Safeguard Properties

Detroit Land Bank Authority Marks Over 12,000 Completed Vacant Home Restorations

Posted on by Safeguard

One Community Update
April 18, 2025

Source: www.wcsx.com

What was once blighted and vacant is now the centerpiece of a celebration marking a significant revitalization of neighborhoods across Detroit.

Officials with the Detroit Land Bank Authority (DLBA) joined the City of Detroit and individuals who bought former DLBA homes since 2014 to celebrate the impact that 12,000 vacant home restorations have made on the City of Detroit over the past decade.

“Back in 2014, when the Land Bank had 45,000 vacant homes in its inventory, a lot of people thought we should just tear them all down, but the Land Bank had a clear strategy to save thousands of them and has executed that strategy beautifully,” said Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan. “But the real work has been done by people — most of them Detroiters — who have transformed these 12,000 blighted and abandoned houses into beautiful homes.”

A City of Detroit news release noted that, over the last 10 years, the DLBA has progressed from owning 45,000 vacant, abandoned homes to fewer than 4,500. Less than 2,000 remain in the DLBA’s sales pipeline.

Additionally, more than 3,000 blocks have seen multiple successful Land Bank restorations.

Since 2014, the DLBA has been a force for transforming vacant, blighted, and abandoned properties into valuable assets for residents, community partners, and investors. By offering affordable housing opportunities and encouraging responsible property ownership, the DLBA continues to support economic growth and neighborhood stability throughout the city.

To be granted compliance, properties must adhere to the following guidelines:

The exterior must be in good condition with no boards on openings and a yard free of debris and well-maintained.

The home must have an operating furnace and water heater.

A functional kitchen and bathroom must be included within the living space.

All utilities for the property must be active.

Property owners sign rehabilitation agreements that confirm that the homes will be brought into compliance within six months of closing, with extensions granted, if significant improvement progress is demonstrated. Once compliance is reached, the DLBA releases its interest in the property.

 

For full report, please click the source link above.

Former HUD Secretary Calls to Address Housing Shortage and Homelessness

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One Community Update
April 11, 2025

Source: RisMedia

Housing remains out of reach for too many Americans, according to former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Marcia Fudge.

Fudge, who served as HUD secretary from 2021-2024, gave her thoughts on housing in the U.S. in a talk on Thurs. April 10, 2025, hosted at Harvard University. (The talk was co-sponsored by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.)

Interviewer Dr. Howard Koh opened the conversation by citing the high number of Americans cost-burdened by housing, asking for Fudge’s assessment on how this happened. Fudge answered that there are three primary causes: not building enough affordable or low-income housing stock, not building enough housing stock in general and lack of ease for both builders and developers due to too many regulations and “people who don’t want low-income housing near their neighborhoods.”

“We were building things that were a lot more expensive that people made money building. So we were building mini-mansions, we weren’t building four-unit properties. We were building things on big lots. We were doing all the things that the people in America thought that they wanted. But as a consequence, we were not taking care of the people who needed real care from the government,” explained Fudge when describing trends that led to a lack of low-income housing stock.

“There’s a belief today that on the low end we need probably 1.5 million units of housing,” Fudge continued, saying that even strides made in boosting housing construction aren’t pushing the market to the needed numbers. “We have people who are on the streets because we don’t have enough housing. And the housing we have because of the supply and demand, the supply is so low and the demand is so high, they’re being priced out of living in a decent home, and so they’re being pushed to the streets.”

Asked about which groups are feeling the shortage the worst, Fudge answered that senior citizens, and then women and children, are the two groups ever more likely to be impacted.

“The fastest growing groups of people who are being pushed to the streets are senior citizens because they cannot live on Social Security. And if we cut it even more, you’re going to see more (become homeless),” said Fudge.

The Social Security Administration has been facing cutbacks under the Trump administration, although Trump has also promised not to cut benefits.

At the same time, Trump advisor and Special Government Employee Elon Musk compared the program to a “Ponzi scheme” and claimed it is rife with fraud and inefficiencies—claims that have been disputed.

