iMove Chicago- Real Estate Rentals and Sales

Calls for extension to eviction ban

June 24,2021 | By Erickson Ocasio

Deadline is looming With one week to go before the nationwide ban on evictions expires, the White House is acknowledging that the emergency pandemic protection will have to end at some point. The trick is devising the right sort of “off-ramp” to make the transition without massive social upheaval. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday that the separate bans on evictions for renters and mortgage holders were “always intended to be temporary.” Both will expire on June 30 unless extended. But Psaki would not say whether the administration was planning another extension. That decision, she said, lies with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which imposed the bans on the rationale that allowing people to lose their housing during a pandemic was an unacceptable public health risk. ? Psaki said the decision on the moratorium “will be made by the CDC, based on public health conditions.&rdquo

Biden to extend moratorium on evictions and foreclosures

January 21,2021 | By Erickson Ocasio

President Joe Biden plans to extend bans on home evictions and foreclosures imposed last year to mitigate the dual economic and health crises spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of a package of executive orders Biden plans to sign within hours of his Wednesday inauguration, he will ask the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to delay expiration of an order barring landlords from pushing out some tenants for non-payment of rent. The order calls for the moratorium, set to expire at the end of this month, to be extended through at least March 31. In addition, Biden plans to ask the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture and Housing and Urban Development to consider extending foreclosure restrictions and forbearance relief. Biden’s economic team had previously signaled they would seek an extension of the CDC moratorium, adding that it would give tenants certainty that they won’t be cast out of their homes in the

Bank of America provides mortgage relief amid COVID-19 pandemic

December 23,2020 | By Erickson Ocasio

Bank of America has announced that it is allowing customers to defer mortgage payments during the financial crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The move, the bank said, is part of a series of measures aimed at easing the financial burden on its customers. Clients can also request to defer payments on deposit accounts, credit cards, and small business and auto loans. Customers who wish to request loan payment deferments can call the bank’s client services number to discuss their hardships. "Our clients rely on us every day and for every aspect of their financial lives," Dean Athanasia, president of Consumer and Small Business at Bank of America, said in a statement. "We're going to continue to provide convenient access to the important services they count on, and the additional assistance and support they need during this difficult period." The bank also said it has temporarily halted foreclosure

CDC's new eviction moratorium met with worry from U.S. housing providers

September 4,2020 | By Erickson Ocasio

Shortly after revealing its plans for a new nation-wide moratorium on evictions Tuesday, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention found itself in the crosshairs of the country’s housing industry, tenants’ rights advocates, landlords, and even legal scholars. The CDC order bans landlords from removing from their properties tenants who are unable to pay their rent because of COVID-19-related financial hardships until December 31, 2020. The CDC’s ban follows the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s own extended moratorium on evictions and is intended to help keep an estimated 40 million rental households in place at a time when the country’s economic future and ability to restrain the coronavirus pandemic are both in serious question. The CDC order isn’t exactly comprehensive. It applies only to renters making $99,000 or less, and anyone seeking eviction relief is required to both pay as much rent a

Could a new stimulus help Americans stay in their homes?

August 6,2020 | By Erickson Ocasio

For the fourth straight month, nearly one in three Americans missed their housing payments – but the situation could be at least temporarily alleviated through another stimulus package, according to a new study from Apartment List. As eviction bans expire across the country, 32% of homeowners and renters failed to make their full housing payments on time, according to the study. More than 20% owed more than $1,000. “In the first week of August, 11 percent of survey respondents made a partial payment of their monthly rent or mortgage bill, while an additional 22 percent have yet to make any payment whatsoever,” study authors Igor Popov, Chris Salviati and Rob Warnock wrote. “This continues a trend that has now lasted four months; the combined rate of missed and partial first-week payments has ranged from 30 to 33 percent going back to May.” Each month so far, Apartment List found that many misse

Is the U.S. mortgage industry about to fall off a cliff?

July 29,2020 | By Erickson Ocasio

Forbearance programs permitting temporary suspension of Americans’ monthly mortgage payments have been a godsend to the more than 4 million borrowers who have made use of them in the time of COVID-19. But the end of this much needed grace period is looming large. Carol Faber, Partner and Co-Chair of the Distressed Property Practice at Akerman Law, has been through several downturns in her 35-year career. For Faber, it’s important to acknowledge that despite being five months into the COVID-19 crisis, the real estate cycle is still in the early stages of reacting to it. “No one really knows how long this is going to last,” she says. “I find myself repeating constantly that we are still in the early innings of this – even though we are five months in.” So far, Faber explains, neither lenders nor landlords have been able to enforce their rights, which has prevented the kind of dramatic mass-eviction scena