News

Restrictions Are the Rule For All Sorts of Once-Easy Credit - Sat, 03 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT
Like a spreading infection, restrictions on credit are moving into new and more specialized niches of the mortgage market.

'Declining Markets' and Self-Fulfilling Prophecies - Sat, 26 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT
Could designations of Zip codes, metropolitan areas and entire states as "declining markets" hinder a real estate recovery and hurt minority groups and moderate-income buyers disproportionately? Growing ranks of critics say yes.

Putting a Big Squeeze On Condo Loans - Sat, 19 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT
If you own or plan to buy a condominium, an ominous new phase of the mortgage-credit squeeze could be looming for you.

Walking Out of a Mortgage And Into Years of Hurt - Sat, 12 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT
The country's two largest sources of mortgage money have a blunt warning for anyone thinking about joining the growing "walkaway" trend, in which homeowners stop making payments and months later send the house keys back to their lender: You will feel the pain.

Up With the Down Payment - Sat, 05 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT
Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee, proposed something last week that no other major presidential candidate has advocated in decades: raising minimum down-payment levels for home mortgages.

Jumbo Loans Are Reborn, But Terms Are Stiffer - Sat, 29 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EDT
Your tax rebate check won't arrive until May, but the economic stimulus plan's new super-size loans for buyers in high-cost housing areas have hit the market.

Help From HUD To Simplify Settlement - Sat, 22 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EDT
Almost anyone who has bought a house or taken out a mortgage in recent years knows the problems:

Fighting Back Against Corrupt Appraisals - Sat, 15 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EDT
Property appraisers have been warning about it for a decade, and the real estate market is reaping the whirlwind: The home price declines around the country are partly the result of systemic, intentional overvaluations on home appraisals -- much of them at the behest of loan officers illegally influencing or threatening appraisers to get them to "hit the number" needed to close the deal.

Veterans' Loans Left Out of Stimulus Plan - Sat, 08 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EST
When Congress and the White House put together the $150 billion economic stimulus package, they raised the maximum mortgage limits in high-cost areas for Fannie Mae,Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration.

Roadblock to Refinancing - Sat, 01 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EST
Everybody wants to help keep people in their houses and out of financial stress and foreclosure, right?

With New Limits, New Reasons To Question Mortgage Costs - Sat, 23 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST
A seemingly arcane policy change by mortgage investor Freddie Mac sheds new light on issues of much broader concern for consumers: Do you really understand where the money flows -- all the nooks and crannies -- when you take out a mortgage and pay thousands of dollars in fees at settlement?

Mortgage Insurer Tightens Up - Sat, 16 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST
First it was the lenders. Now it's the mortgage insurers. Entire product lines are being yanked, potentially squeezing large numbers of home buyers and refinancers out of the marketplace.

Lawsuit Takes Aim At 'Junk' Fees - Sat, 09 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST
Just about anybody who has bought a home or taken out a mortgage in the past five years has run into them in some form: mysterious fees charged by real estate brokers, lenders, builders and title agents -- "admin," "processing," "doc-prep" and "regulatory compliance" are among the opaque names -- that added $200 to $500 to the bottom line at settlement.

Zip Code 'Redlining': A Sweeping View of Risk - Sat, 02 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST
Critics call it the new redlining: Many of the country's largest mortgage lenders are imposing loan restrictions in entire counties or Zip codes that they rank as risky or "declining."

Appraiser's Lawsuit Puts Lenders on Notice - Sat, 26 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST
Real estate appraisers have complained for years about demands from loan officers that they fudge and inflate numbers to allow mortgage deals to close.

Lower Rates, Coming Resets: An Opening For Refinancing - Sat, 19 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST
Is it a refi renaissance? Or a fast-closing window of opportunity?

Borrowers Seeking Help May Feel Lost at Sea - Sat, 12 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST
The rolling tsunami of home-loan delinquencies and foreclosures is exposing serious problems in the mortgage industry's capacity to quickly handle borrowers' requests for help -- whether loan modifications, rate freezes or short sales to ward off foreclosure.

There's Reason For Hope Next Year - Sat, 29 Dec 2007 00:00:00 EST
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.