Calling the housing and homelessness issues “two sides of the same coin,” Fudge walked through efforts at addressing them she made while HUD secretary—primarily focusing on tax credits and incentives to make low-income housing more attractive to developers and neighborhoods.

“You look at low-income housing tax credits, there needed to be more of them. We tried to put in place a neighborhood tax credit that we couldn’t get past Congress. We tried to put in place more public private partnerships, so we started a rental assistance demonstration (RAD) program where we allow private developers to take over previously public housing initiatives. That has worked quite well, but it is a tedious process. It’s an expensive process,” Fudge elaborated.

Fudge described local opposition to zoning reform for more affordable housing, and resulting lack of political will to reconsider zoning laws, as a major roadblock that has allowed the affordability crisis to fester. She has in the past described zoning laws as a barrier to housing development and homeownership equity.

“What we find is that people come to planning meetings, etc., and say, ‘No, we don’t want you to change the zoning in our neighborhood. It needs to be only residential, which means that you can’t put even a small four-unit building that is rental,’” said Fudge, citing local building codes that keep neighborhoods solely residential. “But the biggest problem is most cities haven’t even looked at their zoning for years and years. So we want them to take a look at it and make a serious effort to try to change it.”

Fudge in turn disputed a comparison that Koh made invoking the recent loss of housing in the Los Angeles wildfires to the lack of inventory creating more homelessness.

“Most of the people who lost their homes, especially in the Hills, they’re fairly wealthy people with insurance, they’re going to be able to rebuild,” said Fudge. She praised Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’ lifting of certain zoning and building regulations to spur reconstruction efforts, but maintained it is a “very different” issue, impacting different people, than the ongoing housing supply shortage.

In addressing that housing shortage, Fudge maintained that the cost of doing so means it must be carried out via public-private partnerships.

“The difference being with trying to put in place the public-private partnerships is that the government knows that it does not have the resources to maintain or to build new housing. It would cost $80 billion just to bring all public housing up to code. The government is not going to spend it. So what we did (while I was at HUD) was create an environment in which we could say to a private developer, ‘We can convert this public housing building into a building that you own, but you have to meet these kinds of requirements that you manage,’” explained Fudge.

However, Fudge also emphasized the role of the “public” side of that partnership, saying government should take a more active role in rehabbing low-income communities and preventing the “segregation” of poverty.

“What we are trying to do is say that it is not necessarily the purview of the government to determine where a person lives, but I think we do have an obligation to help them live in that place safely,” said Fudge.

As one step in addressing the supply crisis, Fudge reiterated that she is a “big fan” of manufactured housing, which can be built, bought and maintained at affordable rates.

“(Manufactured homes) are energy efficient. They are inexpensive, if you can say a house is inexpensive. We have modular homes. We have 3D printed homes. We have homes that you put together almost just like a puzzle. They ship all of the pieces in and just basically put them together. I mean, people think about trailer homes, right? I would never think about living in a trailer. But today, what you see as trailer homes, they’re so nice, but think about the fact that they can be built very, very quickly. They don’t take a lot of land,” she said.

Asked for her opinion about what people can do directly to help alleviate the housing crisis, Fudge said the solution should “bubble up” from both concerned citizens to public servants.

“Do your part…that means not just everyday people, that means also mayors and county commissioners and governors and all of the people who deal with this on a daily basis,” she said, before explaining how she took a proactive approach while leading HUD. “Because the one thing I realized in the president’s cabinet, if I did not go and travel every week, which I almost did, the people that didn’t, they didn’t know what was going on out in the community. They never talked to people, touched people, listened to people and saw how people lived. They were isolated. Get your feet wet, get in the water and then I think when we do that, we’ll all be so much better.”

 

For full report, please click the source link above.

Columbus Creating Vacant, Foreclosed Home Registries to Address Dangerous Eyesores

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One Community Update
April 21, 2025

Source: The Columbus Dispatch

Is there an abandoned or vacant house in your Columbus neighborhood becoming an eyesore?

The city is moving forward with creating registries to track vacant and foreclosed residential properties to hold owners accountable for their upkeep. City Council President Pro Tempore Rob Dorans also hopes the registries can be used to push owners toward using their properties for housing again.

