In New York City real estate, there are few titles more thankless than guarantor. People who do not make enough to afford their paycheck-devouring rents must find a well-paid relative, a benevolent family friend or perhaps a kidnapped and hypnotized multimillionaire to supply personal financial information and assume responsibility for their entire lease.

Rachel Wagner, Emily Coit and Taylor Jewell, recent college graduates and childhood friends from Portland, Ore., discovered that finding such a guardian angel was almost as difficult as finding an apartment.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp. are among U.S. banks that may face $54 billion to $106 billion in costs as more investors demand that issuers of mortgage-backed securities repurchase faulty loans, according to Paul Miller of FBR Capital Markets.

Miller estimated in September that underwriters of mortgage-backed securities may face losses of $44 billion to $91 billion. The increase reflects that liabilities will rest with issuers of the securities, the analyst wrote today in a note to investors. Miller also said his new estimate reflected banks disclosing more about possible losses.

It’s not every day someone forgives a million-dollar mortgage.

But that’s apparently the latest twist on the sale of the old Bedford Street police station that’s confounded officials for more than three years.

A “satisfaction of mortgage” was signed by Pete Benevides of the Florida company Infinity Mortgage Group. It stipulates “full payment and satisfaction of debt” for its June 4, 2008 sale of the police station to Casper Holdings LLC in Florida, a recording with the city’s Registry of Deeds indicates.

The $1.28 million sales price recorded included a $1 million mortgage the Registry listed.

The foreclosure crisis still divides us into two camps. There are those who believe that foreclosing rapidly on homes subject to defaulted mortgages is vital to clearing the market. Others believe we should do everything we can to keep people in their homes, urging loan modifications to forestall foreclosures.

John Taylor, President and CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, falls solidly in the latter camp. Taylor would like to see widespread mortgage modifications that would allow homeowners in danger of defaulting to keep their homes.

Taylor is on the board of directors of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and the Leadership Conference for Civil Rights. He has also served on the Consumer Advisory Council of the Federal Reserve Bank Board, The Fannie Mae Housing Impact Division as well as The Freddie Mac Housing Advisory Board.

He is extremely passionate on why his idea is the right choice to help turn around the real estate market.

In April, the Obama administration formally rolled out a new program, called Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives, that was designed to spur more short sales, where banks allow homeowners to sell their homes for less than the mortgage debt outstanding.

Like other foreclosure-prevention initiatives, this one appears to be off to a slow start — just 342 sales have been completed through September.

HAFA was designed as a cousin to the Obama administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program, HAMP, whose woes have been well documented. HAFA works like this: Servicers are supposed to consider short sales for borrowers who aren’t able to receive a HAMP modification. Because some 700,000 HAMP applicants have been ejected from that program, there’s a potentially large pool of borrowers who might be evaluated for HAFA.