Headline News Archive

2010

August

16

• Second credit report not required for mortgages. Mortgage giant Fannie Mae said Friday that lenders who sell mortgages to the company are not required to run a second credit report before a

• Shorter-term mortgages gain favor for refinancing. More homeowners are refinancing into shorter-term loans, saving a bundle by taking advantage of the lowest mortgage rates in decades. Nearly a third of borrowers

15

• In this play, one role is enough. Meet Brad Miller, a Democratic representative from North Carolina who was elected to Congress in 2002, talks straight and understands how big banks can put consumers

14

• Beware of 'virtual staging' makeovers. Try to picture this real estate scenario -- virtually. Like most shoppers searching for a home, you start on the Web, checking out listings and

13

• Elizabeth Warren: poised to become borrower's best friend. Somewhere along the line, Elizabeth Warren became a symbol. She's either the plain-spoken, supremely smart crusader for middle-class families that her supporters adore, or she's

12

• Borrowers refuse to pay billions in home equity. During the great housing boom, homeowners nationwide borrowed a trillion dollars from banks, using the soaring value of their houses as security. Now the money

• U.S. plans more aid for jobless homeowners. In an acknowledgment that the foreclosure crisis is far from over, the Obama administration on Wednesday pumped $3 billion into programs intended to stop the unemployed

11

• Short sales soar in California, U.S.. Sales of homes for less than the amount of their outstanding mortgage debt have tripled since 2008, particularly in California and the Sunbelt, according to a

• Feds rethink policies that encourage home ownership. Just how much should Uncle Sam do to help Americans buy their own homes? For 70 years — and for the last 15 in particular — the answer has

09

• Angry customers venting online. You've been cheated or mistreated by a business, and no one from the company seems to care. Now what? Thousands of jilted consumers have turned

07

• Diverse coalition targets home transfer fees. Can you name a housing controversy that pulls Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, consumer advocates, labor unions representing transport workers and government employees, the title insurance

• How to live close to the neighbors. Melissa Danielson doesn't mind hearing the occasional dog barking on the other side of the wall. She enjoys the chance to bump into neighbors as

03

• Countrywide to pay $600 million in shareholder lawsuits. Countrywide Financial Corp. which epitomized the home-loan industry's boom and bust, has agreed to pay $600 million in the largest settlement yet of shareholder lawsuits stemming

• Big bucks in online social games. The most-used function on Angela Shields's iPhone is not the phone. Or e-mail. Or the Web browser. It's a game called Words With Friends, and

02

• Homeownership rate continues to fall. Millions of houses on the verge of foreclosure threaten to send homeownership to its lowest level in 50 years, according to new industry estimates. Fresh projections

01

• Arbitration quietly closes doors of protest. Lease a car, enroll in a cell phone plan or finance the purchase of a major appliance, and you're likely signing away your rights. Most

July

29

• Foreclosures boom among most creditworthy. A record number of borrowers once judged the most creditworthy are heading into foreclosure as the job market leaves more homeowners unable to keep up

26

• Warren's candidacy raises a partisan debate. Elizabeth Warren last week won the endorsements of several dozen Congressional Democrats, two of the nation’s leading labor groups and her hometown newspaper, The

25

• Pondering when to reenter the housing market. In hindsight, Scott Feldman's decision to sell his first home in late 2006 could have been a case study in a textbook called "How to Time

24

• How to score a better deal on a mortgage. Call it the great real estate disconnect of 2010: Mortgage rates have been at half-century lows and home prices have stabilized, but applications for mortgages have

22

• Battle brews over director for Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. President Obama reversed decades of lax oversight of the financial industry Wednesday by signing a landmark overhaul of regulations, but he still faces a major

• Obama signs financial overhaul into law. As much as it felt like an ending, President Obama launched a new era in the relationship between Washington and the financial world when he

21

• Financial reform bill to assist unemployed homeowners. Nylton Andrade hopes that a federal bill President Obama was expected to sign today will help him and his wife keep their home. Andrade lives

• Wall Street reform law's starting line. As soon as President Obama's name shows up on the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law Wednesday, there will be some changes in the way the

• About 40% of federal mortgage modifications cancelled. The number of homeowners dropped from the Obama administration's signature program to modify mortgages for cash-strapped homeowners is larger than the number of those receiving