“It’s crazy to think that we have vacant property at a time in which we have this much demand for housing,” Dorans told The Dispatch. “Hopefully, we can push them to more productive use.”

The city is also creating a registry of residential wholesalers. Council President Shannon Hardin has said wholesalers are often predatory investors who make low-ball cash offers to homeowners and, without ever taking possession of the property, resell at higher prices.

The council approved these registries last year and they are part of the Housing for All package of legislation that the council has been working on since 2023. As Columbus Mayor Andrew J. Ginther noted in his State of the City, these registries are coming to fruition.

The Columbus City Council voted on Monday, April 21, to approve a three-year contract with Tolemi BuildingBlocks to manage the vacant, foreclosure and wholesaler registries. The first year, including set up costs, will total $178,000 and the annual price after that will be $149,000.

While owners of vacant properties will be required to register, this software is billed as being able to identify distressed properties early when owners don’t come forward. The software uses real-time information like utility usage, mail delivery and code violations to find properties that are not registered.

City inspectors can tell owners to fix issues at their empty properties. If they don’t comply with the ordered deadline, owners can be fined $150 for every day of noncompliance.

“We know that there’s not one solution to the housing crisis that we’re experiencing here in Columbus, but these registries are an important part of identifying with is going on in the current housing situation in Columbus,” Dorans said.

Ginther said the vacant and foreclosed properties registries will go online by June 1.

On the campaign trail, City Council District 7 candidate Kate Curry-Da-Souza has pushed for the city to develop the vacant property registry that was first proposed by the council two years ago. She has also proposed imposing a fee on empty homes to encourage owners to bring them back online by selling or renting.

 

For full report, please click the source link above.

ICE First Look at Mortgage Performance: Delinquencies Improved Seasonally in March

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Industry Update
April 24, 2025

Source: ICE Mortgage Technology

Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE:ICE), a leading global provider of technology and data, today released its March 2025 First Look, which reveals that while delinquency rates edged up slightly year over year (YoY), they remain below pre-pandemic levels.

The ICE First Look reports on month-end delinquency, foreclosure and prepayment statistics sourced from its loan-level database, which covers a majority of the U.S. mortgage market.

Key takeaways from this month’s findings include:

While serious delinquencies (SDQs) also improved seasonally, they are up 14% (+60K) YoY, with the rise driven entirely by FHA delinquencies, which increased by +63K YoY.

Higher SDQs, along with the lifting of a VA foreclosure moratorium, fueled a modest bump in foreclosure inventory and sales, which both rose annually for the first time in nearly two years.

Disaster events, such as hurricanes and wildfires, have led to YoY delinquency increases across several states, including Florida (+44 bps), South Carolina (+17 bps), Georgia (+14 bps) and California (+10 bps).

Monthly prepayment activity, measured by single-month mortality, jumped to 0.59% – a +30.4% increase over February and the highest level of prepayment activity since November.

 

For full report, please click the source link above.

 

FEMA Losing Roughly 20% of Permanent Staff, Including Longtime Leaders, Ahead of Hurricane Season

Posted on by Safeguard

Industry Update
April 23, 2025

Source: CNN

The agency tasked with delivering billions of dollars in assistance to communities devastated by natural disasters is about to lose a huge portion of its workforce, including some of its most experienced and knowledgeable leaders who manage disaster response.

With hurricane season just weeks away, about 20% of FEMA’s permanent full-time staff – roughly 1,000 workers – are expected to take a voluntary buyout as part of the latest staff reduction effort from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, according to several sources briefed on the looming departures.

FEMA leaders responsible for response plans, operations and disaster recovery are among a long list of top brass exiting the agency, multiple sources told CNN.

CNN has reached out to FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security about the departures.

“Whether or not the positions are frozen, it’s likely to be a significant brain drain, which impedes our ability to respond,” a FEMA official, speaking anonymously out of fear of retribution, told CNN.

The 1,000 or so workers have accepted recent DOGE-led offers for deferred resignation or early retirement, sources told CNN, amid mounting tension and turmoil at the disaster relief agency.

More than 800 FEMA personnel accepted similar offers during the initial Deferred Resignation Program earlier this year, The New York Times reported, though many more workers at the agency were eligible for that round.

