Interview several foreclosure attorneys.
The bank is now focusing on modifications only for those borrowers "who are already in severe threat of foreclosure," he said.
In New York State, it would take lenders 62 years at their current pace, the longest time frame in the nation, to repossess the 213,000 houses now in severe default or foreclosure, according to calculations by LPS Applied Analytics, a prominent real estate data firm.
For borrowers, the process is slightly less severe than a foreclosure on their credit records.
Still, the impact is far less severe than a foreclosure, where borrowers typically find their credit is in tatters for years.
Across Florida and other states with high numbers of foreclosures, severe declines in real estate values are reinvigorating a group of buyers previously priced out: middle-class families with steady jobs, who are often buying a home for the first time.
About 4.4 million households are in severe default, although formal foreclosure proceedings have in many cases not yet begun.
Many of those loans led people quickly into foreclosure and severe economic loss, including many people who already owned their homes free and clear.
Tens of millions of American working families are suffering, with new waves of lay-offs and foreclosures, exacerbated by severe cutbacks to government services.
In the 1930s, following severe mortgage market disruptions, widespread foreclosures, and sinking homeownership rates, the government created the Federal Housing Administration FHA, Fannie Maeae, the Federal Home Loan Banks (FHLBs) and several decades later, Freddie Mac to help promote secure and sustainable homeownership for future generations of Americans.
