Page 43 – Safeguard Properties

FEMA Major Disaster Declaration – Maine Severe Storms and Flooding

Posted on January 31, 2024March 19, 2024 by Safeguard

FEMA Alert
January 30, 2024

***LAST UPDATED: 3/19/24***

FEMA has issued a Major Disaster Declaration for areas of the state of Maine to supplement state, tribal and local recovery efforts in areas affected by a severe storm and flooding from December 17-21, 2023. The following counties have been approved for assistance:

Individual Assistance:

Androscoggin
Franklin
Kennebec
Oxford
Somerset

Public Assistance:

Androscoggin
Franklin
Hancock
Kennebec
Oxford
Penobscot
Piscataquis
Somerset
Waldo
Washington

Maine Severe Storms and Flooding (DR-4754-ME)

Map of Affected Area

List of Affected Zip Codes

Additional Resources

FEMA’s web site

FEMA’s Disaster Declaration Process

Safeguard Properties Industry Alerts

HUD Moratorium on Foreclosure

VA’s Policy Regarding Natural Disasters

Freddie Mac Disaster Relief Policies

Fannie Mae’s Natural Disaster Relief Policies

ICE Report: December 2023 Delinquency Rate Hits 3.57%

Posted on January 30, 2024 by Safeguard

Industry Update
January 24, 2024

Source: National Mortgage Professional

In December 2023, the national delinquency rate experienced a slight increase, reaching 3.57%, according to the Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (ICE) mortgage performance report.

This uptick of 19 basis points (bps) from November was primarily attributed to the fact that December ended on a Sunday. This unusual calendar occurrence delayed the processing of payments made on the last day of the month, impacting the delinquency rate.

While the rise in delinquencies for December 2023 of 5.6% was larger than the average December increase of 1.4%, it was still milder compared to previous December months ending on a Sunday, which typically saw delinquencies jump by an average of 9.9%.

Delinquencies showed a moderate increase across the board, driven by higher inflows and rolls to later stages of delinquency. However, there was some positive news as cures from both early- and late-stage delinquency improved.

Despite the rise in delinquencies, serious delinquencies (those 90 days or more past due) increased to 475,000. However, this figure was still 19% lower than the number reported at the end of December 2022.

For full report, please click the source link above.

Cleveland’s Crackdown on Blight Might Hit Snag with Controversial Proposal

Posted on January 26, 2024 by Safeguard

One Community Update
January 26, 2024

Source: cleveland.com

An ambitious plan aimed at improving Cleveland’s housing stock through a major overhaul of code enforcement was largely praised by City Council during its first public hearing this week.

But one part of the plan may prove to be a sticking point for council: point-of-sale inspections for vacant homes. It’s unclear whether that provision will make it into the final version of the law, or at least, in the form initially proposed by Mayor Justin Bibb.

“Without this, you’re just rolling out the red carpet to every bottom-feeding flipper and speculator,” Building and Housing Director Sally Martin-O’Toole said at the Tuesday meeting.

Such inspections are just one part of Cleveland’s proposed “Residents First” code enforcement shake-up. But it’s proving more controversial than other aspects of the plan, such as the creation of a civil-ticketing system where nuisance fines can stack up quickly for derelict landlords, and requiring hard-to-reach, out-of-state investors who own rental properties to designate a local person who would be on the hook for poor conditions.

Some City Council members helped Bibb shape the Residents First reforms, and members this week generally offered enthusiastic support for the local agent requirements, civil tickets and other proposed tools to fight blight.

But on point-of-sale (POS) inspections for vacant homes, members had lots of questions, and Council President Blaine Griffin said the only reason he was considering it was because it applied to empty homes, not occupied ones.

Even then, Griffin said he feared unintended consequences could crop up if it were enacted, but he told cleveland.com after the hearing that he hasn’t made any firm decisions about tossing it, changing it, or allowing it to move forward.

For full report, please click the source link above.