Senate Finally Acts to Help Borrowers - Sat, 22 Dec 2007 00:00:00 EST
Reversing months of inaction in a single day, the Senate recently passed two major bills that could help thousands of homeowners struggling with unaffordable mortgages or heading for foreclosure.

A Good Credit Score Puts Help at Risk - Sat, 15 Dec 2007 00:00:00 EST
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" interest rate freezes on their subprime mortgages and which don't.

Once Ranked Prime, Now They're Pinched - Sat, 08 Dec 2007 00:00:00 EST
Call it the credit risk hangover after the housing boom binge. Home buyers and refinancers who cannot come up with sizable down payments and whose FICO credit scores are below 680 are about to get squeezed in the mortgage market.

Big Rebukes On Title Referrals - Sat, 01 Dec 2007 00:00:00 EST
Rigged appraisals, lax underwriting and toxic loans may dominate the headlines, but they are hardly the only issues causing problems in residential real estate.

Senators' Attitude on Housing Relief: What's the Rush? - Sat, 24 Nov 2007 00:00:00 EST
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.

Bits of Bad News Obscure A Big Truth About Wealth - Sat, 17 Nov 2007 00:00:00 EST
With the daily bad news about the state of the housing market, it's easy to lose sight of some larger economic realities: Despite declining prices in many markets, homeowners still control near-record equity holdings, just under $11 trillion.

Lawsuit Seeks to Deflate The Puffery in Appraisals - Sat, 10 Nov 2007 00:00:00 EST
When an appraiser hired by your mortgage company confirms that the house you are buying is worth what you're paying, that's reassuring.

Reprieve for the 'Piggybackers': Still No Credit-Score Crackdown - Sat, 03 Nov 2007 00:00:00 EDT
"Piggyback" credit-score-inflation schemes for mortgage applicants haven't been reined in, despite industry pledges to do so at the end of the summer. As a result, lenders continue to be misled into treating loan applicants with poor credit as prime-credit candidates, worsening already critical delinquency problems in the mortgage market.

New Ideas In Congress, But Not All Have Traction - Sat, 27 Oct 2007 00:00:00 EDT
Distress in the mortgage market is generating a wave of relief bills on Capitol Hill, including one that would allow homeowners to tap into their retirement accounts -- penalty-free -- to bring their loans current or to refinance.

Vultures Are Circling Over Distressed Properties - Sat, 20 Oct 2007 00:00:00 EDT
Call them grave dancers, vulture funds, turnaround specialists or the more euphemistic "opportunity investors." However you identify them, the deal is the same: When hyperactive real estate markets lose their sizzle, or property owners no longer can afford to hang on to their houses, well-capitalized investors smell blood and move in.

'Tax' on Interest Deductions Gains Support - Sat, 13 Oct 2007 00:00:00 EDT
Although the real estate industry opposes the plan, a key House committee leader's proposal for "carbon tax" cuts in mortgage interest deductions is attracting strong support from environmental and scientific groups.

For the Distressed, Tax Relief. For Others, a Bigger Bite. - Sat, 06 Oct 2007 00:00:00 EDT
In a tax-Peter-to-pay-Paul move, the House voted Thursday to permanently remove the "phantom income" tax penalty that haunts financially distressed homeowners whose debt is partially forgiven by a lender after a foreclosure or a short sale to avoid foreclosure.

Borrowers Are Feeling Some Heat, but It's Not a 'Mortgage Meltdown' - Sat, 29 Sep 2007 00:00:00 EDT
The term "mortgage meltdown" has become so common -- on TV, in headlines and in casual conversations -- that you might assume that this is a tough time to get a mortgage.

High Appraisals Signal Change - Sat, 22 Sep 2007 00:00:00 EDT
What's going on with appraisals? In some parts of the country, mortgage lenders -- and appraisers themselves -- say they're increasingly coming in with valuations higher than the contract prices agreed to by sellers and buyers.

Finding Bright Spots Among the Dark Clouds - Sat, 15 Sep 2007 00:00:00 EDT
Just how bad is the foreclosure situation? If you caught summaries of the latest delinquency and foreclosure numbers released by the Mortgage Bankers Association, you could only conclude: Yikes, it is getting scary out there.

