Posts Tagged ‘housing’

In response to the tanking housing market, Minnesota passed some pretty strong mortgage industry regulation last year. Alex Stenback points to an article in the Strib reporting that there are now less than half as many mortgage originators as last year. And 50 mortgage brokers surrendered their licenses, as well.
More than 50 Minnesota mortgage brokers [...]

The Minnesota legislature put the Subprime Borrower Relief Act on Governor Pawlenty’s desk last week. The Act would have put Minnesota home foreclosures on hold for a year to give homeowners a chance to sell, refinance, or negotiate a workout plan with their lenders.
It was, in all respects, a reasonable and fair compromise that would [...]

The Justice Department and the National Association of Realtors reached a tentative settlement in an antitrust lawsuit. The NAR was seriously hampering the ability of newer, lower-cost realtors to list properties for sale online. As anyone who has recently gone house-shopping knows, you have to go to a traditional broker if you want to see [...]

The Subprime Borrower Relief Act gives borrowers with subprime loans the right to defer a foreclosure sale of their residence for one year after the bill becomes law.

I was amused to read Mark Ireland’s post saying he came under fire by members of a panel on foreclosures at the recent Equal Justice Conference in Minneapolis for suggesting that mortgage loan servicers are not acting in the best interest of either consumers or lenders. I thought that was common knowledge.
Servicers make money from [...]

Here are the blog posts I starred in Google Reader last week. (If you use Google Reader, you can subscribe to my shared items.)

The Alphonso Jackson Legacy. Mark Ireland comments on the Washington Post’s look at the legacy of HUD chief (and Bush appointee) Alphonso Jackson. While Jackson oversaw the government body in charge of [...]

Mark Ireland, former Minnesota Assistant Attorney General, took a look at what the three remaining presidential candidates are saying about the foreclosure crisis and translated their campaign-speak into good ol’ American English.
According to Ireland’s commentary, only Obama has a real plan. He would increase penalties for fraudulent lending, create a foreclosure-prevention fund, create a standardized [...]

From the New York Times, a beautiful graph (seriously, look at that!) showing the impact of the subprime mortgage mess across the U.S.:

(Click for big.)
The Twin Cities is definitely one of the hardest-hit, but just look at Florida!
[via City Pages, The Blotter]

Looks like YouWalkAway.com was one of those “right place, right time” startups. Bloomberg reports that foreclosures are skyrocketing as more and more homeowners just give up. Mortgages are secured loans, after all. Banks just never counted on having to accept the collateral instead of the payback. [via Consumerist]

I guess better late than never. The NYTimes is reporting that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has opened criminal inquiries into 14 companies as part of a wide-ranging investigation of the troubled mortgage industry. The F.B.I. is supposedly looking into possible accounting fraud, insider trading or other violations in connection with loans made to borrowers [...]