Foreclosure delays in New York lead housing agency to charge adverse-market fee

A foreclosed home
A foreclosed home

The long foreclosure delays in the tristate area have led the Federal Housing Finance Agency to keep in place an adverse-market fee that was instituted nationwide in 2008 but removed in other states last month.

The fee is applicable to all mortgages bought by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and is equal to 0.25 percent of the mortgage loan amount. The decision not to remove the fee in the tristate area – and in Florida – is a recognition by the housing agency that long foreclosure timelines have an impact on costs, according to CoreLogic’s chief economist Mark Fleming.

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“If it takes two years to get through a foreclosure, time is money,” Fleming told the New York Times.

Indeed, a housing agency study from 2013 seen by the Times shows that it took, on average, 820 days to complete a foreclosure in New York, 750 days in New Jersey, and 690 days in Connecticut. The national average was 405 days. [NYT]  – Hiten Samtani