years, their restricted access to credit is one reason for the slow economic recovery.

“I don’t get paid for loan applications, I get paid for closings,” said Ritch Workman, a Melbourne, Fla., mortgage broker. “I have plenty of business, but I’m struggling to stay open.”

FICO’s latest analysis is based on consumer credit reports as of April. Its findings represent an increase of about 2.4 million people in the lowest credit score categories in the past two years. Before the Great Recession, scores on FICO’s 300-to-850 scale weren’t as volatile, said Andrew Jennings, chief research officer for FICO in Minneapolis. Historically, just 15 percent of the 170 million consumers with active credit accounts, or 25.5 million people, fell below 599, according to data posted on Myfico.com.

More are likely to join their ranks. It can take several months before payment missteps actually drive down a credit score. The Labor Department says about 26 million people are out of work or underemployed, and millions more face foreclosure, which alone can chop 150 points off an individual’s score. Once the damage is done, it could be years before this group can restore their scores, even if they had strong credit histories in the past.

On the positive side, the number of consumers who have a top score of 800 or above has increased in recent years. At least in part, this reflects that more individuals have cut spending and paid down debt in response to the recession. Their ranks now stand at 17.9 percent, which is notably above the historical average of 13 percent, though down from 18.7 percent in April 2008 before the market meltdown.

There’s also been a notable shift in the important range of people with moderate credit, those with scores between 650 and 699. The new data shows that this group comprised 11.9 percent of scores. This is down only marginally from 12 percent in 2008, but reflects a drop of roughly 5.3 million people from its historical average of 15 percent.

This group is significant because it may feel the effects of lenders’ tighter credit standards the most, said FICO’s Jennings. Consumers on the lowest end of the scale are less likely to try to borrow. However, people with mid-range scores that had been eligible for credit before the meltdown are looking to buy homes or cars but finding it hard to qualify for affordable loans.

Workman has seen this firsthand.

A customer with a score of 679 recently walked away from buying a house because he could not get the best interest rate on a $100,000 mortgage. Had his score been 680, the rate he was offered would have been a half-percent lower. The difference was only about $31 per month, but over a 30-year mortgage would have added up to more than $11,000.

“There was nothing derogatory on his credit report,” Workman said of the customer. He had, however, recently gotten an auto loan, which likely lowered his score.

Studies have shown FICO scores are generally reliable predictions of consumer payment behavior, but Workman’s experience points to one drawback of credit scoring: lenders can’t differentiate between two people with the same score. Another consumer might have a 679 score because of several late payments, which could indicate he or she is a bigger repayment risk.

On a broader scale, some of the spike in foreclosures came about because homeowners were financially irresponsible, while others lost their jobs and could no longer pay their mortgages. Yet both reasons for foreclosures have the same impact on a borrower’s FICO score.

In the past too much credit was handed out based on scores alone, without considering how much debt consumers could pay back, said Edmund Tribue, a senior vice president in the credit risk practice at MasterCard Advisors. Now the ability to repay the debt is a critical part of the lending decision.

Workman still thinks credit scores alone play too big a role. “The pendulum has swung too far,” he said. “We absolutely swung way too far in the liberal lending, but did we have to swing so far back the other way?”

© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.



Posted in CONTROL FRAUD, fair isaac corporationComments (0)

After foreclosure: How long until you can buy again? CNNMoney

After foreclosure: How long until you can buy again? CNNMoney


Again, FAIR ISAAC CORPORATION aka FICO: Now Worthless……It’s another scam taken over by wallstreet/mba to make us *think* we are worth a number!

By Les Christie, staff writerMay 28, 2010: 7:58 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Walking away from a mortgage you can still afford to pay has consequences; everyone knows that. Your credit score is shot and it can be impossible to get credit.

Some homeowners, no doubt, believe that the credit score hit is worth getting out from a deeply underwater mortgage. They may owe, say, $500,000 when their house value is only valued at $350,000. And, they figure, there’s no way it will ever be worth what they owe so it’s better to get out from underneath the burden.

After default, they reason, they can raise their FICO scores by paying all their bills on time and eventually finance another home purchase.

Don’t count on it.

While homeowners who default due to economic hardship, such as a job loss or divorce, normally must wait two to five years before buying a home again, walkaways may face double that time.

“It could be well over seven or eight years before [walkaways] are able to obtain a mortgage to buy a home again,” said Jay Brinkmann, chief economist for the Mortgage Bankers Association.

