A week or so ago, Bank of America announced it would put a hold on its foreclosure proceedings while it reviewed the processes that moved the foreclosure claims past lawyers, whose signatures were required. Other financial institutes followed suit. The decision came in the midst of growing fears that the foreclosures on tens of thousands […]
NeighborWorks Week Draws To Successful Close
The NeighborWorks Week (June 5-12) that just finished (and that we promoted a couple of weeks ago) focused on educating homeowners to the danger signs of mortgage-assistance scams and predatory loan practices. According to the NeighborWorks website, “NeighborWorks America and local NeighborWorks organizations held more than 320 community revitalization and 150 loan modification scam awareness […]
Jobs Report Suggests Slight Or Slighter Growth Depending on Source
The release of the government’s jobs report this past week was cause for about as much speculation as Apple Inc.’s World Wide Developers’ Conference is this week. And just as people pretty much knew about Apple’s fourth-generation iPhone weeks ago, so people were pretty sure what the jobs report would look like before it was […]
NeighborWorks Offers $119 Million For Community Development
After yesterday’s report about the trickle of federal recovery aid being used to assist mortgage holders on the brink of foreclosure, we can return to the topic of the housing crisis with some much better news. NeighborWorks America has announced that it will be distributing $119 million in grants for this year. The amount is […]
Homeowners Getting Federal Help
Image via Wikipedia The mortgage bubble that Wall Street players were puffing up and were betting would break has, of course, brought down almost everything else with it (save investor bonuses). The fallout was one of the many catalysts for the sweeping political change of the elections of 2008. One of the loudest political debates […]
Banks Back to Profitability (& Bonuses) But Homeowners Still Drowning
The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) likely kept the banking industry afloat, and few doubt the necessity to keep the banking industry solvent for the sake of functioning markets and businesses. The bailout began under the president who encouraged the housing bubble in the first place, and was accepted by the Obama Administration as a […]
The Social Costs of the Housing Crash: Hispanic Communities in NYC
Last week we posted a couple of reports pointing to the relative stability in the housing market that Baltimore has ‘enjoyed’ and how the faltering economy seems to have spurred growth in the non-profit sector. Today we are reminded of how important the qualifier ‘relative’ is. Optimists and bank executives largely believe the economy has […]
Mortgage modifications can create more debt/risk
With the collapse of the housing market, we all relearned a concept usually associated with kids, summers at the pool, and vacations at the beach: underwater. The term now stirs feelings of unease, if not panic, as we feel ourselves pulled down by an undertow of debt payments and rising interest rates – especially as […]
