News

2007

December

29

• Reason for hope next year. Queen Elizabeth II once famously referred to her "annus horribilis," a horrible year during which almost everything went badly, from royal-family scandals to a fire in Windsor Castle. The American housing market experienced its own

27

• Mortgage probes face big hurdles. he nation's largest banks are losing billions of dollars from the mortgage debacle. But will pain from bad housing bets be compounded by government investigations? As credit woes sparked by the troubled housing market threaten

24

• Mortgage mess has government scrambling. After a slow and stumbling start, Washington is scrambling to prevent the unfolding mortgage crisis from pushing the country into recession during an election year. There is a strong feeling, though, that the government will

• Homeowners with forgiven debt get timely tax break. Families who lost their homes to the foreclosure crisis this year will have at least one reason for cheer this holiday season: They won't have to worry about a big tax bill. Shortly before adjourning

21

• Allegations WaMu sought inflated appraisals. Federal regulators are looking into allegations that mortgage lender Washington Mutual Inc. pressured First American Corp. of Santa Ana to inflate appraisals of homes nationwide. Washington Mutual, the nation's largest savings and loan, said Thursday

• Mortgage crisis may require a guardian angel. I knew it was the Christmas season. There on television was Henry F. Potter, the mean banker, quizzing Pa Bailey, the idealist from the building and loan society. Have you put any real pressure on

• The Pain of foreclosure. Joyce Griffin pulled out the sparkly white artificial Christmas tree she stores in the basement of her Anne Arundel County duplex, draped it with blue and red tinsel, and placed a tiny lighted angel on

20

• Foreclosures rise 68% from last year. U.S. homeowners increasingly failed to keep up with their home loan payments in November, with the number of foreclosure filings surging 68% compared with the same month a year ago, RealtyTrac, a mortgage research company,

19

• Fed guidance: Damned if they do.... No one ever said it would be easy, Mr. Chairman. On Tuesday, the Fed unveiled a proposal designed to prevent lenders from making mortgage loans that borrowers can't afford. While its focus is on subprime

• Federal Reserve unveils mortgage rules. The Federal Reserve proposed new regulations yesterday to clean up a broad array of deceptive mortgage lending practices, a move that represents the central bank's most significant response to the nation's housing tumult. The proposed

• Plan para regular préstamos hipotecarios. El Banco de Reserva Federal (Fed) presentó un plan el martes para proteger a los propietarios de viviendas de préstamos inescrupulosos. Las normas propuestas, aprobadas por la junta con cinco votos a favor y

18

• Fed shrugged as subprime crisis spread. Until the boom in subprime mortgages turned into a national nightmare this summer, the few people who tried to warn federal banking officials might as well have been talking to themselves. Edward M. Gramlich, a

• Fed plan to clean up shady home lending. Federal Reserve plan being announced Tuesday would give people taking out home mortgages new protection against shady lending practices. The rules to be proposed are especially geared to providing some safeguards to the riskiest "subprime"

16

• What to expect from Fed rate cut. Holiday bills have you worried? Bracing for your mortgage payment to reset higher? Have a certificate of deposit coming due? In all three situations, the Federal Reserve plays an underlying role. And since September, that

• Heating oil vs. gas: which pays?. When my wife and I bought our 1924 Baltimore rowhouse, we figured the original oil-fired boiler in the basement was just part of the charm of having an old house - like inlaid hardwood floors and

15

• Mortgage rate freeze depends on credit score. It may be the only test you flunk if you score too high: It's called the FICO credit-score test, and it is a key element of the sometimes-arcane guidelines governing which homeowners qualify for "fast-track"

14

• FHA loan expansion heading to a vote. Hundreds of thousands of minority and moderate-income home buyers would become eligible to get low-rate, low-down-payment mortgages insured by the federal government under an agreement struck yesterday in the Senate. The measure, which had been

• 2 states probe Countrywide home loans. The nation's No. 1 mortgage lender, Countrywide Financial Corp., is under investigation by California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown and the attorney general's office in Illinois, the Calabasas company said Thursday. Countrywide said it had received subpoenas

13

• Preparing for tax time. Here are two words that can get a person so riled up you would think you'd insulted his mama: tax time. Yes folks, no use grousing. Before you realize it, the time to file your

12

• Donald Trump spins in foreclosure game. When I heard that President Bush wants to bail out homeowners caught up in the sub-prime mortgage mess, I figured I better move fast if I want to profit from other people's misfortune. So I