Positively St. Louis: The Land Reutilization Authority Converting Abandoned Properties to Productive Use

Posted on January 26, 2024 by Safeguard

One Community Update
January 19, 2024

Source: Yahoo! News

The Land Reutilization Authority (LRA) of the City of St. Louis is a development board staffed by the St. Louis Development Corporation (SLDC). The LRA is responsible for the stewardship and sale of nearly 10,000 previously abandoned buildings and property in the City of St. Louis.

When a property owner doesn’t pay property taxes and no one purchases it at a tax sale, the property ends up in the hands of the LRA. The LRA is the oldest and largest landbank in the country, and it required an intentional operational assessment to reform the LRA’s purchase programs, processes, and public communications.

That process started in February 2023 with the adoption of new sales policies to enhance economic empowerment, equitable and inclusive development, and neighborhood transformation in conjunction with the SLDC’s Economic Justice Action Plan.

Shelton Anderson is the Vice President of Real Estate for SLDC/LRA who oversees the physical and financial performance, and business strategy of SLDC’s landbank. He also leads a team of urban planners, real estate professionals, and contractors to evaluate each of the 10,000 parcels and put an action plan into place.

Anderson says, “LRA is the owner of last resort to disposition properties sale and market them for productive redevelopment in the City of St. Louis.”

The majority of the 10,000 parcels are single-family homes, all in various conditions, which include homes that are partially demolished and homes that are structurally unstable. The largest concentration is on the north side of the city.

Shelton says the plan deploys classic real estate practices, “the strategic plan for LRA, is essentially align all of those parcels with programs that are funded and activating and redeveloping each of those parcels into productive use. We are going through a process of inventory analysis, which is essentially getting a better understanding of what the best use is each of the parcels that LRA owns.”

Anderson says the LRA is facilitating the due diligence process on new development projects, identifying, and implementing ways to optimize use of properties and land, and working in partnership with facilities and management teams to develop strategies to maximize the value of the properties.

The LRA team is on a mission to add value to the St. Louis region. Anderson explains, “these matters because the redevelopment is St. Louis. Specifically redeveloping North St. Louis, which is historically the most disinvested portion of the city . It is important in collectively developing St. Louis City in its entity which will also develop St. Louis as not just a city, but the county, and being able to take the development that will expand out into impacting the region.”

For full report, please click the source link above.

How One Ohio City is Tackling Urban Blight

Posted on January 26, 2024 by Safeguard

One Community Update
January 22, 2024

Source: news.wosu.org

A decade ago, there were more than 1,500 vacant homes in the northeast Ohio city of Warren.

The area’s population fell rapidly following the industrial decline of the 1980s, leaving behind a trail of empty buildings.

But one local organization is working to address those vacancies.

The Trumbull Neighborhood Partnership, the area’s community development corporation, has demolished about 1,200 vacant properties and renovated more than 600 in the past decade, according to its 2024 Parcel Inventory Update.

The organization partners with the city of Warren and Trumbull County, and it has received state and federal support to carry out this work as well.

“When we first started just two or three years after the foreclosure crisis when there was the most vacancy ever, everywhere, our focus at that time was triage,” said the organization’s executive director, Matt Martin. “Demolish what needs to be demolished, save what we can, and then figure out a land-use plan.”

Now, only about 400 vacant buildings remain in the city. But Martin says there’s a lot more work to be done.

“We’re still trying to clean up and reimagine and rightsize our community,” he said.

For full report, please click the source link above.

Affordable Housing Lot Program Faces Hurdles, Changes

Posted on January 26, 2024 by Safeguard

One Community Update
January 15, 2024

Source: stpetecatalyst.com

St. Petersburg administrators are revamping the city’s Affordable Lot Disposition Program to increase attainable homeownership opportunities and eliminate construction delays that can span nearly four years.

Beatriz Zafra, special projects coordinator, explained the initiative’s unexpected challenges and proposed solutions to city council members at a Jan. 11 committee meeting. The program began in 2018 and allows officials to convert lots obtained through foreclosure into affordable, single-family homes.