This time, sources said more senior officials are voluntarily heading for the door.

“All of these people have seen their work destroyed and denigrated,” a senior FEMA official told CNN. “They started seeing that FEMA might actually be killed.”

President Donald Trump and his allies have criticized FEMA for months as partisan, ineffective and unnecessary. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has promised to “eliminate” the agency altogether, potentially in the coming months.

In recent weeks, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, has administered at least a dozen lie detector tests to agency officials over alleged media leaks. Since CNN reported on the polygraphs, several more FEMA officials have been tested, multiple sources said.

“People don’t want to work here anymore,” another senior official said. “And they’re worried about what the agency will look like in a year.”

The departures will reshape FEMA leadership, sources said.

“What you’re losing here are the people that actually know how to build and run programs, and these people aren’t easily replaced,” the first senior official said. “If their desire was to break the ability of the agency to do business, then they are succeeding without question. But they have not done any work building something to replace it.”

More workforce reductions may be coming to FEMA.

The vast majority of FEMA personnel are part of the Cadre of On-Call Response Employees (known as CORE) and the Reservists. Those positions – which are not part of the new batch of departures because they were largely ineligible for the latest voluntary resignation offers – include most of the public-facing roles that help deliver assistance to communities after disasters.

Last month, Secretary Noem issued a directive requiring CORE and Reservists, many of whom hold 2- to 4-year term positions, to be individually approved by Noem’s team to be renewed for another term. Right now, many are only receiving extensions in 30-day increments, multiple sources said.

Several senior FEMA officials told CNN they expect DHS to chisel away at those positions in the coming months to reduce the agency’s staff even further, which would inevitably squeeze resources deployed to disaster zones.

“Honestly, I don’t know what to expect,” the official who works directly on disaster response said. “We’re scrambling to make plans to fill the gaps. I think we just accept that there are going to be more hits coming.”

Hurricane preparations have already been stifled amid funding restrictions at the agency, sources said. Some trainings are postponed, hiring is frozen, teams are preparing for staffing cuts, and engagements between FEMA and its state partners have been limited.

“There is a horrible level of fear and anxiety,” a fourth FEMA official told CNN. “The lack of a bigger picture plan is what is causing the most worry. If we had a clear ‘march in this direction,’ that would be fine, and we would do it. Instead, it’s all a guessing game and trying to be ready.”

 

For full report, please click the source link above.

 

Tornado Victims Blocked from Federal Recovery Aid After Trump Denied Request

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Industry Update
April 23, 2025

Source: CNN

Disaster survivors in Arkansas left homeless by recent tornadoes have been blocked from receiving federal recovery aid after President Donald Trump rejected the state’s request to declare a major disaster in March.

The Trump administration denied Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ request for individual and public assistance following an outbreak of severe storms and tornadoes that also affected neighboring Mississippi and Missouri and left more than 40 people dead.

The denial follows executive orders signed by Trump seeking to shift the burden of disaster response and recovery from the federal government onto states, as extreme weather becomes increasingly destructive and costly in a warming world. It is unclear how states will fill the financial void, which for decades has been viewed as a federal responsibility given the wide-reaching, multi-state nature of disasters.

Both Trump and Department of Homeland Security Sec. Kristi Noem have made it clear they want to eliminate FEMA, which spends billions each year helping people get temporary housing and rebuild after storms. FEMA also funds public assistance for municipalities after disasters, including tornadoes, hurricanes or wildfires.

The denial of the request, dated April 11, said the Trump administration had “determined that the damage from this event was not of such severity and magnitude as to be beyond the capabilities of the state, affected local governments, and voluntary agencies. Accordingly, we have determined that supplemental federal assistance is not necessary.”

It’s so far unclear whether Missouri and Mississippi will face similar denials. CNN reached out to the governor’s office in those states for comment. The White House did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment on why it denied the disaster request.

In 2023, former President Joe Biden granted an Arkansas disaster declaration request following deadly tornadoes within 48 hours of the storms.

