Hedge funds are buying up loans, foreclosed properties

Jul. 31, 2008 12:00 AM
Associated Press

Guess who holds your mortgage now? It's your friendly neighborhood hedge fund.

Dozens of hedge funds, private equity groups and other investors have plunged into the beaten-down mortgage market in recent months, buying tens of thousands of distressed loans and foreclosed properties.

They hope to profit from the woes of banks and other investors holding mortgages that have plummeted in value as home values sink and defaults soar.

They are buying them from Wall Street investment banks eager to rid themselves of bad assets. Merrill Lynch & Co., for example, said this week it would sell mortgage-linked investments once valued at $30.6 billion for just $6.7 billion to Lone Star Funds, a distressed-debt investor in Dallas.

Many of the hedge funds, run by former Wall Street and lending industry executives, claim they can do a better job than banks or other investors of modifying mortgages at terms that consumers can afford.

However, the hedge funds acknowledge that the loans they purchase are often in such trouble that as many as two-thirds to one-half can't be salvaged. In that case, the fund obtains the property through foreclosure and tries to sell it off, or allows the borrower turn over the house keys in return for forgiving the outstanding mortgage balance.

Evan Gentry, chief executive of G8 Capital, says that for some borrowers the best move is to "simply do a deed in lieu of foreclosure and simply start over," adding that many borrowers "feel a great relief when we tell them it's OK" to do so.

So far, housing advocates say they haven't yet seen the impact of such hedge funds among the borrowers they counsel. But they hope these new investors will be more amenable to borrowers interests' than the current mortgage holders, which have been widely criticized for being sluggish to modify loans amid an unprecedented volume of defaulting loans.

Still, there are some worries that desperate borrowers unwittingly may be giving up protections, such as the right to sue the original lender, when they agree to a modification.

"Borrowers are not represented by an attorney or anybody who can advise them about the legal effects of what they're signing," said Kurt Eggert, a professor at Chapman University's law school.