News

2007

December

01

• Renovations rarely recoup their cost. Linda and Jose Rahona created a master bathroom with floor-to-ceiling tile, custom glass shower doors and sleek fixtures. It took three months of dust, tilers, electricians, plumbers and glaziers - and $25,000 - to finish. Now

• Mortgage freeze for subprime loans?. Mortgage rates for homeowners with spotty credit histories would be temporarily frozen under a nearly completed agreement between top Bush administration officials and a broad alliance of Wall Street's biggest banks, mortgage investors, nonprofits and

• Big rebukes on title company referrals. Rigged appraisals, lax underwriting and toxic loans may dominate the headlines, but they are hardly the only issues causing problems in residential real estate. The federal government and state regulators are targeting other housing-related misdeeds

November

30

• TV interview on Foreclosure and Chinese community (Chinese). The PDF file is a clipping from the San Francisco Mingpao Newspaper.

• Paulson says housing help is on the way. Passing squall or supersized economic blowout? However the housing and credit-market upheavals play out, they will shape the legacy of Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. From the start, he has tried to orchestrate a

29

• Spreading the [housing] misery. The nation’s foreclosure crisis is metastasizing, and communities are in harm’s way as property values and tax bases decline and crime increases. In the third quarter, there were 635,000 foreclosure filings, a 30 percent increase

28

• Subprime homeowners to study their loans with care (Chinese). 【明報專訊】根據昨日「環球洞察」(Global Insight)公布報告及種種預告，消費者行動發言人李嘉表示：08年將出現嚴重負債，華裔物業主及早做好準備工作，就還貸款狀況做到心中有數，必要時，尋求有關組織的幫助，避免屆時措手不及，承受經濟損失外，還失去房屋。 在上個月，「現在改革社區協會」(Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now)已發現，灣區近4,800名次級房貸者可能在未來幾年遭遇房屋回贖權被取消，物業主、城市與貸款機構將損失約15億元。取消房屋回贖權也會影響到鄰區房價，導致壓低房價約116億元。

• Subprime loan collapses resulting in $54M losses (Chinese). 【明報專訊】昨日公布的一項經濟與次級房屋貸款(sub-prime mortgage)危機情況，給包括灣區在內的大城市帶來未來前景糟糕的不好消息。次級房貸的失敗將讓灣區負上54億元的代價。此外，美國市長協會即將在底特律召開集會，全美市長將共同商討應對房市危機的政策，希望業主和金融機構的攜手合作，能夠控制其影響範圍。 這份報告由甚有聲譽的「環球洞察」(Global Insight)作出預告分析，全國經濟會受貸款影響1,660億元，可能失去就業機會524,000個，此外2008年全國物業主的地產價值將損失1.2兆元。

• 'Free' credit reports sometimes aren't free. Like many consumers, Wendy Temple's first step shopping for a mortgage was to go online to get a sense of where she stood as a prospective borrower. Temple, an accountant, surfed to TrueCredit.com, a

26

• Housing woes have domino effect. If you haven't yet felt the impact of the nation's credit crisis, just wait. Chances are, you won't have to wait long. So far, the turmoil may feel a bit remote for average people: Failed

24

• Targeting yield-spread-premium abuse. When a mortgage broker steers a borrower toward a high-rate loan for which the broker collects a rebate from the lender, that payment is called a yield spread premium. When the broker does so without

• Senators don't rush into housing relief. Thousands of Americans may be losing their homes to foreclosure or facing hefty mortgage-payment resets, but the Senate appears to be in no rush to help. The House has passed several major housing-relief measures in

21

• Freddie Mac woes may hit Countrywide. Countrywide Financial Corp. survived the first phase of the mortgage meltdown this summer thanks in part to a $2-billion investment from Bank of America. But the Calabasas-based lender suffered a major new setback Tuesday when

20

• Bills would let judges remake mortgages. Congress is considering legislation that would allow bankruptcy court judges to rewrite loan terms for people at risk of losing their homes, a change that supporters say could save half a million borrowers from foreclosure

19

• Crime scene: foreclosure. When homeowners moved away after a wave of foreclosures in Cleveland's working-class neighborhood of Slavic Village, crime took off. Slavic Village is known as the worst neighborhood in the nation for foreclosures. In a study

• Evite el estrés financiero en estas festividades. Durante estas festividades aumenta la emoción de compartir momentos gratos entre familia, pero de igual manera aumentan las preocupaciones financieras para algunas personas. Poco a poco aquellos gastos insignificantes se tornan evidentes, y la

• Quejas contra un plan de viviendas. Casas construidas en zonas de alto riesgo, con materiales deficientes o sin servicios públicos son algunas de las quejas que pesan en contra de las tres grandes inmobiliarias que participan en el programa de

16

• House passes bill revamping mortgage lending. A bill aimed at protecting borrowers from abusive home loans passed the House yesterday evening but faces a tougher future in the Senate because of opposition by the mortgage industry and criticism from the Bush

• Hidden mortgage fees. As foreclosures continue to plague the subprime market, a little-known industry practice is further hurting homeowners who are already having trouble keeping up with their ballooning mortgage payments: excessive and questionable fees. A recent study

• ¿Te negaron el préstamo? Puede ser un error. Muchas familias necesitan solicitar préstamos, buscar otro empleo o comprar una póliza de seguro. Pero muchas veces la solicitud es negada por problemas en el reporte de crédito. Para que tengas una