As CNN has reported, billions of dollars in disaster aid were recently sitting untouched. More than $100 billion of previously awarded grant money and disaster assistance was frozen at FEMA for weeks, as agency staff awaited guidance for issuing payments in compliance with Trump’s executive orders restricting funding for immigration programs and sanctuary cities, a source with knowledge of the situation told CNN last month. FEMA has distributed most of its backlogged funds in recent days, and the temporarily frozen funding is different from individual disaster assistance funding.

Sanders has appealed the denial, writing in her letter to Trump “the state and its citizens are in dire need of assistance to recover, rebuild, and mitigate further loss.”

“Without the support of a Major Disaster Declaration, Arkansas will face significant challenges in assuming full responsibility and achieving an effective recovery from this event,” Sanders wrote.

In lieu of federal funding, volunteer organizations in Arkansas are stepping up to try to fill the gap, said Lacey Kanipe, the spokesperson for the Arkansas Department of Public Safety.

“The state has disaster recovery programs that provide a percentage of what FEMA may provide to survivors,” Kanipe said, adding it’s hard to quantify exactly how big the gulf is between what the state can support and what the federal government can provide.

Biden FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell previously told CNN that FEMA’s mission isn’t to replace first responders. Instead, it is “to support state and local jurisdictions with their needs.”

“They’re the ones that are on the ground,” Criswell told CNN in January. “They’re the ones that are responding, and we want to be able to bring them the resources as quickly as possible.”

 

For full report, please click the source link above.

 

State Funded Program Increasing Local Housing Options

Posted on by Safeguard

One Community Update
April 9, 2025

Source: Yahoo! News

The City of Youngstown is beginning to see the benefits of the new Welcome Home Ohio program.

The program includes funding for the construction and rehabilitation of residential properties, and the Mahoning County Land Bank and Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation (YNDC) are taking full advantage of it.

Representatives of both organizations showed WKBN the progress of a renovation that is currently underway at 3551 Shirley Road.

The property was among those identified as vacant and tax-delinquent during a citywide survey released in 2023. YNDC was able to purchase the property during a sheriff’s sale and received funding through the Welcome Home program to purchase and help renovate it.

“Those dollars were really critical to us being able to push this forward and in a fairly fast timeframe, I would say,” Debora Flora, executive director of the Mahoning County Land Bank.

YNDC Executive Director Ian Beniston said the funding allows them to sell the property for an affordable price to a person who will live in the home.

As part of the Welcome Home Ohio requirements, the Lank Bank cannot sell the home for more than $180,000, and the property must be sold to an individual who earns not more than 80% of the local median income at the time of sale for 20 years after the date of purchase. Buyers must live in the home for five years or face a penalty.

Through the program, buyers will receive homebuyer counseling.

Beniston said through YNDC’s other partnerships, buyers can also receive downpayment assistance, possibly up to $28,000.

“The idea is not for someone to buy this and then flip it themselves and make it a rental. The idea is that for at least 20 years, this is going to be an affordable homeownership opportunity for a family or multiple families if it’s sold,” he said.

YNDC and the Land Bank have been working together for some time to eliminate blight, which has created vacant lots across the city. With the available funding, there is now an opportunity to rebuild in those areas.

They are working on six rehab homes through Welcome Home Ohio right now, six new builds are wrapping up, and 19 new builds are starting soon.

Beniston also discussed progress on a project to build six new homes on Mineral Springs Avenue. The Land Bank acquired the vacant land years ago but there hadn’t been an opportunity to rebuild the area until recently. The project included removing the blight and rebuilding the area from the ground up.

“This is kind of a special moment if we look back on the last 20 years of starting to get some more momentum, and something that we’ve been, I think, looking forward to and building toward for a decade,” Beniston said.

Beniston said all of the homes will be listed with a realtor, and there is typically a lot of interest in them. Buyers will need to have a realtor but can contact YNDC with interest in a particular property to be added to a list for notification when it is listed

“Generally speaking, I think these are the best deals on the market. When you look at it, we’re going to be selling brand-new, three-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath, newly constructed houses for $180,000. There’s nowhere in the five-county region that you’re going to be seeing that type of product on the market for that price,” Beniston said.

