News

2010

December

27

• Bank of America gets low marks. Bank of America routinely takes longer than its peers to answer phone calls from borrowers with distressed home loans and loses the highest percentage of calls, too, six months of Treasury Department reports show. Mortgage

26

• How to derail financial reform. Ever since the Dodd-Frank financial reform law was signed in July, the question has been whether it would actually lead to a stable financial system. If the Republicans who will control the House next year

23

• Dropouts up, but mortgage-aid program reaches more. More troubled homeowners are dropping out of the Obama administration's main foreclosure-relief program, which has been widely criticized for failing to help more people keep their homes. But the program reached more homeowners in November

• Lower your home's winter heating tab with simple steps. Winter officially began Tuesday, so if you haven't already done so, now is a fine time to winterize your home. Even simple, low-cost steps can reduce heating bills. They include changing the furnace filter (monthly

• Rush to foreclose by Fannie, Freddie helped feed problems. As the housing market came crashing down in 2008, the giant mortgage company Fannie Mae took an unprecedented step to help tackle the rising tide of foreclosures. It named an exclusive group of law firms that

21

• Homeowners use 'show me the note' to fight foreclosure. Steven and Tamara Gewecke are three years behind on their mortgage payments, but they've fought off foreclosure. The Minnesota couple refinanced in 2006 to start a business. It failed. Debts mounted. The Geweckes went bankrupt and

20

• More see walking on a mortgage as viable. More Americans than ever are showing a willingness to walk away from their underwater homes, according to a recent survey. Chris Kelly is a perfect example of someone who never thought she would send the

• Tax deduction for mortgage interest could be cut. Fifteen years ago, Carol Nietmann and her husband bought a spacious house in Maryland near Chesapeake Bay. And thanks to the time-honored tax deduction for mortgage interest, she said, their new place was a little

19

• Lenders to disclose how credit scores affect mortgage rates. Home mortgage shoppers should see an addition to the application paper blitz starting Jan. 1 — a mandatory alert on how their credit scores might affect the rate quote and terms they receive from their lender. The

16

• Foreclosures plunge but drop won't last. The number of foreclosure notices filed in November plunged 21%, the biggest month-over-month drop ever recorded by RealtyTrac, the online foreclosure marketer. Filings fell 14% compared with November 2009. The number of Americans who actually lost their homes

• Americans deeply affected by economic tremors. Sometimes it helps to see the data that prove the uneven financial ground you're standing on is occupied by a lot of other people as well. So while the results of a study released this

• Detectan embargos de casas ‘por error’. Expertos afirman que es la nueva crisis que angustia a los propietarios La familia Cascos no es la típica dueña de casa que termina en embargo: sin retraso en sus pagos, un ingreso

14

• U.S. foreclosure-prevention program fell short. The Treasury Department's primary foreclosure-prevention program has failed to live up to expectations and has suffered from a lack of "meaningful goals," according to a report from a congressional watchdog panel due out Tuesday. The

13

• She's the watchdog consumers will thank. When Yahoo put out its top 10 searches in the financial category for 2010, there was no surprise to find, among the leaders, unemployment, foreclosures and the Dow Jones flash crash, the term coined for when the

11

• New FHA eligibility rules could rattle condo market. Tens of thousands of condominium unit owners across the country may not know it, but their ability to sell or refinance could be jeopardized by a rolling series of federal government deadlines. On Dec. 8, an

09

• 22 mortgage providers accused of unfair lending. The federal government said it was investigating 22 mortgage providers after a national housing group accused them of engaging in unfair lending practices toward borrowers with poor credit scores. The National Community Reinvestment Coalition said Wednesday

08

• Más quejas por calefacción y agua caliente. Nueva York - Un informe revelado hoy por el Defensor Público Bill de Blasio evidenció que el número de querellas sobre la falta de calefacción y agua caliente ha aumentado. En lo

04

• Are banks unfairly denying certain loan applicants?. A national consumer coalition plans to file a series of landmark federal fair housing complaints beginning Dec. 6, challenging a widespread practice by banks and mortgage lenders: requiring borrowers who apply for FHA loans to have

02

• Fannie, Freddie say mortgage servicers triggered foreclosure crisis. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac defended their role in the foreclosure crisis in prepared testimony to Congress on Wednesday, while at least one federal regulator said the mortgage giants had contributed to the problem. Speaking

November

28

• Don't pay for bi-weekly mortgage payments. Biweekly mortgage payment plans are back. "Don't miss out!" proclaims a pitch from Citibank's BiWeekly Advantage program. "The BiWeekly Advantage Plan is a convenient mortgage budgeting plan that can help you save thousands of dollars