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State sues five big US lenders

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

bostonglobe.com - Dec. 01 (News) -

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Wells Fargo is not your amigo

Sat, 29 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Salon - By Tim Fitzsimons - Oct. 29 (News Analysis) - The banking giant preys on minorities while its executives donate to anti-immigration Republicans

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Gavin Newsom Flees San Francisco

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Aaron Sankin - Jul. 13 (News Report) - It didn't take long after vacating City Hall for former mayor Gavin Newsom to hightail it out of San Francisco. Wife, daughter and newborn son in tow, the lieutenant governor crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and set up camp inside his in-laws' five bedroom, five bath Marin County estate. Both Newsom and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, grew up in Marin, so this move must doubtlessly feel like a homecoming for the couple. Newsom went to Redwood High School in Larkspur and his wife attended the Branson School, only a few short steps from her childhood home in Ross.

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New Suit Challenges $33M State Center Garage - Citybizlist Baltimore

Wed, 02 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

baltimorerealestate.citybizlist.com - Feb. 02 (News) -

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Loan Mod Profiles: Fed Up, Giving Up

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

ProPublica - By Karen Weis - Aug. 24 (News Report) - Wallace Farmer, of Baltimore, Md., recently moved out of his row house after giving up on the government's loan modification program. (Photo by Amanda Lucidon/ProPublica) It all started after Wallace lost his two investment properties. (Photo by Amanda Lucidon /ProPublica) 'It was just like a domino effect,' Wallace says of losing those properties. (Photo by Amanda Lucidon/ProPublica) On working with his loan servicer Chase, Wallace says he couldn't 'get any closure.' (Photo by Amanda Lucidon/ProPublica) 'I couldn't sleep,' he says. 'I didn't know what was going on.' (Photo by Amanda Lucidon/ProPublica) Wallace says Chase even told him 'to miss two payments,' advice that is against the program's guidelines. (Photo by Amanda Lucidon/ProPublica) Finally, Wallace says he said 'to hell with it,' and decided to abandon his home, now worth $110,000 less than what he paid for it. (Photo by Amanda Lucidon/ProPublica) Wallace says he has filed for bankruptcy and plans to live debt-free. Of debt, he says, 'I want to break up. I don't ever want to see her again.' (Photo by Amanda Lucidon/ProPublica) Slideshow: prev next Download the audio.Listen to Wallace Farmer talk about trying to get a loan mod. On a recent Friday morning, Wallace Farmer packed up and moved out of his Baltimore row house. After over a year of confusion and delays, JPMorgan Chase told Farmer that he made too much for a mortgage modification through the government's foreclosure relief program. That made no sense to Farmer -- he'd lost around $500 a month from two rental properties -- but he was done fighting. He recalls finally saying, "To hell with it." Farmer is one of many homeowners who have given up on the government's mortgage modification program, which tries to help struggling homeowners by reducing their monthly payments. They say they're trapped in a bureaucratic nightmare, and even if they are offered a modification, it doesn't help enough. They stop sending checks and instead face foreclosure. "I have been traumatized," says Farmer of his process trying to get help from Chase. "I couldn't get any closure. Nobody would tell me anything. They kept saying, 'It's in the mail. It's in the mail.'" Chase spokeswoman Christine Holevas says they were giving Farmer "assistance and advice about options" when he moved out. Farmer's frustration at the delays and runaround are common among people trying to get help through the government program. More than three-quarters of the homeowners who responded to our questionnaire said they did not trust their servicers to make a good-faith effort to evaluate them for a modification. The Treasury Department has acknowledged that the stress and confusion of the process has caused some homeowners to give up. Based on the accounts of over 350 homeowners, University of Arizona law professor Brent White recently wrote that homeowners who make intentional decisions to stop paying their mortgages often feel "anxiety and hopelessness about their financial futures and anger at their lenders' and the governments' unwillingness to help." When these homeowners take a look at the hard numbers of their finances, many say a modification isn't enough help. The delays can often push homeowners further into debt since homeowners accrue unpaid payments, interest and fees while they are in trial modifications, and nationally, one in five homeowners, like Farmer, are "underwater," meaning they owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. Farmer figured that, since he owes $110,000 more than the market value of his home, he'd essentially be renting for the next 20 years. "I cannot be burdened with that amount of negative equity," he says. Even those who successfully get a permanent modification on average end up owing 50 percent more [PDF] than their home is worth, according to the Government Accountability Office. The government program lowers monthly payments by reducing interest rates, extending the term of a mortgage, and then, if necessary, offering "principal forbearance," which moves up to 30 percent of the amount owed to a balloon payment at the end of a loan. Around a third of permanent modifications in the program have principal forbearance [PDF]. In March, the Treasury Department announced a new program to promote not just postponing principal payments, but actually wiping away some debt for loans with balances more than 15 percent higher than the house's value. Under the program, mortgage servicers are "encouraged" to forgive principal, but not required. After a year of faxing and resubmitting documents, one Florida homeowner finally threw up his hands and faxed his mortgage servicer a picture of his naked backside with a note saying, "Please see below for my updated financial information." The homeowner says he got a modification the very next week. ProPublica's Paul Kiel and Olga Pierce contributed to this story. Have you given up on getting a modification? Please use the comments section below to discuss with other homeowners. And if you haven't already filled out our questionnaire, please tell us your story.

