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25 » VISIT US ONLINE @ DSNEWS.COM DS News digital. Available now. Digital.DSNews.com From the latest industry news and trends to in-depth interviews with leading servicing executives and a growing catalog of previous DS News issues, DS News Digital is now free for a limited time as your ultimate on-the-go resource for everything impacting the mortgage default servicing industry. Join us at the New Orleans Marriott Early Registration begins April 1st Hosted by THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MORTGAGE FIELD SERVICES FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT WWW.NAMFS.ORG 27th ANNUAL CONFERENCE of MORTAGE FIELD SERVICES SEPTEMBER 2-4, 2015 SERVICERS NAME PROPERTY PRESERVATION AS BIGGEST CHALLENGE WITH FHA LOANS Mortgage professionals involved with the servicing of Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgage loans said the biggest chal- lenge they face with those loans is "fulfillment of FHA property preservation and conveyance requirements," according to the February 2015 Mortgage Industry Outlook Report released by e Collingwood Group and e Five Star Institute. irty-nine percent of survey respondents who service FHA loans for their respective companies said fulfilling property preservation requirements was their toughest challenge. Unlike those loans serviced in the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac servicing space, where a property is conveyed to the GSEs immediately after foreclosure, with FHA loans there is often a waiting period between foreclosure and conveying a property to FHA. e in-between period can vary depending on the situation. During that period, the servicer is often responsible for everything from basic prop- erty preservation (such as installing locks or mowing the lawn) to more complicated issues (such as eviction, code-mandated repairs, or complicated HED issues). e additional resources a servicer must dedicate to property preservation when handling FHA loans are potentially costly, in addition to creating more opportunities for non-compliance with the FHA's servicing pro- gram rules. In some markets, according to the survey, an aggressive and diligent surveillance, whichcan be expensive and difficult, is often required to preserve a property for an extended period of time. ere was a three-way tie in the survey for the second-biggest challenge servicers face when handling FHA loans: Loss mitigation program options, compliance with First Legal Action time frames, and compliance with due diligence time frames garnered 17 percent each. Rounding out the list of challenges were pre- foreclosure sale (short sale) program require- ments and the execution of the FHA loss mitigation waterfall with 4 percent each. e Collingwood Group conducted the survey in partnership with e Five Star Institute, the parent company for DS News. A diverse group of mortgage industry leaders was polled, with the largest percentage of those surveyed being lenders or originators (50 per- cent), followed by service providers (13 percent) and consultants/advisors/attorneys (11 percent).

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