Vacant homes under renovation through Welcome Home Ohio in Youngstown include the following:

3551 Shirley Road

734 W LaClede

870 Canfield Road

3222 Sheridan Road

2502 Stocker

4340 Helena

Flora said there are a couple of Welcome Home Ohio-funded projects in the works in other areas as well.

Other homes that YNDC is working on include the following:

844 W Indianola

741 Sherwood

734 W LaClede

870 Canfield

3222 Sheridan

3310 Sheridan

2502 Stocker

4340 Helena

3551 Shirley

512 Clearmont

733 Lake

2653 Pearce

2655 Pearce

2657 Pearce

818 Billingsgate

On Thursday, YNDC also plans to break ground on phase two of a project to build three new duplexes on Glenwood Avenue. That project is funded by the Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh Affordable Housing Program, Federal Home Loan Bank of Cincinnati Affordable Housing Program, Mahoning County and the Raymond John Wean Foundation.

 

For full report, please click the source link above.

Construction and Rehab Underway for Two New Housing Initiatives Through Cuyahoga Land Bank

Posted on by Safeguard

One Community Update
April 11, 2025

Source: www.signalcleveland.org

Cuyahoga Land Bank CEO Ricardo León presented updates to the Board of Directors on two major neighborhood revitalization programs at the board’s March 28 meeting.

The Cuyahoga Land Bank is a partner in the City of Cleveland’s Southeast Side Initiative. Around $1.25 million was allocated to cover three in-house modernizations and to establish a grant program that would cover gap financing for a minimum of seven rehab homes in targeted Southeast Side communities with up to $82,000 in funding for each home.

“Our director of real estate met with the local CDCs in the last couple of weeks just to kind of get an understanding of the development capacity within the neighborhood, or trends, or things that are happening,” León said.

Land Bank Communications Director Rachel Trem explained that the term “gap financing” as used in the meeting is “a grant provided by the Land Bank to a builder that closes the ‘gap’ between how much it costs to build a house and the sales price the builder is able to receive for the house from a buyer.”

The Legacy Communities Revitalization Program will use $10 million of American Rescue Plan Act funds to create 54 new housing units in the South Collinwood-Euclid Green area, the Central neighborhood, and the MetroHealth campus area of Clark-Fulton. Thirty units will be new construction, while the other 24 are rehabs. Construction is already underway on six units, including two on the Scranton corridor near West 18th Street.

The neighborhoods were identified by the need for housing, said León, and are “where we can move the needle on that market.”

All 54 homes will also seek to benefit from gap grant financing. One participant at the meeting expressed concern that financing amounts seemed higher than what is typical for Cleveland.

“The cost to build a house is the same whether you are building in a challenged or robust housing market,” explained Trem. “The more challenged the market, the greater the ‘gap’ between the cost of and sales price of a house.”

Brownfield cleanup grants could bring, retain local jobs

Cuyahoga Land Bank staff said the agency applied for about $46.5 million in brownfield grant funds from the state in February, adding that these projects could result in 2,000 new jobs in the area and retaining nearly 800 jobs.

A “brownfield” is a piece of land that’s been damaged by contamination from use as an industrial or commercial site. The United States began prioritizing brownfields for cleanup in the 1990s.

The Gus Frangos Act moves through state legislature

A bill named after Cuyahoga Land Bank founder Gus Frangos, HB 86, is currently making its way through the Ohio Legislature.

Said Trem, “This bill [and SB 102] improves Ohio’s existing laws concerning land banking and tax foreclosure by increasing protections for owners of tax foreclosed properties, clarifying ambiguities and inconstancies in those laws, and generally enhancing a County Land Bank’s ability to prevent vacant and abandoned properties from continuing the foreclosure cycle.”

The Cuyahoga Land Bank has more than 1,400 parcels in their inventory, including 618 in Cleveland.

 

For full report, please click the source link above.

Ginnie Mae Welcomes Joseph M. Gormley as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer

Posted on by Safeguard

Industry Update
April 16, 2025

Source: Ginnie Mae

Ginnie Mae welcomes Joseph M. Gormley as its new Executive Vice President (EVP) and Chief Operating Officer (COO). With extensive experience in housing policy and financial services, Gormley will oversee Ginnie Mae’s mission to support stability in the nation’s housing markets.

