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…
Only a year ago, hopes were high that a big push by the government to stop foreclosures would be a great success, living up to its billing as “Help for America’s Homeowners.”
Last January started out with a foreclosure moratorium, allowing time for the More…
As bank-owned foreclosed properties pile up across the country, from abandoned houses in hard-hit neighborhoods to empty big box retail stores in failed strip malls, the fight over holding someone responsible for the brick and mortar mess left behind by the mortgage crisis continues More…
People who refuse to make good on their credit card payments or other debts actually have a name — “ruthless defaulters” — and their numbers are likely to grow as more consumers find themselves overwhelmed by bills, according to David Streitfeld’s piece in The New York Times More…
When Congress passed the mortgage rescue bill in July, politicians touted help for homeowners as a big part of the legislation. By Oct. 1, the Federal Housing Admin. was to set up a program that would back, with $300 billion in guarantees, the refinanced loans of homeowners in trouble. More…
With the mortgage crisis dragging on and no quick fix in sight, lots of new ideas to help people stay in their homes are floating around. Maybe one upside to the lack of action on stopping foreclosures is an opening for some innovation — for ways to break through the More…
Incredibly, Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain changed his surprise mortgage plan this week to make it even easier on lenders, Politico noted.
After introducing the idea in Tuesday’s debate, a summary of the proposal on McCain’s Website noted that lenders taking part must recognize the losses they’ve More…
That change in federal law to allow bankruptcy judges to modify mortgages in foreclosure isn’t going to make it into the $700-billion bailout bill, disappointing community and housing groups that pushed for it.
On Friday, Georgetown University credit expert Adam Levitin argued on TWI that the change would be More…
Six thousand American families are due to lose their homes in foreclosure today.
Many more American families are going to be grist for the foreclosure machine unless Congress acts to help them. But, as of today, it appears that any bailout of the financial institutions that are now More…
Remember when the subprime crisis first broke out last fall, and the Bush administration’s first response was to suggest that people read the fine print on their mortgages and take financial literacy courses?
It would not be such a bad idea for Wall Street to do the same now.
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