Tag Archive: home loans
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Lenders Raise the Bar
IF you have a mortgage, consider yourself lucky.
That is the upshot of the most recent survey of mortgage lenders by the Federal Reserve Board, which found that banks’ lending standards were significantly tighter in April than they had been in January, when credit was already tight.
Some prospective borrowers who just a few months ago were […]
Democrats, Bush Square Off Over Housing Relief
President Resists Wide-Scale Assistance
Now that the Federal Reserve has pledged billions of dollars to rescue Wall Street bankers from possible default, lawmakers and regulators are turning their attention to helping average citizens — from homeowners in danger of foreclosure to people who want to buy a home.
But unlike the Fed’s rapid moves last week to […]
Housing crisis cools off growth
Torrid population growth rates in Sun Belt metropolitan areas from Florida to Arizona, Nevada and California have slowed amid a severe downturn in the nation’s housing market, according to a USA TODAY analysis of Census Bureau data released today.
“It’s really a slowdown in places with superheated housing markets that were almost out of control in […]
The Affluent, Too, Couldn’t Resist Adjustable Rates
They took out adjustable-rate mortgages at the peak of the housing bubble to buy homes they would otherwise not be able to afford. Or they refinanced existing mortgages to take cash out. And now, two or three years later, the day of reckoning is here.
These are not lower- and middle-income borrowers, but more affluent consumers […]
Foreclosed Homes: A Local Blight
The peach-colored house in a modest subdivision near downtown Modesto, Calif., used to be someone’s dream home. But it stands out in a row of similarly hued homes where many have a “For Sale” sign planted in their front yards. The two-story appears battered: its address has been scratched on a front panel and weeds […]
Home owners refuse to pay home equity loans, banks powerless to stop them
Here comes another headache for banks suffering from the mortgage downturn: Losses on home-equity loans are soaring, even at some lenders that avoided big blunders on subprime loans.
When times were good, banks raked in billions of dollars in profit from home-equity loans, which allow borrowers to tap the accumulated value in their property with either […]
Freddie and Fannie Promise To Play Nice
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has just wrapped up a year’s worth of investigating and now Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have come forward as reformed lenders that will only deal with banks who will play nice.
Also, Fannie and Freddie not only made nice with Cuomo, but agreed to finance his reform […]
Home Appraisal Standards Stiffened
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the home mortgage giants, said Monday that they would stop buying loans from lenders that do not use independent home appraisers, as part of an agreement with the attorney general of New York.
The shift, which will go into effect at the start of 2009, is expected to force large lenders […]