News

2018

June

18

• Trump taps budget aide to head Consumer Bureau. The White House on Saturday said it would nominate Kathy Kraninger, a White House budget official, to serve as the next director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, in a push to continue scaling back…

16

• Credit freezes will soon be free for everyone. Starting this fall, the big three credit reporting agencies — Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion — will be required to let you freeze your credit file for free. A freeze can help prevent identity thieves from…

14

• The Fed just made life even worse for home buyers. Buyers are facing a competitive market in which they need to move quickly, bid high and make other concessions if they want to land the deal, real estate agents say. And for every month that…

13

• Kids’ influence looms large over their parents’ home-buying decisions. If you’re used to parents of toddlers asking their kids whether they want to go to the park or the pool, to drink apple juice or water, or to play baseball or soccer, you won’t…

• What's in a name? Consumer Bureau to find out. Next week, President Trump is expected to nominate a replacement for Mr. Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget who has been acting head of the consumer bureau since late last year.…

• The Federal Reserve is about to raise its interest rate again. Later this afternoon, the Federal Reserve will almost certainly announce that it has again decided to raise the interest rate it controls by a quarter of a percent, targeting a “Fed funds rate” between 1.75…

• Affordable housing is your spare bedroom. Cities from New York to San Francisco are having a tough time trying to create enough affordable housing for the hundreds of thousands of people who need it. To expand affordable housing in these places…

12

• An early retirement is doable. Here’s how.. We can learn a lot from the growing community of people who did what most of us only dream of doing: retiring in their 20s, 30s and early 40s.

11

• Seven steps to buying a home. Along with paying down debt, building an emergency fund, and planning for retirement, buying a home is one of the most popular financial planning goals. With interest rates on the rise, you may be wondering…

• Rent strikes grow in popularity as gentrification drives up rents. Often viewed as a last resort by tenant-rights groups, rent strikes have in recent years become increasingly common in the District and other gentrifying cities around the country, including Cleveland, Houston, Los Angeles and San…

• Five ways Mulvaney is cracking down on his own agency. The acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) often says that the only reason he hasn't burned the agency down is because it's illegal. Mick Mulvaney, the staunchly conservative White House budget director,…

09

• Why did the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fire us?. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is being gutted from the inside out. Created in 2010 after the Great Recession, during which the typical American household lost one-third of its wealth, the bureau was established to…

• Trump's consumer agency chief looks to shut down complaint database. The Trump administration may shut down a federal database of consumer complaints about the financial-services industry. Banks think that’s a swell idea. “In what world does it make sense to give consumers less critical information…

08

• Booking with Airbnb? Here’s your survival guide. Summer travelers who are planning vacations face a modern dilemma: Splurge on a traditional hotel, or potentially save a few bucks by renting someone’s home on Airbnb?

07

• Protecting privacy is a civil rights issue. Sweeping privacy violations have the strange effect of revealing that the tracking of consumers by marketers affects everyone while hiding how that tracking hurts some people far more than others. People who value their privacy…

• Mulvaney fires all 25 members of consumer watchdog’s advisory board. Mick Mulvaney, acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, fired the agency’s 25-member advisory board, days after some of its members criticized his leadership of the watchdog agency. The CFPB said it will revamp…

06

• States ask CFPB to keep complaints database public. Fourteen Democratic state attorneys general are asking the CFPB to keep its consumer complaint database open to the public. State law enforcers risk losing a valuable tool to help “identify patterns of widespread misconduct,” New…

05

• Getting down payment help now. Sharing home’s gain (or loss) later. For aspiring homeowners, coming up with a healthy down payment has long been the biggest obstacle to owning a home.  Now, a small but growing number of home buyers are trying something different: asking an…

• Teaching new mortgage lender a lesson backfires on homeowner. Q: My mortgage was sold to a loan processor in 2011. I got a welcome letter saying my payment was $635 when it really should have been $1,036 per month. I kept calling to ask…

04

• Groups tell temporary CFPB director: Hands off the public database!. Keep the public consumer complaint database open was the clear message sent by scores of groups to the temporary acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) today. Consumer, civil rights, fair lending, privacy,…