Aaron M. Davis, President

 Hillsborough Title Company is gearing up for 2012 by expanding their staff and office facilities. The company added eight new employees to the ‘family’ this month! Please join us in welcoming:

Teri Marshall – Processor, Plant City
Jeanne Jacobs – Closer, Brandon
Julie Spinale – Processor/Closer, South Tampa
Michelle Chumbley – Closer, South Tampa
Emily Cook – Entry Processor, South Tampa
Danielle Windham – Processor, New Tampa
Abbie Lewin – Marketing Representative, Tampa Bay Title, St. Pete
Kevin Kirkfield – Network Administrator, Hometown Title Network, Brandon

In other news, Hillsborough Title Company has leased new office space in Carrollwood at 16586 N. Dale Mabry Hwy., North Tampa and will be opening a seventh branch office in Tampa Bay. Due to growth in Eastern Hillsborough County, the Plant City branch has added 1,000 more square feet.

Hometown Title Network, a post-closing production facilty, has also been unveiled. Hometown Title Network, located at 358 E. Bloomingdale Avenue in the Bloomingdale Executive Park, will provide services to title companies, including document storage, scanning services, archiving capabilities, courier services, post closing services and other functions pertinent to ongoing title company operations.

“We are excited about all the changes and new additions we are experiencing at Hillsborough Title,” said Aaron Davis, President. “2011 was a year of growth and expansion for us, and in 2012 we expect to continue on this path in order to offer and provide our clients with the best title services in the state.”

Imagine if you will, a 16 year old boy working in a title company. First off, lets date it- its 1992. The operation side of a title agency is, and has always been, predominantly female. So here I am, and “runner” for the company. My mom Gail is the owner of Hillsborough Title at that time, we only had one office located in Plant City. We have staff of about 12-14 back then. Technology isn’t on the cutting edge in title in those days, so it took more people power to get he job done. Al Gore hasn’t invented the internet just yet, so to get loan packages, checks, recordings to the lenders, to the banks, and to the courthouses, it required use of a courier. That’s me. Runner boy Aaron. The only male in title. Cruising the highways and streets of Tampa Bay….in a 1992 FORD FESTIVA. Man, that may have been the hottest thing on 4 wheels. A semi would almost blow me off the road.

Here is a pic for those who don’t know what a Ford Festiva is….a CHIC MAGNET.

So driving to the banks, real estate offices, lenders, Hillsborough County Courthouse and the Polk County Courthouse, I would see the signs….ALDAY DONALSON TITLE…these guys were everywhere! So looking out for inspiration in the female dominated title world- I found who I wanted to become…Tommy Alday and Ron Donalson, Alday Donalson Title… the “guys” in title, the names on the sign- they were my mentors from afar, and had never once met. Georgia boys, family run business, with shops on every corner. But more so than that, it was “US”, a big mom and pop, local people, local owners, a business that supported its staff, its clients, and its employees. In a world full of “corporates”, Alday Donalson Title is who I modeled much of my company after.

Today, Hillsborough Title carries forward that rich tradition of a family run title agency, bringing together the beliefs and values, personal touch, and access to ownership of an Alday-Donalson Title. We’ve combined the rich tradition of top notch service with the technology, spirit and vision that has made Hillsborough Title the leader in the title insurance industry today.

Faith, Family, Friends…and Hillsborough Title a pretty close 4th… that’s the order in which we live our lives here at Hillsborough Title.

We appreciate each and every one of you who have helped us along the way, and who have made us who we are today. That’s reminded to us in the mission statement of Hillsborough Title:

Our goal is to provide the highest level of service and professionalism to our customers and clients. We wish to achieve long lasting relationships through our customers and EARN your business everyday.

There’s been much debate over the root causes of the housing meltdown that catapulted the nation into the worst financial crisis in 80 years – from lax lending and subprime loans to over-leveraging in the secondary market.

A new report from researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York focuses on the sharp run-up and subsequent collapse in housing prices during the 2000s.

It concludes that real estate investors who used mortgage credit to purchase multiple residential properties with the intent of flipping, or reselling them within a short period of time, played a larger role in fueling the housing bubble than previously recognized.

These investors, the Fed researchers say, helped push prices up during 2004-2006, but when prices began to head south, they defaulted in large numbers, which served to intensify the housing cycle’s downward leg.

Fed officials point out in their report that investors are more likely than owner-occupants to walk away from an underwater property. As such, lenders typically factor in that higher default risk by requiring larger down payments from buyers who acknowledge that they won’t be living in the house.

The expansion of the nonprime mortgage market during the 2000s, however, provided the perfect opportunity for optimistic investors to get low-down-payment credit, according to the report. “Buy-and-flip” investors, in particular, were able to make higher bids on houses, even if they had relatively little cash.
At the peak of the boom in 2006, the New York Fed’s researchers found that over a third of all U.S. home purchase lending was made to people who already owned at least one house.

In the four states with the most pronounced boom-and-bust cycles – Arizona, California, Florida, and Nevada – the investor share was as high as 45 percent.

Overall, the investor share of mortgage-financed home purchases roughly doubled between 2000 and 2006, with the largest increases seen among those owning three or more properties, according to Fed data.

In 2006, Arizona, California, Florida, and Nevada investors owning three or more properties were responsible for nearly 20 percent of originations, almost triple their share in 2000, Fed officials report.

“Longstanding tradition in the mortgage lending business and the predictions of economic models hold that investors will quickly default if prices begin a persistent fall. This is what happened starting in 2006,” according to the Fed researchers.

From 2007 to 2009, they found that investors were responsible for more than a quarter of seriously delinquent mortgage balances nationwide, and more than a third in Arizona, California, Florida, and Nevada.

