Having punished the five largest mortgage servicers for their foreclosure practices to the tune of a $25 billion settlement, federal regulators are now setting their sights on the next tier of financial firms whose methods are increasingly coming under fire.
According to the New York Times, the Federal Reserve has recommended fines for eight more firms: HSBC’s U.S. division, SunTrust Bank, MetLife, U.S. Bancorp, PNC Financial Services, EverBank, OneWest and Goldman Sachs. [more]
A rendering of 3210 Riverdale Avenue
HSBC Capital will face off with developer Michael Waldman this morning, after he filed a $40 million lawsuit to block the sale of a defaulted mezzanine loan at his Bronx condominium project.
Waldman, a boutique developer behind Harlem’s Walden, alleges that HSBC cut off funding for his project at 3210 Riverdale Avenue in the Bronx, and that he has spent more than $7 million of his own funds to nearly complete the property. [more]
MetLife is actively lending, providing a $350 million, five-year, fixed-rate mortgage for a joint venture between affiliates of Edge Fund Advisors and HSBC Alternative Investment at the Bertelsmann Building at 1540 Broadway through its real estate investments department among other investments, the company announced today.
“We are pleased to be providing financing for such a high quality asset as 1540 Broadway,” said Robert Merck, senior managing director and head of real estate investments for MetLife. “We originate, underwrite and manage each investment with a long-term view, and we are well positioned to identify and complete attractive financing opportunities in top-tier markets such as New York.” — Katherine Clarke [more]
New York judges are beginning to take a stricter interpretation of the “good faith effort” banks are required to make under a 2009 state law passed to offer support to distressed homeowners, according to the New York Daily News.
The law states that banks must try to negotiate with distressed homeowners so that they can modify the loans and keep their property. But those homeowners are increasingly complaining that they can’t get modifications. Since November, 2009 judges have found at least seven cases where banks, including Wells Fargo, HSBC, Bank of America and Deutsche Bank, failed to act in good faith, and in one case the judge ordered the mortgage debt wiped out (although that was later reversed by an appeals court). [more]
The Landmarks Preservation Commission has voted unanimously in favor of the designation of a prominent Beaux-Arts bank building at the base of the Manhattan Bridge, the government agency announced yesterday. The domed building, at 58 Bowery at the corner of Canal Street in Chinatown, opened its doors for the first time in 1924 and at one time housed the Citizens Savings Bank. “The design and materials were meant to convey the bank’s financial stability and assure the public that their deposits were safe,” said Commission Chairman Robert Tierney.
The bank was designed by architect Clarence Brazer and is currently home to an HSBC branch. – Katherine Clarke
A Brooklyn Supreme Court judge has ordered the head of HSBC North America, Irene Dorner, to appear in court July 15 and explain why the America’s ninth-largest bank should not be penalized for submitting false documents in a foreclosure case, the New York Daily News reported.
In a decision issued Friday, Justice Arthur Schack dismissed the bank’s case against Bedford-Stuyvesant resident Ellen Tahrer as a “frivolous motion” and a “waste of judicial resources,” after it failed to prove that it even owned the $475,000 mortgage on the defendant’s home. Documents submitted were all signed by “robo-signers,” Schack said, and were “replete with false statements.”
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From the March issue: Tourism is back, and lenders are eyeing hotels more favorably as a result. In 2010, a record 48.7 million visitors traveled to New York City. These visitors spent approximately $31 billion during their visits to the Big Apple, according to estimates by NYC & Company, the city’s official marketing and tourism organization. To catch some of those tourist dollars, more than 36 hotels opened in New York last year. In addition, there are at least 26 new hotels in line for construction. Concurrently, financing for the hospitality asset class — which was in the doghouse with lenders just a few years ago, ranking as their least favored sector — has improved for both hotel owners and developers. [more]
U.S. foreclosure activity dropped to its lowest level in nearly two years in November, as the country’s biggest lenders put the breaks on their proceedings amid allegations that they’d been taking over properties without properly verifying the paperwork, according to a report from RealtyTrac released today.
The country’s 262,399 foreclosure filings represent a 21 percent month-over-month and a 14 percent year-over-year decline — the largest in almost six years by both measures.
In New York City, there were 863 foreclosure filings last month, down a dramatic 41 percent from the 1,466 filings recorded in October and 56 percent from the 1,949 filings in November 2009. Comments
HSBC is restarting foreclosures in New York State after a nearly two-month reprieve, according to the Post. The bank, along with peers like Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, had halted foreclosure proceedings Oct. 20, after the so-called “robo-signing” scandal surfaced, revealing widespread errors in foreclosure documentation. HSBC is the first major bank — it owns around one-tenth of New York mortgages — to restart proceedings since then (BofA has announced that it will resume foreclosures for vacant non-owner-occupied properties next month). [more]
According to the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate, the United States is still the most attractive country to invest in for real estate. The top three cities, as rated by AFIRE, are Washington D.C, New York City and San Francisco. Based upon investment sales this year, it looks like Israeli investors who have invested in the Bi [more]