How foreclosure impacts your credit score
“Credit scores are only one component of a complete credit decision,” Brinkmann said. “[In these cases] credit scores are not a good indicator of their willingness to continue to pay their mortgage.”

But future underwriters will scrutinize their records very closely, and if they find no precipitating factors leading to the defaults — no job loss, no health issues –the repaired credit score won’t overshadow the black mark of a walkaway.

“If you made a strategic decision to default on paying your mortgage, it will work against you,” said Bill Merrell of the National Association of Review Appraisers and Mortgage Underwriters.

Merrell, who teaches underwriting, said banks are looking at several factors in determining whether to grant mortgages: the amount of money borrowers have in the bank; employment histories; payment history.

However, banks may be far more lenient if the default resulted from factors somewhat beyond the borrower’s control, such as from local economic problems. “They’ll give you more consideration if it’s job related,” he said. But, he added, banks look at strategic defaults “very negatively.”

That said, it’s not impossible to get a loan. Banks still want to make interest payments, so they might be willing to gamble with a walkaway.

“It might be a little more difficult for them to borrow, but [banks’] drive for market share — to profit from making loans — will trump that caution,” said Keith Gumbinger, of the mortgage information publisher HSH Associates. “I don’t think we’ll see a full denial.”

It’s hard to foresee the state of mortgage lending six or seven months from now, let alone seven or eight years into the future. So lenders may look at applications from one-time strategic defaulters and say, “Yes, they walked away but it’s a whole different market now,” according to Gumbinger.

Even so, lenders may require more from borrowers who walked away than those who didn’t.

“To the extent they could get a mortgage,” said Brinkmann, “they can count on needing a heavy down payment.”

The lenders may ask for 30% down or more. That would provide enough collateral cushion that the bank could get all or most of its money back in a foreclosure.

Strategic defaulters might also be charged higher interest rates, even above the levels other borrowers with similar credit scores would receive.

Posted in fico, foreclosure fraud, mortgage bankers associationComments (0)

FAIR ISAAC CORPORATION aka FICO: Now Worthless…

FAIR ISAAC CORPORATION aka FICO: Now Worthless…


By DinSFLA

Yep, just another way for bankers to rate our credit worthiness. As we  begin to witness all this garbage happening with banks these days, why even bother to save your credit? Save your cash and buy in cash. The higher the credit score the more we are worth to them. It makes no sense what so ever now. We are living our lives based on stupid silly numbers. If you want to purchase a home…go at it and be creative, ask for owner financing.

If we eliminate the banks “middle men” we will learn to live free with no strings attached. Don’t get all strung out because your score has gone way down. It’s only a number!

Keep in mind if you are in an illegal foreclosure you are only 3 months late…The non-creditors that are reporting you have nothing to do with your debt. If you care about this “FICO” score then write your bureau and demand that they delete any derogatory findings the non-creditor has filed with them!

Lets take a look at FICO:

Company milestones

  • 1958: Fair Isaac starts building credit scoring systems.
  • 1970: First credit card scoring system delivered.
  • 1975: First behavior scoring system to predict credit risk related to existing customers.
  • 1981: Introduction of Fair Isaac credit bureau try to scores.
  • 1986: IPO, stock listed at NASDAQ.
  • 1991: Introduction of TRIAD, a credit card management system.
  • 1996: Stock moves from NASDAQ to NYSE.
  • 1997: The American Bankers Association honors Bill Fair and Earl Isaac with Distinguished Service Award for their pioneering work in credit scoring. AHA… you see I knew they were involved some how! Right about the time they were planning our future.
  • 1999, the average FICO score of the top prime issuers of 30-year mortgage pools (privately issued non-GSE mortgage-backed securities) was 721 compared to a 605 average FICO score for subprime issuers of fixed-rate pools.
  • Under another classification, a 580 FICO score has been used to describe the minimum credit score acceptable for “A-minus” credit. Still, the lower grade subprime borrowers are characterized by a history of more delinquencies on their credit obligations. Under one classification, “B” and “C” borrowers can have a minimum FICO score of 540 and may have four late mortgage payments in the past twelve months. See Jess Lederman, Tom Millon, Stacy Ferguson, and Cedric Lewis, “A-minus Breaks Away from Subprime Loan Pack,” in Secondary Market Executive.
  • 2002: Merger with HNC Software, Inc., adding fraud detection to their arsenal with the $100 million Falcon product line and strengthening their analytics offerings in the insurance and telecommunications markets.
  • 2003: Fair, Isaac and Company is renamed Fair Isaac Corporation. Here too …they were on to something.
  • 2004: Acquisition of London Bridge Software, expanding services to credit collections and recovery software. Opens a new analytic consulting and product development center in Bangalore, India targeted primarily at Asia Pacific markets.
  • 2005: Acquisition of RulesPower, bringing Rete III algorithm to Blaze Advisor.
  • 2006: Celebrates 50th anniversary.
  • 2008: Fair Isaac released Debt Manager 7
  • 2009: Company name changed from Fair Isaac, to FICO (FICO means Fair Isaac Corporation). Website changed to fico.com

