News

2008

November

12

• New plan for at-risk mortgages. Who is participating: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and many major lenders and mortgage servicers, effective Dec. 15. The servicer is the company to which you send your payments. Who is eligible: If the property is…

• Citigroup ayuda a propietarios con hipotecas. Citigroup ayudará a los clientes que tengan problemas para pagar las letras de la hipoteca concedida por ese banco y les dará una moratoria para tratar de contener los embargos de vivienda que desde hace…

11

• Citigroup will stop most mortgage foreclosures. Citigroup is imposing a moratorium on most foreclosures, becoming the latest big bank to announce sweeping efforts to try to curtail losses from sour mortgages. Citi (C) said late Monday that it won't initiate a…

10

• Government to grant AIG larger bailout. The federal government today announced an expanded effort to bail out American International Group, including a partial government takeover of the company, as the troubled insurance giant disclosed massive losses over the past three months.…

07

• Mounting job losses fueling foreclosures. For years, bad loans and their aftershocks have been sending homeowners into foreclosure. Now it's lost jobs that are putting troubled borrowers over the edge. As the economy tanks, unemployment is the major factor driving…

06

• Schwarzenegger proposes 90-day freeze on foreclosures. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday proposed a 90-day freeze in pending home foreclosures to give California's financially pinched homeowners more time to get new or more affordable loans. The governor unveiled a foreclosure relief and…

05

• New website provides consumer education on insurance (Consumer Action debuts Insurance-Education.org 'sub site'). Consumer Action’s new Insurance Education website (www.insurance-education.org) is a free online clearinghouse for educational materials about the multitude of consumer insurance products and the need for adequate insurance coverage. Consumer Action believes that despite the…

• Electricity bills fall as cheaper natural gas lowers rates. Here's a bright spot in an ailing economy: Electricity prices are falling in many areas. The sharp drop in natural gas prices and, to a lesser extent, oil prices is slashing electric rates across big…

• Más de 100,000 quiebras en octubre. Más estadounidenses tiraron la toalla en octubre: las declaraciones mensuales de quiebra superaron las 100,000 por primera vez desde que se restringieron las leyes de bancarrota hace tres años. Empresas y particulares en Estados Unidos…

04

• Feds can't rebuild housing in a day. The federal government has tossed hundreds of billions of dollars at the various problems that ail the U.S. economy, but housing, the root cause of the crisis, will require more time than money to heal.…

• Cuídate de los rescates de 'foreclosure'. Si alguna vez te sentiste tentado por un anuncio que decía: "Podemos salvar su casa. Garantizado"; o quizás: "Tenemos contactos especiales en varios bancos que pueden acelerar la aprobación de casos como el suyo"... ten…

• La guía para manejarte en la crisis. Cuando preguntamos a los norteamericanos sobre su mayor preocupación actual, nos respondieron fuerte y claro: tener suficiente dinero para jubilarse, el valor de sus ahorros y su hogar, y el precio de todo desde la…

03

• Bargain hunters help shrink housing glut. wer home prices are luring some buyers back into the U.S. housing market, but foreclosures and a weakening economy are likely to keep downward pressure on prices for at least another year, economists say. A…

02

• Shouldn't have to show 'em no stinkin' SSNs. For 43 trouble-free years, John Murray never left home without his American Express card. The retired data coordinator dutifully paid an annual fee every year and diligently paid his balance in full every month. When…

• Beware promises to scrub bad credit reports. With foreclosures, short sales and credit card defaults at record levels, an aggressive breed of firms has sprung up offering to power-wash consumers' damaged credit files and boost credit scores, thereby eliminating records of bankruptcies…

• 10 ways to protect your home investment. You flip the switch and the heat goes on. You make your mortgage payments and your lender is not threatening you. So all's right with the house. Or not. The furnace needs professional maintenance to…

• Opening the tap on home equity. Many homeowners who have taken out home equity lines of credit have learned in recent months that these loans are not as useful as they initially seemed. Lenders are struggling to minimize risk, and because…

01

• Home improvement shows skip drudgery. Thea Rudland knows how hard it can be to buy and sell a house, no matter what you see on television. She and her husband, Dave, closed on their new home in Frederick in late…

October

31

• 7.5 million homeowners 'underwater'. At least 7.5 million Americans owe more on their mortgages than their homes are currently worth, according to a real estate research firm's report released Friday. In other words: If they sold their homes today,…

• Mortgage plan may aid many and irk others. As the Treasury Department prepares a $40 billion program to help delinquent homeowners avoid foreclosure, it confronts a difficult challenge: not making the plan too tempting to people like Todd Lawrence. An airline pilot who…