mortgage crisis

A new study out today from the University of North Carolina Center for Community Capital provides more evidence that deregulatory zealots have a lot to answer for when it comes to the mortgage crisis: State anti-predatory laws actually worked, slowing down foreclosures.
But, alas, the state protections were overruled by the Office of the Comptroller of [...]

CompuCredit, an Atlanta subprime lender that specializes in high-rate credit cards, payday loans, auto financing and debt collection, is part of the country’s leading coalition on financial literacy.

Prominent author, commentator and PBS talk show host Tavis Smiley has announced that he’s cutting all business ties to Wells Fargo & Co. The move comes in the wake of a TWI story last week about Wells Fargo “Wealth Building” seminars held in black neighborhoods starting in 2005, headlined by Smiley, which a recent lawsuit [...]

Well, at least one banking executive is personally feeling the pain of the foreclosure crisis: Wells Fargo has fired a top employee who moved into a foreclosed Malibu beach house and threw lavish parties all summer there, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Cheronda Guyton, a senior vice president responsible for commercial foreclosed properties, broke company rules [...]

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 to heat up.

As Congress jousts over the effectiveness of the stimulus package to stir economic activity, it’s worth noting that homeowners — whose troubles are at the root of the economic crisis — continue to struggle. Nearly one-fourth (23 percent) of mortgage-paying homeowners nationwide now owe more on their homes than the property is worth, according to [...]

As Mike Lillis reported yesterday, a small group of Senate Democrats is pushing to revive the mortgage loan cramdown idea — a sure sign of frustration as foreclosures continue to pile up. The Senate in April defeated a cramdown proposal, which  involves allowing federal judges to modify, or cramdown, the terms of a mortgage for [...]

Is the Obama administration planning a major shift in strategy for slowing the foreclosure rate? Reuters reported Tuesday that officials are mulling policies to let delinquent owners rent their homes back. On Monday, Reuters said the administration also was considering letting unemployed borrowers defer, delay or skip mortgage payments so they can stay in their [...]

Via Patrick.net, here’s more about how some banks abandoned their foreclosed properties and left innocent neighbors to deal with the blight. And no, this isn’t just happening in Cleveland. In Petaluma, Calif.,  one neighbor got so fed up fighting with Bank of America– for two years — to clean up the abandoned home next door [...]

Calculated Risk has an excellent roundup today of local efforts to fight vacancies and blight caused by banks that abandon their foreclosed homes. Cities and neighborhoods increasingly are using local ordinance laws to require lenders to register their vacant properties and to keep them from falling into disrepair. California has led with way with anti-blight [...]