New Yorkers struggling through the foreclosure process will experience even more difficulty modifying their loans after Ally Financial’s Residential Capital filed for bankruptcy last Monday, the New York Post reported. Declaring Chapter 11 bankruptcy put an automatic freeze on the government-backed lender’s loan negotiations with consumers. Of ResCap’s 2.4 million consumer mortgages, 120,000 are in New York and those attempting to alter their loans now must do so in court. [more]

The vacant lot at 75 Schermerhorn Street (credit: PropertyShark.com)

A 17,227-square-foot development site at 75 Schermerhorn Street in Downtown Brooklyn is slated to hit the foreclosure auction block May 24, according to data from PropertyShark.com, after its owner and developer PLC Partners defaulted on its mortgage on the property. The outstanding lien on the site is $25.81 million, approximately $3 million more than the amount PLC paid for the parking lot site in 2007. [more]

CoreLogic 90-plus day delinquency rates

While the national foreclosure inventory decreased year-over-year last month, New York and New Jersey were a couple of the states that saw an increase, putting them among the five states with the highest foreclosure rates, according to data released today by CoreLogic. Florida ranked first with a 12.1 percent foreclosure inventory rate, New Jersey came in second with 6.6 percent while New York came in fifth with 4.9 percent. [more]

Original rendering for 15 Renwick Street

A 4,523-square-foot development site at 15 Renwick Street in Soho, approved for a 65,000-square-foot, 12-story luxury building with 44 condominium units, is set to hit the foreclosure auction block May 23, according to data from PropertyShark.com, but the current owner of the property, Harry Jeremias of the Harch Group, will not be left out in the cold.

Having faced a foreclosure lawsuit in 2010 from U.S. Bancorp for allegedly defaulting on a $55.3 million loan to develop a condominium on the site, embattled Harch Group founder Jeremias reached out to diversified real estate investment firm Glacier Global Partners in 2011 to become an equity partner in order to reposition the debt. [more]

Brooklyn, N.Y. from above

Brooklyn holds the dubious honor of being the county in the U.S. where completing a foreclosure takes the longest, Bloomberg News reported. It took an average of 1,187 days to repossess a home in Brooklyn during the last three months of 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. There were a total of 32 foreclosures in the last quarter of 2011, although upwards of 27,000 homes had loans in delinquency, data from the New York Department of Financial Services show. [more]

Willow Tufano (credit: NPR) and 21440 Holdern Avenue (which has since been painted)

From the South Florida website: A 14-year-old Florida girl is earning $700 per month renting out the Port Charlotte home she bought for $12,000 last year, NPR reported.

After the housing collapse, Willow Tufano’s real estate agent mother began working with foreclosures. She found that investors purchased homes and had no need for the existing furniture, so she asked if she could sell it on Craigslist. After months of earning an average of $500 in profit, Tufano had saved up $6,000. [more]

Lenders have become more willing to keep defaulted homeowners in their own homes, the New York Times reported, marking a contrast from six years ago when the housing bubble burst and defaulted owners were often forced to leave their homes just months after defaulting.

Sometimes, lenders are willing to strike deals with homeowners, the paper said. For example, sometimes, if the owners pay for utilities while the lenders pay home insurance, then the owners can remain in their homes. Some lenders plainly put off foreclosure sale dates. [more]

Peter Buffett and his One Madison Park unit

The much-beleaguered building at One Madison Park may be set to make a comeback once bankruptcy issues are resolved and a new owner takes the reins, but some of the buyers at the condominium at 23 East 22nd Street aren’t willing to wait out the property’s troubles.

Musician and composer Peter Buffett, the second son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, has listed his three-bedroom, three-bathroom unit at One Madison for sale, Curbed reported; he is asking $4.1 million for the apartment, for which he paid $3.56 million in 2009. [more]

Fannie Mae has begun the first phase of an initiative to fix the U.S. housing market wherein it will sell foreclosed properties to investors, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency released the details of the program today, including that investors will have to buy the properties in bulk and be required to rent them out, the Journal said. [more]

From left: O.J. Simpson and 9450 SW 112th Street

From the South Florida website: JPMorgan Chase filed to foreclose on imprisoned former NFL star O.J. Simpson’s suburban Miami home, according to Miami-Dade Circuit Court records cited by the Associated Press. The foreclosure was filed in September, and Simpson’s attorney has since filed a motion to dismiss the case.

Simpson bought the house in 2000 for $575,000, located at 9450 SW 112th Street in Kendall, a suburban Miami neighborhood, but was financially destroyed by court orders related to his murder acquittal, the AP said. A judge ordered him to pay $33.5 million for the wrongful death of Ronald Goldman, who he was charged of killing along with his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson. [more]