News

2008

July

12

• Keeping closer tabs on mortgage brokers. Should your mortgage loan officer's fingerprints be on file in a national electronic database, even if he or she has never been convicted of a crime? Should you be able to go to a Web

• Housing bill passes Senate. The Senate yesterday approved a huge package of legislation aimed at stabilizing the nation's faltering housing market, including an ambitious plan to extend a financial lifeline to hundreds of thousands of homeowners at risk of

11

• Foreclosure increased 53% since 2007 (Chinese). 【綜合報道】美國房市上月出現大蕭條以來最嚴峻的形勢。法拍通告件數較去年同期增加53%，每501間房屋便有1間斷供，銀行收回數量增幅創下近3倍紀錄，預計年底達100萬棟。「屋漏更逢連夜雨」，由政府支持的兩大房貸巨頭房利美和房地美因股價大跌，令資本日益緊絀，加劇房市危機惡化。 值得欣慰的是，政府的救市法案在參議院斬將過關，昨(10)日以84對12的表決結果，掃清一切程序障礙，預訂在今(11)日付諸投票通過。

09

• Fed to curb shady home-lending practices. The Federal Reserve will issue new rules next week aimed at protecting future homebuyers from dubious lending practices, its most sweeping response to a housing crisis that has propelled foreclosures to record highs. Fed Chairman

• Foreclosures' financial toll on kids. In many ways, Shelby Morrow is a typical 16-year-old. She likes hanging out with her friends, dreams of getting her own car and enjoys writing short stories in the bedroom of her wood-frame house in

06

• Mortgage brokers as naysayers in NY. New York's borrowers could notice a different tone in their discussions with mortgage brokers in coming months, as brokers adjust to a new state law that seeks to stem foreclosures. The legislation, which was passed

• You can raise credit scores. If you can improve your credit scores, you will probably spend less money, perhaps hundreds or thousands of dollars less each year. Here is how to raise your scores, so you can receive the best

• A lesson on credit cards. Recently, a subcommittee of the House Committee on Financial Services held a hearing on the marketing tactics companies use to pitch credit cards to college students. It is not the first time the issue has

• Home equity door slams shut. Some 122,000 borrowers with Countrywide home-equity lines of credit, or HELOCs, received letters in January informing them that they could no longer withdraw funds from their lines. A few months later, thousands of customers of other

• Dividends start to crumble. The credit crisis and economic slowdown have become so grave that many companies are chopping dividend payments to their shareholders. Financial institutions, reeling from the rise in foreclosures and ensuing credit crunch, are making the

05

• Help for homeowners hangs in the balance. Congress left town for the July 4 recess with a half-baked cake in its legislative oven -- one that has huge potential significance for the housing and mortgage markets. The relief package left unfinished is designed

03

• Home equity credit line delinquencies hit high. The troubled economy is leaving consumers with increasingly tough decisions about which debts to pay first, and in some cases, which to pay at all. In the latest indication of these pressures, late payments on

01

• Wachovia quits offering risky mortgage option. Wachovia said it will quit offering a mortgage payment option that allows borrowers to pay less each month than the bank charges in interest. The choice to pay less was one of the options of

June

30

• Mortgage meltdown was no accident. George Mitchell's wife, Lillian, took her last breath in the house she loved, on New Year's Day 2006. "Right there in that spot," says George, 77, nodding to the far end of his worn, floral-print couch. "I

• Northeast braces for home heating oil increases. New Englanders struggling this summer to pay gas prices topping $4 a gallon should brace for more bad news — home heating oil costs next winter are expected to hit record highs. One retail heating oil dealer

28

• Keep watch on your credit report—free. If you're thinking about buying a home or refinancing a mortgage, you may want to avail yourself of a forthcoming free service that could help you get a better mortgage rate. Under the terms of

26

• Beware, your credit score may have fallen. Just as Americans grow more reliant on credit cards to help pay monthly bills, they're being hit with a one-two punch: Card companies are reducing borrowing limits for tens of thousands of consumers, which then

• Homeowners fight for their mortgage rights. Beset by financial problems in 2002, Eunice Anderson fell months behind in the mortgage payments on her four-bedroom ranch in Redford Township, Mich., near Detroit. Anderson, 48, a medical insurance auditor, says she was unable to refinance

• Vital part of housing bill Is brainchild of banks. A key provision of the housing bill now awaiting action in the Senate -- and widely touted as offering a lifeline to distressed homeowners -- was initially suggested to Congress by lobbyists for major banks

• Delinquencies rise at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac. In a sign of continuing trouble in the housing market, mortgage delinquency rates doubled over a 12-month period at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two industry giants reported yesterday. In April, 1.22 percent of the