Foreclosure mediation is proving to be a fruitful field for research. As part of the comprehensive evaluation I’m conducting of six foreclosure mediation programs in Illinois, I interviewed those involved in administering those programs. One of those administrators, who also is one of two mediators for a program in central Illinois, said he was seeing a difference in outcomes for cases based on the loan’s investor. Investor restrictions often dictate the outcomes that are available to homeowners facing foreclosure. Government-sponsored enterprises (GSE’s), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, have different restrictions than federal agencies, like FHA and VA. For example, FHA’s loss mitigation policies say that homeowners can’t be offered a loan modification if they had obtained one in the previous two years. The administrator believed those differences in outcomes was caused by the differences in regulations. (more…)
Author Archive
Does It Matter If Your Home Loan Is Owned by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac? RSI Is Set to Find Out
Jennifer Shack, March 26th, 2015What Happens to Temporary Loan Modifications Reached in Foreclosure Mediation?
Jennifer Shack, January 26th, 2015A lot of the cases that go through RSI’s foreclosure mediation programs end with a temporary loan modification – a trial payment plan in which the homeowner pays a new mortgage amount for a few months. If the homeowner makes the payments on time and in full during the trial period, the homeowner and bank agree to make the modification permanent. This means that a temporary loan modification doesn’t necessarily mean that the homeowner has averted foreclosure. Because of this, I was interested to find out if homeowners in our programs were able to convert their temporary loan modification into a permanent one. Now that a significant number of temporary payment periods have come to an end, I have finally been able to delve into that question. (more…)
Foreclosure Mediation Programs Helping to Retain More Homes
Jennifer Shack, October 24th, 2014I’ve just completed the quarterly statistical report for foreclosure mediation programs in Illinois in the 16th, 17th, 19th, 20th and 21st Judicial Circuits. If you’re a regular reader of the blog, you might remember that I wrote about the first statistical report back in August. The latest report, which covers all cases opened through September 30, shows that the programs in the 16th, 19th, and 21st circuits now have significantly higher home retention rates than at the end of June. (more…)
How to Mediate High-Conflict Cases: Balance and Control
Jennifer Shack, October 3rd, 2014Like a lot of ADR researchers, I’m always interested to know what really happens in the black box that is the mediation session. So, when someone pries the box open to look inside, my eyes light up. Researchers have begun using conversation analysis to uncover what happens in mediation that leads to successful outcomes. (Mary Novak wrote about another example of this fascinating research method before in this blog.) The latest contribution to this research comes from Norway, with a study of 154 custody mediations.
The study by Peder Kjøs, Odd Arne Tjersland and Katrina Roen, described in “The Mediation Window: Regulation of Argumentation and Affect in Custody Mediation,” (Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, Vol 55, Issue 7, pp 527-538), focused on the 38 cases that were considered to be high-conflict. In those cases, successful mediators were found to control the course of the conversation and effectively move it between emotional content and factual content. This contrasts with the actions of the mediators in the unsuccessful mediations. Those mediators tended to steer away from emotional issues and focus more on factual ones. (more…)
