The Treasury Department unveiled sweeping rules this week to help financially troubled homeowners who need to sell but can’t get a price high enough to pay off their mortgages. Homeowners will even get $1,500 to help cover their moving costs.
The plan is designed to help homeowners who don’t have the income or debt levels to qualify for a loan modification under the Obama administration’s $75 billion Making Home Affordable program. The plan establishes timelines, a standard process and documents, and cash incentives for participation.
Read more about short sales...
Melville-based Lend America closed its loan-making operation Tuesday and laid off most of its 600 workers, a day after federal officials revoked its license to make loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration.
FHA-backed loans made up at least 90 percent of the company’s business. After the subprime loan collapse two years ago, the FHA became the primary insurer for nonprime mortgages; if an FHA-backed loan defaults, the government takes the hit.
Read more about the federal probe...
These days catching the Fed chairman telling the truth as opposed to a b(a)ld faced lie is in itself a six sigma event.
Recovery without inflation is another way of articulating the Fed’s quixotic dual mandate. Of course, everyone knows the Fed does not care about inflation, or, it seems, the economy, unless of course Goldman Sachs recently changed its name to Inflation Economy, Inc.
Read more about Ben Bernanke...
Raise your hand if you’ve heard something like this before: A couple looking to save money in tough times refinanced their home — only to discover they’d been taken in by fraud. Now they are fighting foreclosure and the loss of their home.
What you probably haven’t heard before is that they are being foreclosed on by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., a federal agency that generally pushes to keep people in their homes by reworking loans rather than foreclosing them.
Read more about fighting foreclosure...
Thanksgiving eve, Dubai World, Dubai’s state-owned development company, rattled the world by releasing a statement that it seeks a moratorium on its debt and interest payments until May 2010. The credit crisis is not last year’s nightmare – it has merely entered a new phase. We look at the implications for the U.S. dollar.
Read more about Dubai...
The Obama administration is cracking down on mortgage companies that are not doing enough to help customers in danger of foreclosure.
The Treasury Department announced Monday it will be withholding payments from companies that fail to modify troubled mortgages so they are easier for families to pay.
Read more...
A nonprofit group is bringing a mortgage-modification marathon to Charlotte this week that aims to provide speedy help for struggling homeowners.
In the 12th stop on its “Save the Dream” tour, the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America said it expects to draw 50,000 people over five days to a program that brings together borrowers, counselors and lenders. Some loans will be modified on the same day, the group said.
Read more about helping struggling homeowners...
“Arrogant and incapable of learning.” When a teacher uses those words to describe a student, it’s an isolated (if regrettable) situation. But the repercussions are widespread when “arrogant and incapable of learning” fits the Federal Reserve like a glove.
Read more about the Federal Reserve...
The following information may be the most important we have ever published. One of our Intel sources, highly placed in banking circles, tells us that on 1/1/10 all banks that have received TARP funds have been informed by the Federal Reserve that they must further restrict any commercial lending. Loans have to be 75% collateralized, 50% of which has to be in cash, which is a compensating balance.
Deutsche Bank AG and France’s BNP Paribas SA separately sued Bank of America Corp on Wednesday, claiming that the largest U.S. bank breached its obligations on a total of more than $1.7 billion of mortgage-related transactions.
Read more about BofA...
The rapidly increasing number of foreclosures is creating a shortage of attorneys knowledgeable about this legal specialty.
Read more about foreclosure lawyers...
LAST year, a new law was put into place in New York to help protect subprime mortgage borrowers from foreclosure. Now the state is on the verge of extending similar protections to prime borrowers, too.
A bill passed by the State Legislature this month would require, among other things, that lenders give all borrowers 90 days’ warning before starting foreclosure proceedings.
Read more about foreclosure protections...
State housing officials say a new $1.4 million federal grant will help fund free foreclosure counseling assistance for homeowners across Illinois, including those in this region.
The grant is provided through the National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling program, and the funding has been allocated by the Illinois Housing Development Authority (IHDA) Board of Directors.
Read more about foreclosure counseling...
The Rev. Jesse Jackson is calling for a second stimulus for homeowners.
Jackson said taxpayers bailed out banks and now it’s time for banks to help.
Read more about the Rainbow Push Coalition...
It’s been another difficult year for Edna-Jo Hill.
The 2008 Holiday Wishes recipient lost her home to foreclosure. She and her son moved into an apartment in a rough neighborhood. Her hours were cut at work. She struggled to pay bills. She filed for bankruptcy. She battled depression.
But it’s Christmastime again, and with the season has come an early gift for the St. Paul family.
Read more about help for families...
The Obama administration on Monday plans to announce a campaign to pressure mortgage companies to reduce payments for many more troubled homeowners, as evidence mounts that a $75 billion taxpayer-financed effort aimed at stemming foreclosures is foundering.
Read more about loan payments...
Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve mob boss, is running scared. He is deathly afraid an audit of his criminal organization.
Read more about Bernanke...
A subsidiary of bank holding firm Goldman Sachs filed more than 50 lawsuits in Las Vegas courts against individual homeowners during a one-month span this year. Some local observers say the litigation could signal the beginning of a Wall Street backlash against defaulting borrowers.
The financial giant’s subsidiary, MTGLQ Investors, sued 55 borrowers in Clark County District Court as of press time. Some attorneys are calling the high volume of cases filed unusual and say the legal push may be the start of an investor movement to recoup home-loan losses.
Read more about Goldman Sachs...
Suddenly the Federal Reserve is everybody’s punching bag.
Strip the Fed of its bank regulation powers, some in Congress are demanding. Get probing audits of its behind-the-scenes operations, others say.
A lender’s “unconscionable, vexatious and opprobrious” conduct in attempting to foreclose on a Long Island home has prompted a state judge to cancel the mortgage on the property.
IndyMac Bank v. Yano-Horoski, 2005-17926, came before Suffolk County Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey A. Spinner as the result of a state law mandating pre-foreclosure settlement conferences between lenders and borrowers of subprime, or high-cost, home loans.
Read more about this foreclosure case...
