News

2008

November

15

• Will Obama bring back 'buy downs'?. What will it take to get people off the sidelines to buy houses and help stimulate the economy? How about a mortgage at a 2.99 percent fixed rate for 30 years for anyone who buys a home

13

• Treasury redefines its rescue plan. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. announced a series of moves yesterday that redefine the federal government's $700 billion rescue plan for the financial industry in order to tackle what he called a dire situation in

• Foreclosure relief getting lost in the fine print. More than a year into the foreclosure crisis, whether a distressed homeowner is eligible for a more affordable mortgage can often come down to the fine print. That fine print in contracts that govern mortgages

12

• U.S. to simplify mortgage disclosure rules. Prospective home buyers would get a simpler way to understand often-confusing mortgage terms under new rules by the federal government. The Department of Housing and Urban Development is overhauling a 1974 law requiring lender to give

• Lenders hope simpler loan-rework system helps. As losses from bad loans continue to mount despite more than a year of government and industry focus, some of the giants of the mortgage industry, including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, yesterday unveiled another

• 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 a

• 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

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.

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

• 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

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

• 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

• 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

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.

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 it

• 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