Gormley’s track record demonstrates his housing finance expertise and commitment to public service. In a prior stint in federal government service, Gormley held several senior roles at the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, including Deputy Assistant Secretary for Single Family Housing at the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and Chief of Staff to the Deputy Secretary.

Beyond his service at HUD, Gormley held roles at the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) as Assistant Vice President and Regulatory Counsel, as well as at the Mortgage Bankers Association and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

“I am very happy to see Joe Gormley take the helm at Ginnie Mae as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer,” said HUD Secretary Scott Turner. “With Ginnie Mae’s central role in mortgage financing, his leadership will bring stability and strength to this segment of the housing market.”

As EVP and COO, Gormley will lead Ginnie Mae’s strategic initiatives, operational functions, and risk-management efforts, ensuring that the organization remains focused so that its programs are delivered efficiently, responsibly, and sustainably.

“I am honored to join Ginnie Mae and contribute to its important mission,” said Gormley. “I look forward to working with the dedicated team at the agency to strengthen and enhance the role of the MBS program in serving homeowners and renters across the country.”

Gormley’s appointment reinforces Ginnie Mae’s commitment to maintaining a strong U.S. housing finance system. His experience and vision will be critical in advancing Ginnie Mae’s goals and delivering on its promise to provide stability and affordability to the nation’s housing market.

 

For full report, please click the source link above.

 

Top 10 U.S. Housing Markets with Most Foreclosure Starts in March 2025

Posted on by Safeguard

Industry Update
April 11, 2025

Source: ATTOM

According to ATTOM’s newly released Q1 and March 2025 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, there were a total of 35,890 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings in March 2025. That figure was up 11 percent from February 2025 and up 9 percent from March 2024.

The foreclosure market report also shows that 93,953 U.S. properties had a foreclosure filing during the first quarter of 2025 — an 11 percent increase from the previous quarter but a 2 percent decrease compared to a year ago.

The analysis stated that nationwide, one in every 1,515 housing units had a foreclosure filing in Q1 2025. The states with the highest foreclosure rates were Delaware (one in every 761 housing units), Illinois (one in 857), Nevada (one in 874), Indiana (one in 976), and South Carolina (one in 1,021).

The report found that in Q1 2025, foreclosure starts were initiated on 68,794 U.S. properties — a 14 percent increase from the previous quarter and a 2 percent rise year-over-year.  Among metro areas with a population of 200,000 or more, those with the highest number of foreclosure starts in Q1 2025 were Chicago, IL (3,789 foreclosure starts), New York, NY (3,566), Houston, TX (3,046), Miami, FL (2,028), and Philadelphia, PA (1,985).

ATTOM’s latest foreclosure activity analysis found that In March 2025, one in every 3,965 properties across the U.S. had a foreclosure filing. The report noted that in March 2025 the States with the highest foreclosure rates were Delaware (one in every 2,256 housing units with a foreclosure filing); Nevada (one in every 2,274 housing units); Illinois (one in every 2,484 housing units); Indiana (one in every 2,505 housing units); and Connecticut (one in every 2,616 housing units).

Also according to the report, in March 2025, foreclosure starts were reported on 25,070 U.S. properties — a 10 percent increase from the prior month and 8 percent higher than March 2024.  Lenders completed foreclosures on 3,687 properties during the month, marking a 22 percent rise from February and a 37 percent jump compared to a year ago.

In this post, we dive deep into the data behind ATTOM’s Q1 and March 2025 foreclosure report to uncover the top 10 U.S. larger metro areas with the greatest number of foreclosure starts in March 2025. Those metros with populations over 200,000 included:  Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI (1,254 foreclosure starts); New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA (1,202 foreclosure starts); Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, TX (1,064 foreclosure starts); Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL (805 foreclosure starts); Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX (691 foreclosure starts); Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA (619 foreclosure starts); Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA (522 foreclosure starts); Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA (499 foreclosure star02ts); Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD (465 foreclosure starts); and Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ (463 foreclosure starts).

 

For full report, please click the source link above.