foreclosures

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Obama: We've Got to Stop Foreclosures

President-elect also backs aid for auto industry, but not a 'blank check'

(Newser) - Saving people's homes from bank foreclosures will be a priority of his economic crisis plan, President-elect Obama said in an interview airing tonight on 60 Minutes. "We've got to set up a negotiation between banks and borrowers so that people can stay in their homes. That is going to...

FDIC Pushes Plan to Ease Mortgage Payments

Bush camp opposes using bailout funds

(Newser) - Officials at the FDIC are butting heads with the Bush administration over the bailout once again, yesterday outlining a plan to prevent 1.5 million foreclosures in the coming year by having banks sharply reduce monthly payments on mortgages, the Washington Post reports. The government would guarantee half the losses...

City of Detroit Seeks $10B Bailout

Council votes to seek funds to create jobs, stop foreclosures

(Newser) - Detroit's city council is calling for the federal government to bail out the city to the tune of $10 billion, reports the Detroit News. The funds would be used to create jobs, improve mass transit, and tackle the city's foreclosure crisis. Council members are also seeking meetings with federal officials,...

Fannie, Freddie to Offer Mass Loan Modifications

Housing giants aim to reduce foreclosures

(Newser) - Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will roll out a plan today to modify hundreds of thousands of loans in an effort to prevent foreclosures, the Wall Street Journal reports. The mortgage giants, under federal conservatorship, aim to reduce mortgage payments to no more than 38% of household income. Private banks...

$30M Mansion Sinks Hearst Heiress
$30M Mansion
Sinks Hearst 
Heiress 
GLOSSIES
Nov 10, 2008 5:37 PM CST

$30M Mansion Sinks Hearst Heiress

Spendthift widow overspent on lavish home, lifestyle

(Newser) - Even America's wealthy can live beyond their means, and Veronica Hearst—widow of Randy, the son of newspaper mogul William Randolph—outspent her fortune by millions, Vicky Ward writes in Vanity Fair. Her undoing was the July 2000 purchase of a $30 million mansion in Florida once owned by the...

Feds Near $50B Plan to Guarantee 3M Mortgages

Treasury, FDIC working on measure to help avoid more foreclosures

(Newser) - The Treasury Department and the FDIC are working on a plan to guarantee the mortgages of 3 million struggling homeowners, the Washington Post reports. Under the plan, lenders would reduce monthly payments so owners could avoid foreclosure. If the homeowners defaulted anyway on the reconfigured loan, the government would repay...

How One Woman's Home, and Dream, Foreclosed

One woman's story helps us understand today's financial mess

(Newser) - When a California woman bought a home 3 years ago, she had little idea that her mortgage would help drag down the nation's economy—and the world's, the Sacramento Bee reports. Erin O'Hagan and two family members pooled incomes to buy a $475,000 Sacramento home, and planned to refinance...

Feds Warming to $40B Homeowner Bailout

Plan would give banks an incentive to rework troubled mortgages

(Newser) - Homeowners struggling to pay their mortgages would get help from the federal government under a $40 billion plan FDIC Chair Sheila Bair is expected to unveil today, reports the Wall Street Journal. Bair’s initiative, which would offer banks financial incentives to rework troubled mortgages into more affordable ones, is...

Clinton Housing Chief Paved the Way for Risky Loans

How American Dream Became Economic Nightmare

(Newser) - The top housing chief of the Clinton administration helped launch a major financing wave that transformed the American dream of homeownership into reality for thousands of people—whether they could afford it or not, reports the New York Times. From his post, Henry Cisneros loosened mortgage restrictions for first-time buyers,...

Housing Prices Look for Basement

(Newser) - A witch’s brew of factors is cursing the US housing market, reports the New York Times, driving home prices ever lower as they search for bottom. Rising unemployment, higher interest rates, lower wages, and a glut of foreclosures are likely to continue to keep the market depressed through much...

Bank Rescue Won't Lift Home Prices, Stop Foreclosures

Continued downward spiral drives consumer spending down, killing net worth

(Newser) - Economists are increasingly concerned that the government rescue plan is missing the root cause of the foundering US economy: still-falling home prices, reports the Wall Street Journal. And, while the bailout of banks and financial institutions could ease the pain of the slump, unless help is extended to the housing...

