MERS, mortgage fraud and foreclosures – two out of three ain’t bad
What I mean by that is that the last two terms most if not all of us are familiar with. It is the first that may raise an eyebrow, but one that is very important to know about.
MERS, mortgage fraud and the foreclosure crisis
The Mortgage Electronic Registration System or MERS, mortgage fraud and the foreclosure crisis are all terms floating around the news these days. They will all be covered in depth in future articles, but for now I want to concentrate on one…MERS.
MERS – what it is, how it came to be and why it is in the news
MERS is a story of Wall Street, mortgage bonds, mortgage recording and money. Lots and lots of money that was being made throughout the real estate boom led by easy money, securitizations, and mortgage products like alt-A loans and sub-prime loans.
In a nutshell, MERS is an electronic database created by many of the largest lenders and servicers that took the place of the age-old and well regarded process of going down to a county recording office to record paperwork. It was discussed recently in a segment on 60 Minutes (may take a second to load or use the refresh button).
Watch the video at The Economic Peephole here