To much fanfare, the Obama administration a year ago launched a $75 billion program designed to prevent foreclosures by providing financial incentives to lenders and servicers who modified mortgages to keep them affordable. The program, the White House said, would reach between 3 and 4 million struggling homeowners. More…
A few weeks back, it was the House Oversight Committee’s domestic subpanel that examined the effectiveness of the White House programs designed to curb foreclosures. (They weren’t pleased.) Now, the full committee will have a crack.
Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Oversight panel, just announced a More…
Less then a month after the announcement that the federal government was going to start an incentive program to encourage buyers and banks to sell houses at depressed values without foreclosures, David Streitfeld of The New York Times has the details — and they’re a little More…
The media might be turning their attention to the looming crisis in commercial real estate, but some on Capitol Hill still doubt that the White House is doing enough to curtail residential foreclosures.
With that in mind, the House Oversight Committee’s Domestic Policy subpanel will hold a hearing More…
An ambitious plan to update the Carter-era Community Reinvestment Act that supporters hope to see signed into law in 2010 comes amid charges that this legislation was responsible for nothing less than the subprime crisis and the resulting collapse of the residential real estate market.
The plan, sponsored by More…
Just in time for your holiday listening pleasure, here are two songs making their way around the blogosphere to celebrate the season and mark another year of falling home prices and an expanding commercial real estate bust.
First, via Mortgage Insider, here’s “The Twelve Months of Default,” which More…
Today’s loophole alert regarding financial reform comes from The Wall Street Journal, which points out that USAA, an insurer that serves military families, quietly won an exemption from tougher provisions proposed as part of a massive regulatory overhaul bill. And that’s not to mention General Electric Co. and Pitney More…
It looks like the problem of banks walking away from distressed properties is finally getting some serious attention. Federal Reserve Board Governor Elizabeth Duke tackled the subject in a recent speech, Housing Wire reports. She detailed a disturbing trend TWI has been following since January 2008: More…
With a sprawling, multi-million dollar mansion in Sandy Springs, Ga., sitting empty for two years, some enterprising folks nearby had an idea: Fill it with a big party.
According to USA Today, the Halloween bash at the six-bedroom mansion was a huge success, drawing 1,000 people. It ended only when More…
Mortgage giant Fannie Mae’s recent announcement that it will give homeowners facing foreclosure the chance to stay in their properties as renters for as long as a year is the latest aggressive move by the government to help troubled borrowers and tenants avoid being evicted. But as More…
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