 

© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.



Posted in foreclosure fraudComments (1)

Even High-Score Borrowers at Risk of Mortgage Default: NYTimes

Even High-Score Borrowers at Risk of Mortgage Default: NYTimes


My Comment: If one is not being foreclosed on by the Entity who holds your note why should your credit be affected in the first place? If you raise this issue to the credit agencies I wonder if they will begin to wonder themselves. To be frank the way the future is going WHO WILL WANT CREDIT or NEED ANY CREDIT SCORE! …statement not a question.

Even High-Score Borrowers at Risk of Mortgage Default

The New York Times
By BOB TEDESCHI
Published: March 10, 2010

A HIGH credit score won’t necessarily insulate borrowers from the home-foreclosure crisis, according to a new study from FICO, which creates the credit-scoring formula used by most lenders.

In fact, the report, which was released in late February, suggests that these premium borrowers might be more likely to default on their mortgages than their credit card debt should they encounter financial difficulties.

From May through October 2009, the mortgage default rate for borrowers with credit scores of 760 to 850 was 0.32 percent, versus 0.12 percent for credit cards, according to the report. (FICO considers loans 90 days or more past due to be in default.)

Of course, that mortgage-default level is still far lower than the 4.5 percent rate for all mortgage borrowers during this period, according to FICO, which is based in Minneapolis. But the numbers are nonetheless worrisome, said Rachel Bell, a director of analytics in FICO’s global scoring solutions business, because they mark the first time the mortgage default rate for this category of borrowers exceeded credit card defaults.

In 2007, the mortgage default rate for high-scoring borrowers was 0.08 percent, versus 0.10 percent for bank cards.

Housing counselors offer at least one possible explanation for the shift: some people with financial reversals who are in danger of losing their homes anyway might be more likely to pay back their credit cards, because they still need them to buy groceries and other essential items.

Ms. Bell declined to speculate about the motivations of borrowers. Because the FICO analysis did not look at specific households, she said she could not determine whether a particular family carried both a mortgage and credit cards, and defaulted on one before the other.

But she did say that the growing mortgage problem among households with high FICO scores might be linked to two areas of increasing trouble in the mortgage industry — namely, defaults on vacation homes, and so-called strategic defaults, in which owners abandon homes that are worth less than the mortgage.

The Mortgage Bankers Association, which closely tracks foreclosures and defaults, says it does not track such statistics for vacation homes. But Walter Molony, a spokesman for the National Association of Realtors, said that if foreclosures had risen among vacation homes, their owners would most likely have bought the properties recently and for investment purposes.

The more value a home loses, the more likely an owner will be to consider a strategic default. A study in late 2009 by three university researchers — from the European University Institute, Northwestern University and the University of Chicago — found that when the mortgage exceeds the home’s value by less than 10 percent, homeowners rarely consider a strategic default. But if the value was just half the mortgage amount, 17 percent would abandon the house, and the loan.

FICO did not break out its recent data by state, but its regional data suggest that those with high credit scores in the Northeast were faring better than such people elsewhere. In the Northeast, borrowers with high FICO scores were still twice as likely to default on their credit cards as their mortgages. In 2005, they were four times as likely to default on their credit cards as their mortgages.

Borrowers with FICO scores of 760 and higher generally qualify for a bank’s best mortgage rate, as long as the down payment and monthly income also fall within the bank’s limits. A score of 720 is considered “prime,” and is usually the lowest rate that will allow borrowers to secure the most widely advertised mortgage rates.

FICO does not publish an average FICO score, but the company said the median score was about 720. And for the high FICO borrowers who default, even 720 is a dream score. One default drops such people into the mid-600 range, at best.

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