News

2008

December

16

• The Crash: what went wrong?. When the housing market began to tank in 2005, Wall Street ran through the yellow light of caution and created even riskier investments -- and Washington had no mechanism for finding out what was going on.

• Credit card terms squeeze consumers. Aggressive rate increases on credit cards are threatening to push struggling consumers into financial ruin, accelerating home foreclosures and the nation's descent into recession. The growing problem is reflected in cases such as that of

• Pushing mortgage relief. U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said yesterday that the Bush administration must do more to help struggling borrowers stay in their homes before Congress will agree to release any more money to the Treasury

15

• Fannie Mae to provide relief to renters. Fannie Mae has agreed to let renters stay in their homes even if the owners of the properties have been foreclosed on, according to an announcement from the company yesterday. About 4,000 renters live in properties

• More seeking break on property tax. CLEVELAND — A growing number of homeowners are trying to make falling property values work for them by asking the government for a tax break. Some are winning cuts worth hundreds of dollars in taxes that

14

• Unload your home through a short sale. eporting from Washington -- More than a few financially strapped owners have tried to unload their homes through what's known as a short sale, only to end up stymied by what most believe to be

• Consumer movement at a crossroads. Since 1989, all new cars sold in the United States have had an air bag on the driver's side. It's estimated they save almost 3,000 lives a year. The woman largely responsible for that is Joan Claybrook,

• Lost money? Counting more than pennies. If you have been checking coat pockets or under sofa cushions for spare change, you know that every cent counts these days. Yet a big chunk of change is sitting at government agencies just waiting

13

• Deals in falling-rate mortgage limbo. Could a 4.5 percent mortgage be your personal piece of the bailout pie? Apparently large numbers of consumers thought precisely that during the week after the disclosure that the Treasury Department was working on plans to

• How much house can you afford?. The past two years have demonstrated in dramatic fashion what can happen to people who overreach to buy the home they want. The lesson: Qualifying for the mortgage does not necessarily mean you can afford

11

• New wave of defaults likely as risky loans reset. Some time after Sharren McGarry went to work as a mortgage consultant at Wachovia’s Stuart, Fla., branch in July 2007, she and her colleagues were directed to market a mortgage called the “Pick A Pay”

• Plan to help troubled homeowners makes headway. Bankruptcy judges would be able to reduce payments and principal for homeowners with troubled mortgages under a proposal that appeared to be gaining momentum Wednesday. The plan to allow the courts to order lenders to

09

• Mortgage modifications show limited success. A new government report released yesterday underscored the limited success of industry efforts to reduce foreclosures by modifying mortgage loans, offering fuel for both sides in the debate over whether modification efforts should be redoubled

• Foreclosure epidemic creating rentals scams. Of all the things that can go wrong on moving day, few could be worse than arriving at your new home to find another family already living there. Then again, in today's Darwinian housing market,

07

• A guide for the newly poor. If you're eating three meals today and have a roof over your head, you've probably never heard of the 211 service. It's like 411 or 911, except you use it when you're in such financial distress that you

• Click here to save time, money, energy. Here's a selected list of Kiplinger's best Web sites for 2008. Customer service: GetHuman.com. Chop down the phone tree. This site lists customer-service numbers for almost 800 major companies and government agencies, plus the codes to

• Burglaries may increase during downturn. They're holiday rituals of the Grinchy sort, annual warnings from local police telling us how to protect ourselves from burglary and theft during the dark, wintry days of the holiday season. Basically, their advice is

06

• Housing market data tells a different story. The latest federal statistics on housing prices in hundreds of local markets reveal patterns that haven't been making the news: While on a national basis homeowners have lost more than $1 trillion in equity since the

04

• Treasury weighs action on mortgage rates. The Treasury Department is strongly considering a plan to intervene directly in the mortgage industry to dramatically force down rates and stimulate the moribund housing market, according to sources familiar with the proposal. Under the

02

• Banks torpedoed rules that could have saved them. The Bush administration backed off proposed crackdowns on no-money-down, interest-only mortgages years before the economy collapsed, buckling to pressure from some of the same banks that have now failed. It ignored remarkably prescient warnings that