housing crisis

Stung by losses in states that either refused to authorize their high-rate, short-term loans or moved to limit finance charges, the industry isn’t ready to give up.

This should get interesting: some Republicans are calling for further investigations into the Countrywide VIP mortgage scandal, The Wall Street Journal reports. As you might recall, a Senate Ethics Committee probe last month cleared Sens. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.)., and Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) regarding discounts on mortgages they received from the once high-flying subprime lender. The [...]

The watering down of the proposal for a new consumer financial protection agency continues, with the latest victim the end of vanilla option. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner announced at a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee this week that the option was being dropped. Via Felix Salmon, Mike Konczal at Rortybomb explains why this [...]

Now that commentator and PBS talk show host Tavis Smiley has severed his ties to Wells Fargo & Co., what about the bank itself? As Smiley noted in his decision to cut business ties with Wells, the bank is facing several lawsuits charging that it engaged in illegal discriminatory lending practices by allegedly selling high-cost [...]

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Thursday put his weight behind the congressional push to extend by six months the $8,000 tax credit to first-time homebuyers.  The current credit, passed as part of the $787 billion economic stimulus bill, expires Dec. 1.
Sens. John Ensign (R-Nev.) and Ben Cardin (D-Md.) have also signed on to [...]

Ever wonder why loan modifications haven’t become the silver bullet that would solve the foreclosure crisis? Via Patrick.net, USA Today explains in simple terms a phenomenon TWI also has noted, when it comes to loan mods: Borrowers who can’t afford their mortgages and go looking for relief wind up with higher — not lower — [...]

Just when you thought it was a tough time to be a banker comes this heartwarming tale of a bank executive effectively squatting in a $12 million Malibu foreclosure. From The Associated Press:
A Wells Fargo executive who oversees foreclosed properties hosted parties and spent long summer weekends in a $12 million Malibu beach house, moving [...]

Here’s a fascinating exchange between Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Financial Services subpanel on housing, and Mary Coffin, executive vice president of Wells Fargo’s mortgage servicing division, during yesterday’s hearing to examine how effectively the administration’s voluntary mortgage modification program is preventing foreclosures. (Not very, it turns out.) The [...]

The White House program designed to prevent foreclosures by paying banks to alter loans voluntarily isn’t doing nearly enough to keep struggling borrowers in their homes, several powerful Democrats charged Wednesday.

Earlier today, the Treasury Department revealed that the administration’s anti-foreclosure program — which encourages banks to alter mortgages voluntarily — has enrolled roughly 360,000 struggling homeowners in trial modifications.
Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) is hardly impressed.
The upper-chamber’s second-ranking Democrat issued a statement just hours later pointing out that almost precisely the same number of [...]