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Schlesinger on the Economy

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0700

WCBS Newsradio 880 - By Jill Schlesinger - Mar. 30 (News Analysis) - Our weekly chat with CBS Moneywatch Editor-at-Large Jill Schlesinger.

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Christina Walsh: Brooklyn Bar Wants to Handcuff Eminent Domain Abuse

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Christina Walsh - Mar. 12 (Special Report) - What would you do if your favorite neighborhood watering hole was being demolished for a rich, greedy developer? Handcuff yourself to the bar, naturally.

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Obsessive Housing Disorder by Steven Malanga, City Journal Spring 2009

Sat, 09 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

City Journal - By Steven Malanga - May. 09 (Investigative Report) - Almost everything that the Times accused the Bush administration of doing has been pursued many times by earlier administrations, both Democratic and Republican—and often with calamitous results.

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Communities Slammed by Surge in Bank-Owned Homes

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Independent - By Mary Kane - Mar. 04 (Special Report) - Banks that received government bailout money are taking heat for spending billions of dollars on bonuses, executive pay, and lavish outings. But there’s another outrage that Washington seems to be missing: The growing number of bank-owned properties in foreclosure scarring neighborhoods across the country.

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Quiet Countrywide Bailout Serves as Warning for Congress

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Independent - By Mary Kane - Feb. 09 (Special Report) - As the Obama administration launches a new bank rescue plan and prepares to overhaul the financial regulatory system, lawmakers will look closely at the lending practices of major banks and mortgage firms. But some think they also should probe the government-chartered Federal Home Loan Banks, which served as lenders of last resort as the credit crunch intensified - propping up the very banks that made the kind of risky mortgages that led to the housing crisis in the first place.

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Freddie, Fannie Force Borrowers to Waive Legal Rights

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Independent - By Mary Kane - Jan. 16 (Special Report) - When the government announced in November that it would use mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to streamline loan modifications for possibly hundreds of thousands of borrowers, officials billed the idea as a fast-track program to fight foreclosures. What no one mentioned is that homeowners would have to sign away their rights to sue, if they wanted to get those loans modified.

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A case study in housing collapse

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

St. Petersburg Times - By Michael Van Sickler - Nov. 30 (Investigative Report) - Thousands of miles from the trading floors of global stock markets, an abandoned house in one of Tampa's poorest neighborhoods is an improbable place to learn about why the world's financial system is collapsing. But if you want to understand how we got into this mess, the stucco house at 4809 N 17th St. isn't a bad place to start.

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At Frontline of Foreclosure Crisis, Counties Go It Alone

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Independent - By Mark Kane - Nov. 25 (Special Report) - Places hit hard by the foreclosure crisis, like Prince William County, are dealing with hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of abandoned and deteriorating properties like the Irongate townhouse — the damage left behind by the subprime mess.

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Credit Rating Exec: "We Sold Our Souls to the Devil"

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Nick Baumann - Oct. 24 (Special Report) - Internal documents show that while rating firms publicly defended their practices, executives privately wondered when the house of cards would fall.

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Shop Till We Drop — or Save?

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Independent - By Mike Lillis - Oct. 18 (Special Report) - For the first time in 17 years, retail sales have dropped for three months straight. Both for households and individuals, the trend might be good news: Many economists and consumer advocates have, for years, encouraged low- and middle-income people to pay down debts and save for stable futures.

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Five Alternative Bailout Plans

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - Sep. 29 (News Analysis) - Many on Capitol Hill--especially Democrats--are buying the general premise of the White House plan but insisting on lipstick-on-a-pig modifications involving CEO compensation, taxpayer protection, and oversight and transparency. But are there other approaches to the problem besides putting the Treasury in charge of a $700 billion fire sale? Yup.

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