Developers have built 35 houses on the city-owned lots, and 13 are under construction. The average sales price is about $261,300, and homebuyers typically earn less than 80% of the area median income (AMI).

However, administrators have encountered unexpected challenges. City documents state that the “current process was intended to broaden the base of non-profits working in the creation of affordable housing but has unintentionally resulted in a significant disparity in productivity amongst program participants.”

“The average (construction) completion time for our top three performers is 12 months, which isn’t that far from the top performer …,” Zafra said. “But you can see the average completion time for our bottom three performers jumps up to 41.3.”

For full report, please click the source link above.

Transforming Unlivable Properties into Thriving Homes

Posted on January 26, 2024 by Safeguard

One Community Update
January 18, 2024

Source: wmar2news.com

Abandoned, neglected, and blighted properties with an exterior only a mother could love.

Thirteen-thousand of them sit in neighborhoods across Baltimore City. All are useless to the housing market.

Renovating a vacant home can be a challenge. The first step is finding a loan officer to approve money for the project, and that is where the DASH program steps in.

This is a special program that allows for special interest rates for developers coming into Baltimore City exclusively looking to rehab blocks of homes and individual homes,” explains Kathleen Mitchell, Head of Underwriting for Dominion Financial Services.

Baltimore is the first city where the DASH program is active. Our city is unique with a large number of vacant homes, a major impact from redlining, a push to end the issue, and a local financial company willing to help with loans.

“There is this opportunity to take this existing vacant housing stock and repurpose it for the homeownership aspirations of Baltimore residents,” says Christopher Tyson, President of National Community Stabilization Trust.

So what is DASH? It stands for Developing Affordable Starter Homes, and gives people money, at a lower-than-usual interest rate to renovate vacant homes.

Nathan Robbins is a Developer, “So when I first came to this house I could look through the front window and see the sky through it. There was a big tree growing through the middle.”

Robbins has developed a few properties in Baltimore City, including one in Pigtown. He used the DASH program to get the project across the finish line.

“The DASH fund was unique. They were able to help with the purchase and construction costs so it’s a little more accessible for small developers in the city.”

For Robbins, seeing families move in and enjoy their new space, is the reward.

So far 8 properties have received the loan, six more are in the works.

For full report, please click the source link above.

Top 10 ZIPS with Highest Foreclosure Rates in 2023

Posted on January 23, 2024January 23, 2024 by Safeguard

Industry Update
January 12, 2024

Source: ATTOM

According to ATTOM’s newly released 2023 Year-End U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, foreclosure filings were reported on 357,062 U.S. properties in 2023. The report noted that figure was up 10 percent from 2022 and 136 percent from 2021, but down 28 percent from 2019 – before the pandemic shook up the market.

ATTOM’s latest foreclosure activity analysis reported that nationwide, foreclosure filings in 2023 were also down 88 percent from a peak of nearly 2.9 million in 2010. Also, according to the report, those 357,062 properties with foreclosure filings in 2023 represented 0.26 percent of all U.S. housing units. That figure was up slightly from 0.23 percent in 2022, but down from 0.36 percent in 2019 and down from a peak of 2.23 percent in 2010.

The year-end foreclosure report noted that states with the highest foreclosure rates in 2023 included New Jersey (0.46 percent of housing units with a foreclosure filing); Illinois (0.42 percent); Delaware (0.41 percent); Maryland (0.40 percent); and Ohio (0.38 percent).

The ATTOM analysis also reported that rounding out the top 10 states with the highest foreclosure rates in 2023, were South Carolina (0.38 percent); Nevada (0.37 percent); Florida (0.37 percent); Connecticut (0.35 percent); and Indiana (0.32 percent).

According to the report, among the 223 metro areas with a population of at least 200,000, those with the highest foreclosure rates in 2023 included Cleveland, Ohio (0.62 percent of housing units with a foreclosure filing); Atlantic City, New Jersey (0.62 percent); Lakeland, Florida (0.56 percent); Columbia, South Carolina (0.55 percent); and Fayetteville, North Carolina (0.51 percent).

