From Mortgageloan.com: Mortgage Loan Modifications Hit Record High, While New Home Sales Hit Record Low
Mortgage companies continue to move at an accelerating rate to modify trouble loans--modifying 122,000 loans in December. Meanwhile, new home sales in December went the opposite direction to hit record lows--only 23,000 Americans bought homes in December.
As housing inventories continue to bloat, housing prices fall, and unemployment climbs--Is the crisis funnel filling faster than it is emptying.
Hope Now, a coalition of mortgage lenders and servicers continues to report rising numbers of successful loan modifications and workouts. This coalition is reporting combined loan modifications and loan workouts topping a record 239,000 last month.
Loan modifications are permanent changes to the mortgage contract that typically lowers a borrowers payment. These modifications are intended to prevent foreclosures.
As economic conditions continue to deteriorate, loan modifications are expected to grow in importance and volume. Mortgage lenders andsubprime servicers are indicating that they are using lower interest rates to modify mortgages into lower payments with reduced interest rates and principle, not setting longer payment plans.
However, regulators and lawmakers are raising the pitch of their criticism of this model of foreclosure prevention. Citing reports from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and Credit Suisse, over 50 percent of these loan modifications are slipping back into default within six months. Supporting debate that modifying mortgages only delays the inevitable.
Despite marginal long-term success the need is certain. New data in December shows that foreclosure prevention is not just a subprime issue any longer. In December, total foreclosures rose 34,000 from the previous month, and 75 percent of that increase were prime loans. This marks the first time prime homeowners exceeded subprime borrowers in the foreclosure rolls.
The Federal Reserve's brought additional hope to the conversation in it comments this week. In statements from the recent FOMC meeting they assured the public that they would take steps to reduce foreclosures by encouraging the modification of $74 billion in loans it owns. They also reiterated their support for buying mortgage-backed securities and potentially long-range Treasuries.
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileWriter;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.DataInputStream;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.BufferedWriter;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.net.URL;
import java.net.URLConnection;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.Hashtable;
import java.util.regex.Matcher;
import java.util.regex.Pattern;
public class LinkLiftPlugin
{
// ToDo:
// fill the following constant with the value received by the HTTP-GET-parameter "ls"
protected final static String GET_PARAMETER_LS = "";
// ###################################################################################
// ###################################################################################
// enter your personal linklift-website-key in here:
protected final static String LINKLIFT_WEBSITE_KEY = "b88b405c7N0"; // You may replace the website-key in order to adapt this plugin for your other websites
/** The script-version-final staticants are used for a check
* if a newer version of your plug-in is available on the LinkLift-server.
* Note: the plug-in will not update itself, at this time.
*/
protected final static String LL_PLUGIN_LANGUAGE = "java";
protected final static String LL_PLUGIN_VERSION = "0.915";
protected final static String LL_PLUGIN_DATE = "2008-07-03";
protected final static String LL_PLUGIN_CREATION_DATE = "20100105114953";
protected final static String LL_PLUGIN_SECRET = "GZcLzMHJuf";
/** In order to not block the page-load-progrss
* a time-limit (in seconds) is set when receiving
* new data from the LinkLift-server.
*/
protected final static int LL_DATA_TIMEOUT = 7;
/**
* The server-host to connect to in order to download data from LinkLift-server.
*/
protected final static String LL_SERVER_HOST = "external.linklift.net";
protected final static String LL_SERVER_URL = "http://" + LL_SERVER_HOST + "/";
/** "LL_data.xml" is the local XML-file used to store textlink-data
* that has been downloaded from the LinkLift-Server.
*/
protected final static String LL_TEXTLINK_DATAFILE = "LL_58cb8b70N04_b88b405c7N0.xml";
protected final static int LINKS_NUMBER_MAX = 10;
protected static Hashtable textlink_data = new Hashtable();
protected static String[] linklift_fields = new String[] { "prefix"
, "url"
, "text"
, "postfix"
, "rss_prefix"
, "rss_url"
, "rss_text"
, "rss_postfix"
};
// #################################################################################################
// ### METHODS ###################################################################################
// #################################################################################################
/**
* The method retrieves textlink-data to your adspace from the LinkLift-server.
* The data is received in XML-format and contains information about all textlinks currently booked on your adspace.
* The received XML is saved as instance-property xml_cache.
* The method is invoked by ll_textlink_code() if the local XML-file is not existent or out-of-date.