Two Days Apart, Two Reports Tell Two Stories About Prices - Sat, 08 Sep 2007 00:00:00 EDT
How worried should homeowners or sellers be? Looking at two nationally quoted measures of house values, you might be perplexed.

Fed Examines Credit Scores, Finds No Bias - Sat, 01 Sep 2007 00:00:00 EDT
In a report to Congress that is certain to generate controversy, the Federal Reserve Board says that credit scores vary "substantially" among racial and ethnic groups but that their use has made credit more available for major purchases such as buying homes.

Tax Deduction Under Fire for 'McMansions' - Sat, 25 Aug 2007 00:00:00 EDT
To add to the mortgage meltdown miseries, the credit panic, the plunging home sales and the rising foreclosures, here's a new worry: a proposed cutoff of mortgage-interest tax deductions for houses with more than 3,000 square feet.

New Credit Standards Squeeze Buyers - Sat, 18 Aug 2007 00:00:00 EDT
The mortgage credit crunch is not only affecting interest rates that home buyers are quoted, but it is also triggering changes in less visible areas, such as minimum credit scores, location and type of properties,and even controls on who orders credit reports.

Micro-Booms Defy the Downturn - Sat, 11 Aug 2007 00:00:00 EDT
Although real estate sales and prices are flat or down in dozens of metropolitan areas, micro-markets within them are performing differently, with prices and sales up over last year and plenty of buyers still wanting to move in.

A Boost for Credit Scores - Sat, 04 Aug 2007 00:00:00 EDT
A major credit card company is ending a long-standing practice that critics have said raised many of its customers' borrowing costs when they applied for mortgages and home-equity loans.

New Door Opens for Immigrants - Sat, 21 Jul 2007 00:00:00 EDT
Leonardo Simpser has blunt advice for home buyers considering a funny-money subprime loan requiring no documentation: Don't!

Paths to Relief For Boomers in Debt - Sat, 14 Jul 2007 00:00:00 EDT
Howare baby boomers who are still carrying hefty first and second mortgages going to pay them off?

Subprime Lenders On Notice - Sat, 07 Jul 2007 00:00:00 EDT
It won't mean the end of high-risk mortgages for subprime home buyers, but new guidance from federal financial regulators will almost certainly cut sharply the availability of some such loans.

Look to the Past For Solutions - Sat, 30 Jun 2007 00:00:00 EDT
What kind of financing is possible for home buyers and sellers worried about rising mortgage rates, Wall Street bond-market jitters and soft home prices?

Mortgage Forms Sow Confusion - Sat, 23 Jun 2007 00:00:00 EDT
With mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures soaring, federal researchers have identified a key contributing factor: Many borrowers simply do not understand their mortgages -- especially subprime loans that come with complex features and costly penalties.

Putting a Stop To a Credit Ruse - Sat, 16 Jun 2007 00:00:00 EDT
The days may be numbered for dozens of Internet-based companies that promise to quickly boost FICO credit scores by 200 to 300 points.

Full Commissions Make a Comeback - Sat, 09 Jun 2007 00:00:00 EDT
The tough market for home sales may be spurring a surprise side effect on real estate commissions: For the first time in years, the average commission rate on closed sales nationwide rose slightly last year.

Reprisals on Appraisals - Sat, 02 Jun 2007 00:00:00 EDT
A federal class-action lawsuit is focusing attention on an issue that's important to homeowners nationwide: Who -- or what -- tells you how much your property is worth?

Congress's Second Chance to Save the Day - Sat, 26 May 2007 00:00:00 EDT
With more credit-stressed mortgage borrowers falling behind on their payments, will Congress step in and throw them a lifeline?

Discriminating Lenders, or Just Discrimination? - Sat, 19 May 2007 00:00:00 EDT
When mortgage lenders refuse to write loans on central-city rowhouses, does that violate federal fair-housing rules?

A 'No-Fee' Mortgage That Might Be for Real - Sat, 12 May 2007 00:00:00 EDT
Home loan industry competitors are searching for hidden gimmicks, but Bank of America insists that its "no-fee mortgage plus" plan announced this week delivers exactly what the name implies -- without raising interest rates to applicants.