Calif. Portends Recession to Come

The housing bubble burst there first ... is California a sign of things to come in US?

(Newser) - Trend-setting California may be the “canary in the mine shaft,” its own recession showing the rest of the country what a national downturn could look like, reports the Wall Street Journal. The state’s $1.8 trillion economy has been bludgeoned by an unemployment rate among the worst...

Chicago Sheriff Halts Evictions
Chicago Sheriff 
Halts Evictions
Oct 9, 2008 8:21 AM CDT

Chicago Sheriff Halts Evictions

Lawman declares that throwing renters out of foreclosed properties is unjust

(Newser) - A Chicago lawman is going to stop enforcing foreclosure evictions because they’re unfair to renters, the Chicago Tribune reports. Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart has a huge and growing eviction list but is refusing to carry out any more mortgage-foreclosure evictions until lenders first figure out who’s actually...

BofA Settles Loan Lawsuits With $8.4B Aid to Borrowers

400,000 homeowners who borrowed from Countrywide could see relief

(Newser) - Some 400,000 borrowers with subprime and adjustable-rate mortgages from Countrywide Financial are in line to receive a share of an $8.4-billion settlement in a suit over deceptive loan practices, reports the Wall Street Journal. The deal between Bank of America, which acquired Countrywide July 1, and several state...

Prosperity Gospel Blamed for Subprime Hell

Belief that God bestows riches may have duped faithful into dodgy mortgages

(Newser) - A fast-growing strain of Pentecostalism may have made its followers victims of the credit crisis by preaching that God's hand was behind dubious mortgages, Time reports. "Prosperity Gospel" preaches that God will "make way" for the poor to gain wealth, making believers easy prey for greedy mortgage brokers,...

Mortgage Forgiven After 90-Year-Old Shoots Herself

Fannie Mae dismisses foreclosure action after House hears of woman's plight

(Newser) - Fannie Mae will let 90-year-old Addie Polk keep her house and forgive her mortgage, the Akron Beacon-Journal reports. The widow shot herself in the chest Wednesday as deputies arrived to evict her from her home of 40 years. Rep. Dennis Kucinich raised the Ohio woman's plight in the House yesterday...

You Could Own This Home! ... for $1.75 on eBay

Chicago community-college student plans to sell condemned Mich. house

(Newser) - What can $1.75 buy these days? A home in Saginaw, Mich., apparently. A college student surfing for PlayStations on eBay was the eighth and highest bidder on the condemned house, reports the Chicago Sun-Times. Joanne Smith doesn’t plan on making the 300-mile move from Chicago; after paying an...

Bottom-up Bailout: Pay Off Delinquent Mortgages
Bottom-up Bailout: Pay Off Delinquent Mortgages
OPINION
Oct 1, 2008 11:55 AM CDT

Bottom-up Bailout: Pay Off Delinquent Mortgages

Using tax money to pay delinquent mortgages would revive markets

(Newser) - Rescuing ordinary Americans—not Wall Street—should be the theory behind the government bailout, and that means paying off delinquent mortgages, say two Yale professors in the Washington Post. If that sounds unfair, it is, but it's "a small price to pay to avoid a rapid transition to a...

Foreclosures Soar on Homes Over $1M
Foreclosures Soar on
Homes Over $1M
Sep 27, 2008 5:38 PM CDT

Foreclosures Soar on Homes Over $1M

Foreclosures on million-dollar homes way up since last year

(Newser) - The housing crisis, having wreaked havoc on low- and middle-income homeowners, is moving into the mansion set. Foreclosures on $1 million plus homes have almost doubled since last year, MSNBC reports, and more than doubled for homes over $2 million. The reasons are familiar: layoffs in the executive and professional...

Treasury Will Struggle to Value Mortgage Holdings

Analysts say US will need to be leery of truly toxic portfolios

(Newser) - When Treasury starts spending the $700 billion in bailout money it’s asking for, the big question is going to be how much to pay for assets that are toxic in part because no one can figure out what they're worth. The bundled and rebundled mortgage securities causing Wall Street...

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