The report noted that among those metro areas with a population greater than 1 million, including Cleveland, Ohio, those with the highest foreclosure rates in 2023 included Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (0.48 percent); Jacksonville, Florida (0.47 percent); Las Vegas, Nevada (0.46 percent); and Chicago, Illinois (0.45 percent).

For full report, please click the source link above.

Share of Mortgage Loans in Forbearance Decreases to .23% in December

Posted on January 23, 2024 by Safeguard

Industry Update
January 22, 2024

Source: Mortgage Bankers Association

The Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) monthly Loan Monitoring Survey revealed that the total number of loans now in forbearance decreased by 3 basis points from 0.26% of servicers’ portfolio volume in the prior month to 0.23% as of December 31, 2023. According to MBA’s estimate, 115,000 homeowners are in forbearance plans. Mortgage servicers have provided forbearance to approximately 8.1 million borrowers since March 2020.

In December 2023, the share of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans in forbearance declined 1 basis point to 0.15%. Ginnie Mae loans in forbearance decreased 8 basis points to 0.39%, and the forbearance share for portfolio loans and private-label securities (PLS) decreased 3 basis points to 0.27%.

“Forbearance as a loss mitigation option is diminishing,” said Marina Walsh, CMB, MBA’s Vice President of Industry Analysis. “While forbearance is a powerful tool for delinquency surges resulting from natural disasters or major disruptions such as a pandemic, today’s borrowers are not experiencing widespread financial distress. The overall performance of servicing portfolios – particularly government loans – declined in December. Factors such as seasonality, a changing labor market, resumption of student loan payments, and the rise in balances on other forms of consumer debt are likely at play.”

Walsh also noted that MBA anticipates that the unemployment rate, a leading indicator of mortgage performance, is expected to increase gradually to 4.5 percent by the end of 2024 from 3.7 percent at year-end 2023.

For full report, please click the source link above.

National Property Preservation Conference Returned to Washington, D.C.

Posted on January 23, 2024 by Safeguard

Safeguard in the News
January 22, 2024

Source: DS News

Growing up, it seemed like every neighborhood had that one “creepy” house. Maybe it was abandoned, maybe it was home to a quiet introvert who occasionally peeks out through the curtains.

Regardless, these are places that collect mythology like fishing nets collect ocean-borne garbage, gathering stories and rumors that are pretty much always more interesting than reality. But out here in actual reality—those homes are probably just in need of a good property preservation vendor.

The property preservation sector serves a crucial function within the market: helping maintain vacant properties, ensuring the lawns are cut, the windows and doors are secure, and no one is breaking in to squat, strip out copper, or worse. They help prevent urban blight, maintain neighborhood property values, and eventually, help ensure those homes are in good shape when they return to the market.

But the difficulties facing the prop pres sector have rarely been more daunting, ranging from struggles to maintain a sufficient workforce, to the headwinds of inflationary costs, to the simple fact that much of the diminished REO stock is more spread out and requiring more “windshield time” just to get people out to them in the first place.

All these issues and more were up for discussion at November’s National Property Preservation Conference (NPPC) in Washington, D.C. Hosted by Safeguard Properties since 2004, the NPPC was the brainchild of Safeguard’s late founder, Robert Klein, who created the event to fill a perceived gap for an industry event that was solely focused on trends and challenges within the property preservation space, as opposed to just being included as a single panel or two within a more generalized event such as the Five Star Conference. As the official NPPC homepage puts it, Klein’s vision was to “bring together all facets of the mortgage field services industry to discuss pressing issues and develop solutions.”

This year’s NPPC lineup honored that legacy well, bringing together a top-tier lineup of industry speakers from prop pres, mortgage servicing, government agencies, and the GSEs. They all gathered for three beautiful November days at the InterContinental Washington D.C.-The Wharf, filing into a sun-filled ballroom overlooking the Potomac for a packed lineup of panels and speakers.

To access the full story, please click the source link above.