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The Cities Blog
Dan Olson

More foreclosure fighting muscle for Minnesota?

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Days turn to weeks, then into months and even years of waiting, as people facing foreclosure try to work with their lenders for some sort of loan modification that will help them stay in their home.

Fannie Mae flew into Gopherland yesterday to say they'll apply their muscle to the process.

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That's Fannie Mae senior vice president for national servicing Jeff Hayward, who says a partnership with the Minnesota Home Ownership Center will improve response times for home owners seeking loan modifications with lenders. The Minnesota Home Ownership Center is the St. Paul-based nonprofit that operates throughout Minnesota offering free advice to folks facing foreclosure. The Center's 63 counselors working out of 20 offices around the state now have direct access to the two Fannie Mae staffers in the center's St. Paul office. It means that when needed, the Fannie Mae staff will run interference for folks with their lenders, which can be a big help if banks fail to return calls, send callers off into Eternal Hold or misplace, even lose loan modification applications. The Fannie Mae help is welcome news for the 30% of the state's mortgage holders whose loans are backed by the lending giant. The same model may become available to many others as part of the agreement with lenders that the 50 state attorney's general are trying to craft as a settlement in the fraudulent document or "robo" signing scandal. But wait. If you feel there's still something missing, you're not alone. It's true that some crooked mortgage brokers, real estate brokers and other scammers have been charged, tried, convicted, fined and sometimes sentenced to hard time for their financial pillaging of peoples' lives as part of the mortgage meltdown in this country. But many haven't. The wheels of justice appear to be stuck for a cast of characters including those at the at the center of the financial debacle.