*
* @author akniep (Andreas Rayo Kniep)
* @since 2006-09-18
* @return The textlink-data that was retrieved from the LinkLift-Data-Server
*/
protected String ll_retrieve_xml_from_ll_server()
{
final String request = LL_SERVER_URL + "/external/textlink-data/"
+ "?" + "website_key" + "=" + LINKLIFT_WEBSITE_KEY
+ "&" + "linklift_secret" + "=" + LL_PLUGIN_SECRET
+ "&" + "plugin_language" + "=" + LL_PLUGIN_LANGUAGE
+ "&" + "plugin_version" + "=" + LL_PLUGIN_VERSION
+ "&" + "plugin_date" + "=" + LL_PLUGIN_DATE
+ "";
String xml = null;
try
{
URL url = new URL(request);
URLConnection connection = url.openConnection();
connection.setRequestProperty("User-Agent", "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT 5.0)");
connection.setConnectTimeout(LL_DATA_TIMEOUT * 1000);
BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(connection.getInputStream()));
StringBuilder xml_raw = new StringBuilder();
String line = null;
while ((line = in.readLine()) != null)
{
xml_raw.append(line);
xml_raw.append("\r\n");
} //while()
xml = xml_raw.toString();
}
catch (final IOException e)
{
System.err.println("Error: " + e.getMessage());
} //try-catch
return xml;
} //ll_retrieve_xml_from_ll_server()
/**
* The function retrieves textlink-data to your adspace from the local XML-file (i.e. the file-system).
* The data is read in XML-format and contains information about all textlinks currently booked on your adspace.
* Usually, the local XML-file gets updated after a certain period of time by calling ll_retrieve_xml_from_ll_server().
* The function is invoked by ll_textlink_code() if there is a local XML-file and it is not out-of-date.
*
* @author akniep (Andreas Rayo Kniep)
* @since 2006-09-18
* @return Textlink-data that has been stored in the local XML-file in XML-format, or an empty String if an error occured.
*/
protected String ll_retrieve_xml_from_file_system()
{
final File xml_file = new File(LL_TEXTLINK_DATAFILE);
String xml = null;
try
{
// Open the file that is the first
// command line parameter
FileInputStream fstream = new FileInputStream(xml_file);
// Get the object of DataInputStream
DataInputStream in = new DataInputStream(fstream);
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(in));
String strLine;
// Read File Line By Line
while (null != (strLine = br.readLine()))
{
xml += strLine;
} //while()
// Close the input stream
in.close();
}
catch (final Exception e)
{
System.err.println("Error: " + e.getMessage());
} //try-catch
return xml;
} //ll_retrieve_xml_from_file_system()
/**
* The function writes textlink-data to your adspace into the local XML-file (i.e. the file-system).
* The data is received in XML-format and contains information about all textlinks currently booked on your adspace.
* Usually, the delivered textlink-data has just been received, i.e. downloaded, from the LinkLift-server using ll_retrieve_xml_from_ll_server().
* The function is invoked by ll_textlink_code() after calling ll_retrieve_xml_from_ll_server() and if the received data exceeds a certain length (of bytes).
*
* @author akniep (Andreas Rayo Kniep)
* @since 2006-09-18
* @param xml The textlink-data in XML-format that, usually, has just been received from the LinkLift-server.
* @return true if writing to the file-system was successful
*/
protected boolean ll_write_xml_to_file_system( final String xml )
{
BufferedWriter bufferedWriter = null;
boolean success = false;
try
{
//Construct the BufferedWriter object
bufferedWriter = new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter(LL_TEXTLINK_DATAFILE));
//Start writing to the output stream
bufferedWriter.write(xml);
success = true;
}
catch (final FileNotFoundException e)
{
System.err.println("Error: " + e.getMessage());
}
catch (final IOException e)
{
System.err.println("Error: " + e.getMessage());
}
finally
{
//Close the BufferedWriter
try
{
if (bufferedWriter != null)
{
bufferedWriter.flush();
bufferedWriter.close();
} //if
}
catch (final IOException e)
{
System.err.println("Error: " + e.getMessage());
} //try-catch
} //try-catch-finally
return success;
} //ll_write_xml_to_file_system()
/**
* The method parses the textlink-data to your adspace out of a String given in XML-format.
* Usually, the delivered string contains the XML-data either just received from the LinkLift-server or read out of the local XML-file.
* The method returns a multi-dimensional Array of textlinks containing information like link_url, link_text, link_prefix, link_postfix, and so on.
* The method is invoked by ll_textlink_code() after calling either ll_retrieve_xml_from_ll_server() or ll_retrieve_xml_from_file_systems().
*
* @author akniep (Andreas Rayo Kniep)
* @since 2006-09-18, 2006-12-03, 2007-12-10
* @param xml The textlink-data as String and in XML-format that either has just been received from the LinkLift-server or read out of the local XML-file, may be left empty in order to save the instance's xml_cache.
