Articles About Foreclosure

In an attempt to dig itself out of a deepening hole, Fannie Mae has requested $4.6 billion in additional federal aid. “We think that we have reserved for and recognized substantially all of the credit losses associated with the legacy book,” Chief Financial Officer Susan McFarland said.  “We’re very focused on returning to profitability so […]

President Barack Obama executed an end run around Congress when he announced a significant retooling of a plan designed to help homeowners who are paying their mortgages, but still underwater, refinance their loans at a more affordable interest rate.  Administration officials said the changes will streamline the government’s Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) and could […]

Mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac might find themselves merged into a single government-run entity.  Representative Gary Miller (R-CA) is set to unveil a bill that would create a utility-like entity and phase out government-controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  The new company would buy mortgages and repackage them as government-backed securities.  The […]

Federal regulators at the Departments of Justice, Treasury and Housing, as well as the Federal Trade Commission, have ordered the nation’s largest banks to revamp their foreclosure procedures and compensate borrowers who were financially hurt by “pervasive” bad behavior or carelessness.  According to the bank regulators, failure to comply with the rules will result in […]

The Federal Reserve has observed that Wall Street’s big banks eased credit terms for hedge funds and private equity firms in the 4th quarter of 2010.   More banks believe that credit terms have “eased somewhat” than those that think it has “tightened somewhat” in the last three months of 2010, according to the Fed’s year-end […]

A recent Washington Post poll found that 53 percent of all Americans are concerned that they will not be able to pay their mortgage or rent, despite the fact that they believe the economy has shown some improvement since the dark days of 2008.  The worry is driven by slow job creation, said Karen Dynan, […]

A small, weathered, blue-gray house in Denmark, ME, set off a national uproar about the foreclosure crisis when its owner, Nicolle Bradbury, lost her job and stopped paying her mortgage two years ago.  The family, which includes Bradbury’s disabled husband and two children, lives on food stamps and welfare. When the bank started to foreclose […]

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is warning that – even as the nation struggles to recover from the worst recession in 75 years – Congress must deal with an “unsustainable” level of debt.  “Our nation’s fiscal position has deteriorated appreciably since the onset of the financial crisis and the recession,” Bernanke said in testimony before […]

Washington, D.C.’s fabled Watergate Hotel – the site of the notorious 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters that set off the political scandal that toppled Richard M. Nixon’s presidency – has been sold and will be redeveloped as an “upper-upscale hotel”. According to The Wall Street Journal, Euro Capital Partners, a redevelopment specialist, […]

Bank of America (BofA) is taking steps to write down mortgage principal owed by thousands of underwater homeowners in what has been termed “the mortgage industry’s boldest move yet” to resolve the nation’s foreclosure problem.  Bank of America can well afford the initiative. According to Betsy Graseck, a Morgan Stanley analyst, the ultimate cost of […]