News

2009

July

23

• Homeowners struggle and vultures circle. State and federal law enforcement officials are teaming up across the country to stop despondent homeowners from needlessly shelling out thousands of dollars to save their homes from foreclosure. The Federal Trade Commission recently announced

21

• Customer deposits factor into credit approval. As banks look for ways to manage their risk amid surging loan losses, they're increasingly making credit card decisions based on whether you have a bank account with them — and how much you have in

20

• Firm agrees to end arbitrating credit card debt. The Minnesota attorney general, Lori Swanson, said Sunday that her office had reached a legal settlement that would require a Minnesota company to get out of the business of arbitrating credit card debts and other

• Subprime brokers resurface as dubious loan fixers. LOS ANGELES — From the ninth floor of a downtown office building on Wilshire Boulevard, Jack Soussana delivered staggering numbers of mortgages to homeowners during the real estate boom, amassing a fortune. By Mr. Soussana’s

• Lo que Dios ha unido, la recesión hace difícil de separar. En Estados Unidos, algunas parejas que se divorcian se han visto obligadas a seguir viviendo juntas por razones financieras. Rhonda Brewster y su marido han decidido que ya no quieren seguir casados. Pero, aunque está

19

• Subprime brokers back as dubious loan fixers. From the ninth floor of a downtown office building on Wilshire Boulevard, Jack Soussana delivered staggering numbers of mortgages to homeowners during the real estate boom, amassing a fortune. By Mr. Soussana’s own account,

• Converting your IRA to a Roth. You’ll be hearing a lot in the next six months about Roth Individual Retirement Accounts — but not as much as you should about a long-term threat that hangs over them. Starting Jan. 1, you’ll

18

• New closing protections for buyers. If you're applying for a loan to purchase a primary or secondary home, or planning to refinance, you should be aware of a little-publicized new set of federal consumer-protection rules that takes effect July 30. Among

17

• Crecen los juicios hipotecarios. La cantidad de familias estadounidenses a punto de perder sus viviendas subió a cerca de 15% en la primera mitad del año, luego de que más personas perdiesen sus empleos y no pudiesen pagar

16

• Foreclosure scams targeted. For Rene Ruelas, the calls came faster than weeds sprouting in the yard of an empty house. Foreclosure was looming for the Buena Park home that Ruelas shared with his wife, Rose, and four children.

• Foreclosures rise despite Obama plan's efforts. Foreclosures are continuing to set records despite the Obama administration's $75 billion plan to help borrowers at risk of losing their homes. There were 1.9 million foreclosure filings in the first six months of this year, a 15%

• Otra crisis en el mercado inmobiliario de EE.UU.. El mercado inmobiliario de Estados Unidos enfrenta nuevas presiones que deprimen los precios, a medida que los tenedores de bonos respaldados por hipotecas de alto riesgo inundan el mercado con casas embargadas a precios por

14

• (Bank) chutzpah on steroids. What is up with the banks and the rest of the financial industry? The people running this system remind me of gangsters who manage to walk out of the courthouse with a suspended sentence and

13

• Mantener a flote las finanzas en un divorcio. La crisis ya se ha cobrado muchos matrimonios; una guía para que una ruptura no sea la ruina. Puede que la separación de Jon y Kate, estrellas del reality show "Jon and Kate

12

• More families are becoming homeless. Louis Gill doesn't like to turn anyone away. The director of the Bakersfield Homeless Center in California has taken to laying out cots and mattresses between the shelter's 174 registered beds to cope with the rush

• Jobless rate so high? So are late payments. Credit can be a lifeline after a layoff, but beware of the line becoming too long. As data from the American Bankers Association shows, consumer delinquencies — defined as payments that are 30 or more days overdue —

11

• When housing default is a strategy. Would you, under any circumstances, default on your home mortgage, even if you could afford to make the monthly payments? That's a trickier question than you might assume, according to new research from the University

• Even before slump, more kids were living in poverty. A growing number of American children are living in poverty and with unemployed parents, and are facing the threat of hunger, according to a federal report released yesterday. According to the report, "America's Children: Key

10

• The credit crisis and working America. The American Prospect offers a special section in its July/August 2009 issue with numerous articles on asset building, wealth disparities, exploitative credit and fallout from the housing crisis.

09

• Protecting homeowners for the unexpected. Thomas Mackey has a nice little three-bedroom house on a golf course in Carolina Beach, N.C. Last fall, when he refinanced his mortgage, Mackey, 61, had a good job as director of food services at