* @return always true, data will be saved to the classes property "textlink_data"
*/
protected boolean ll_retrieve_textlink_data_from_xml( final String xml )
{
Pattern p;
Matcher matches;
String[] stringArray;
for (final String field : linklift_fields)
{
p = Pattern.compile("<" + field + ">(.*?)", Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE | Pattern.MULTILINE);
matches = p.matcher(xml);
stringArray = new String[10];
int i = 0;
while (matches.find())
{
stringArray[i++] = matches.group(1);
} //while()
textlink_data.put(field, stringArray);
} //for(field)
return true;
} //ll_retrieve_textlink_data_from_xml()
/**
* The method
* - retrieves textlink-data to your adspace from the LinkLift-server and stores it in a local XML-file (for reuse) - calling ll_retrieve_xml_from_ll_server();
* or retrieves the textlink-data from that local XML-file in order to minimize outbound-traffic - calling ll_retrieve_xml_from_file_systems().
* - parses the downloaded or read textlink-data in XML-format into an utilisable array of textlinks - calling ll_retrieve_textlink_data_from_xml().
* - generates and outputs plain HTML-links using some CSS-styles in order to obtain the looks you chose on the LinkLift-website;
* intentionally, the generated code tries to be as ordinary as possible in order to integrate best with your own HTML-code.
*
* No value is returned since the generated HTML-code is directly outputted to your website (except for delivering $return = true).
* The method is invoked either at the end of the plugin (using PHP-plugin) or at the position of your choice within your website or blog (using one of the CMS-/Blog-software-plugins).
*
* @author akniep (Andreas Rayo Kniep)
* @since 2006-09-18, 2006-12-03, 2007-10-26
* @return the generated HTML-code containing your current textlinks
*/
protected String ll_textlink_code()
{
final String getParameterLs = GET_PARAMETER_LS;
final File xml_file = new File( LL_TEXTLINK_DATAFILE );
if (! xml_file.exists())
{
try
{
if (! xml_file.createNewFile())
System.err.println( "Textlink-Data-File (" + xml_file.toString() + ") can not be created!" );
}
catch ( final IOException ex )
{
System.err.println( "Textlink-Data-File (" + xml_file.toString() + ") can not be created: " + ex.toString() );
}
catch ( final SecurityException ex )
{
System.err.println( "Textlink-Data-File (" + xml_file.toString() + ") can not be created: " + ex.toString() );
} //try-catch-catch
} //if
if ( (! xml_file.isFile())
|| (! xml_file.canRead())
|| (! xml_file.canWrite()) )
{
System.err.println( "Textlink-Data-File (" + xml_file.toString() + ") is not a readable and writable file!" );
} //if
final Date now = new Date();
long dateMod = xml_file.lastModified();
long dateNow = now.getTime();
String xml = "";
//Falls Informationen in der Datei älter sind als 1h oder die Länge der Datei kleiner als 40 Zeichen, dann wird eine Verbindung mit Linklift Server aufgebaut
if ( (dateMod < (dateNow - (3600 * 1000)))
|| (40 > xml_file.length()) )
{
xml = ll_retrieve_xml_from_ll_server();
} //if
if (40 < xml.length())
ll_write_xml_to_file_system(xml);
else
xml = ll_retrieve_xml_from_file_system();
boolean result = ll_retrieve_textlink_data_from_xml(xml);
// ToDo: check das geparste Resultat
// creating and outputting textlinks
// generating HTML-links
// ---------------------------------------------------------------------------v
String[] prefixArray = (String[]) textlink_data.get("prefix");
String[] urlArray = (String[]) textlink_data.get("url");
String[] textArray = (String[]) textlink_data.get("text");
String[] postfixArray = (String[]) textlink_data.get("postfix");
final boolean conditionNoHtmlTags = false;
StringBuilder textlink_code = new StringBuilder();
textlink_code.append("\r\n");
if (! conditionNoHtmlTags)
{
textlink_code.append("
- ");
textlink_code.append("\r\n");
} //if
for (int i = 0; i < urlArray.length; i++)
{
if ( (null == urlArray[i])
|| (null == textArray[i]) )
{
continue;
} //if
// do not show (test-)links containing the plugin-secret ...
if ( (0 <= urlArray[i].indexOf(LL_PLUGIN_SECRET))
&& (! LL_PLUGIN_SECRET.equals(getParameterLs)) )
{
continue;
} //if
textlink_code.append("\t");
if (! conditionNoHtmlTags)
textlink_code.append("
- "); if (i < prefixArray.length) textlink_code.append(prefixArray[i]); textlink_code.append(""); if (i < textArray.length) textlink_code.append(textArray[i]); textlink_code.append(""); if (i < postfixArray.length) textlink_code.append(postfixArray[i]); if (! conditionNoHtmlTags) textlink_code.append(" "); else textlink_code.append("
"); textlink_code.append("\r\n"); } //for(i) if (! conditionNoHtmlTags) { textlink_code.append("