“We conclude that investors were much more important in the housing boom and bust during the 2000s than previously thought,” the researchers wrote in a blog post explaining their findings.

They stress that the availability of low- and no-down-payment mortgages in the nonprime sector enabled investors to make highly leveraged bets on house prices, which likely allowed the bubble to inflate further and caused millions of owner-occupants to pay more for their homes.

“In the end, even the value of the 20 percent down-payments made by responsible, prime borrowers was wiped out — leaving the housing market, and the economy, in the vulnerable state we find them in today,” according to the researchers at the New York Federal Reserve.

FROM DSNEWS.COM

NEW YORK — If the U.S. economy does not suffer more setbacks, the rate of mortgage holders behind on their payments should decline significantly by the end of next year, according to credit reporting agency TransUnion.

Mortgage delinquency rates — the ratio of borrowers 60 or more days behind on their payments — will likely tick up to about 6 percent through the first three months of 2012, TransUnion said in its annual delinquency forecast issued Wednesday.

But by the end of next year, it could drop to 5 percent, TransUnion said. That’s well off the peak of 6.89 percent seen in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Chicago-based TransUnion’s forecast takes into consideration several factors, including expectations that consumer confidence and the economy will improve next year.

Also, banks are expected to get a good portion of pending foreclosures off their books next year, said Charlie Wise, TransUnion director of research and consulting.

Slowed by Foreclosures

Banks are still working through a backlog of foreclosures created by issues including the robo-signing scandal, in which bank officials signed mortgage documents without verifying the information they contained. The issue surfaced last year in areas with large numbers of foreclosures, and banks had to backtrack and review foreclosures across the country to make sure their paperwork was in order.

That slowed down the process, Wise said, and left mortgages listed as delinquent for longer than they otherwise might have been, temporarily boosting delinquency rates.

Economic uncertainty has also contributed. In the third quarter of 2011, mortgage delinquencies saw their first uptick in six quarters, largely fueled by concerns over the economy as lawmakers were debating the U.S. debt ceiling and Europe’s debt crisis was unfolding.

Helping to cut the mortgage delinquency rate are a slowly improving job market and a stabilizing housing market.

While the drop will be significant, the rate will remain well above the pre-recession average of 1.5 to 2 percent.

“We have a long way to go to get back,” said Steven Chaouki, a TransUnion vice president.

The situation with credit cards is much stronger. Card delinquencies — payments late by 90 days or more — dropped to their lowest levels in 17 years during the spring, then saw a slight increase in the third quarter, but still remained near historic lows.

TransUnion expects further edging up in the current quarter and the first three months of 2012, but then late payments on bank-issued cards should fall again.

Credit Still Tight

One reason card delinquencies are expected to remain so low is that credit is much tighter than it was before the recession. TransUnion data showed that nearly a quarter million new card accounts were opened by people with less-than-stellar credit scores during the third quarter, which contributed to the slight increase in late payments during the summer months. But banks are mainly still going after consumers with top-tier credit histories.

“Lenders are willing to lend, but are still pursuing the best customers,” said Chaouki.

TransUnion predicts by the end of 2012, just 0.69 percent of cards will be considered delinquent, down from a predicted 0.74 percent in the current quarter. The rate has wobbled in the last few years, peaking at 1.36 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007, then dropping and bouncing back up to 1.32 percent in the first quarter of 2009.

The figures reflect a shift in which debt payments consumers consider most important, largely because home prices fell so far.

Chaouki said the conventional wisdom before the Great Recession was that homeowners would put their mortgages first because of concern about their reputation and the emotional attachment involved in owning a home. But what has become clear as housing prices have continued to fall, he said, is that bill payment is far more practical.

“People were protecting their home equity,” he said. Credit cards were relatively easy to come by in years past, he said, so when money got tight, it was an easy decision to default on cards and maintain house payments. Now it’s common to owe more on a mortgage than a house is actually worth, but credit cards are harder to get. So consumers are being practical and protecting what is more valuable to them.

He said he expects the equation will shift again if housing prices rebound and people go back to building home equity.

This article was from AOL REAL ESTATE

There were 6,298,000 mortgages going unpaid in the United States as of the end of October, according to Lender Processing Services (LPS).

It’s a daunting number, but the data show that it’s actually been on a fairly steady decline for nearly two years now.
At the start of 2011, the total number of non-current mortgages in the U.S. stood at 6,870,000. In January 2010, it was 8,118,000.

LPS’ more recent reports show the industry is slowly but surely chipping away at the number each and every month – the result of both loss mitigation workouts and removing loans that cannot be resolved from the inventory through foreclosure.

At September month-end, the tally of non-current mortgages was 6,373,000. It was 6,397,000 at the end of August and 6,538,000 at the end of July.

LPS’ data indicates mortgage delinquencies are declining while the nation’s foreclosure inventory is growing.
Of the 6,298,000 loans past due at the end of October, 2,329,000 were behind on their payments by 30-89 days and 1,759,000 were 90 or more days delinquent but not yet referred to foreclosure.

Combined, these tallies represent 7.93 percent of the nation’s outstanding mortgages that are delinquent but not in foreclosure. The October delinquency rate is down 2.0 percent from the previous month and is 14.6 percent lower than the rate recorded in October 2010.

The foreclosure inventory rate, on the other hand, is up by both measures. LPS says 4.29 percent of the nation’s mortgages are winding their way through the foreclosure process, a month-over-month increase of 2.5 percent and a year-over-year increase of 9.4 percent.

By LPS’ calculations, there were 2,210,000 residential mortgage loans in foreclosure at October month-end.
States with highest percentage of non-current loans – which combines foreclosures and delinquencies – include: Florida, Mississippi, Nevada, New Jersey, and Illinois.

Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Alaska, and North Dakota have the lowest percentage of non-current loans.

This article is from DSnews.com.