09/01/2009 - Only 6 Percent Of Eligible Homeowners Have Gotten Help Through Obama's Housing Program - Are the new program's growing pains responsible for the slow start, as bankers say, or is pain to their bottom lines really preventing the program from working, as critics say? - www.cnn.org
08/31/2009 - Wall Street Lobby Fights Against Derivatives Overhaul - Suiting up for a battle to protect one of its richest fiefdoms, the $592 trillion over-the-counter derivatives market that is facing the biggest overhaul since its creation 30 years ago. - www.huffingtonpost.org
08/31/2009 - FREE MONEY - FDIC Offers Billions In Guarantees To Buy Failed Banks, Bankers "Overjoyed". - www.huffingtonpost.org
08/30/2009 - When your home's appraisal is too low - the art of appraising is just that -- an art, not an exact science. And even though those who practice it hold the fate of sellers, buyers and refinancers in their hands, they are not gods. - www.heraldtribune.org
08/28/2009 - 1,000 Banks Could Fail In Next Two Years: John Kanas - According to Kanas, the second wave of failed institutions will include hundreds of smaller banks. "Many of these [failed] institutions no body has ever heard of. - www.huffingtonpost.org
08/31/2009 - Mortgage modifers must be licensed under new Florida law - Officials with the Attorney General's Office, saying the new requirements should help weed out questionable operators, supported the law. So did the Florida Association of Mortgage Brokers. - www.sun-sentinel.org
08/31/2009 - A ‘Little Judge’ Who Rejects Foreclosures, Brooklyn Style - Every week, the nation’s mightiest banks come to his court seeking to take the homes of New Yorkers who cannot pay their mortgages. - www.nytimes.org
08/31/2009 - Commercial Real Estate Lurks as Next Potential Mortgage Crisis - Similar mortgage-backed securities created out of home loans played a big role in undoing that sector and triggering the global economic recession. - www.wsj.org
08/28/2009 - Bank Numbers Reveal Troubling Trend On Main Street - Farm Incomes Down 38% - land values are still dropping, which has reduced farmers' chief source of collateral and made it difficult to borrow. - www.washingtonpost.org
08/28/2009 - Banks 'Too Big to Fail' Have Grown Even Bigger - 3 Banks Hold Almost 1/3 Of Deposits, Issue Half The Mortgages And 2/3 Of Credit Cards - www.washingtonpost.org
08/28/2009 - SBA Small Business Loans Act - a market that healed itselfast! - In the first nine months of 2008, lenders resold a monthly average of $327.9 million of the loans they made through the SBA's flagship 7(a) lending program, according to the SBA. - www.cnn.org
08/27/2009 - Act fast! Homebuyer tax credit ends soon - There's barely three months left before the $8,000 tax credit for first-time buyers ends -- and it can take that long to close on your new home. - www.cnn.org
08/27/2009 - Adjustable Rate Mortgage Loans Pose Threat To Recovery - Loans That Looked Easy Pose Threats to Recovery. More than a half-million option ARMs scheduled to reset in the next four years, at rates many homeowners cannot afford. - www.nytimes.org
08/26/2009 - Orange County FL fast out of the gate with help for housing - Orange County is outpacing other Florida governments in buying up homes or offering down-payment assistance to stabilize neighborhoods ravaged by the ongoing foreclosure crisis. - www.orlandosentinel.org
08/26/2009 - New home sales blast past expectations - That far exceeded analysts' forecasts and was up 9.6% from the revised 395,000 rate recorded in June. A consensus of industry experts surveyed by Briefing.com had predicted July sales of 390,000. - www.cnn.org
08/26/2009 - How "The Beanie Baby Bubble" Explains The Housing Crisis - At some point, the bubble reaches a point that is so ridiculous that greed takes over and all common sense must be suspended to continue the myth. - www.wsj.org
08/26/2009 - Subprime Culprits Are Modifying Loans With Billions In Taxpayer Money - Many of the lenders who helped fuel the subprime mortgage boom are now receiving billions in taxpayer money to modify those same loans. - www.huffingtonpost.org
08/25/2009 - SUBPRIME MENTAL HEALTH - Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine questioned 250 homeowners going through foreclosure in Philadelphia and found that 47 percent showed symptoms of depression, with 37 percent exhibiting signs of major depression. The rate was especially high considering previous research showed that only about 12.8 percent of people living in poverty were depressed, the study found. - www.sun-sentinel.org
08/23/2009 - Home loan modification firms and lawyers scrutinized - Consumer advocates said partnerships between mortgage modification firms and lawyers might be designed to work around Florida laws that bar upfront fees for mortgage work. - www.sun-sentinel.org
08/22/2009 - Existing homes selling fast - record fast - Sales of existing homes rose in July for the fourth consecutive month, lending support to economists who argue a recovery is near. - www.cnn.org
08/22/2009 - Bulk condo prices are still sinking - Setting a new post-crash low, an investment firm purchased 10 units of a Brickell condo project for only$156 per square foot. - www.miamiherald.org
08/22/2009 - Unemployment still rising in Miami-Dade, FL stoking real-estate fears - Miami-Dade's unemployment rate pushed past 11 percent in July for the first time since 1983, endangering a fragile recovery in the housing market. - www.miamiherald.org
08/22/2009 - Housing sales up sharply in the Sarasota-Bradenton FL area - July's sales performance was the biggest percentage point move in the region since June 2004. Nationally, sales spiked by the biggest amount in a decade. - www.heraldtribune.org
08/21/2009 - Lee County Florida home resales rise 104 percent in July - Of all the metro areas tracked in the report, Fort Myers-Cape Coral saw the biggest percentage increase in sales. But it also saw the largest drop in home prices. The median home price fell 43 percent to $89,000, down from $154,900 a year ago. - www.naplesnews.org
08/21/2009 - Has Government Intervention Stalled Home Price Declines? - Some housing analysts have made the case that home prices have stabilized in recent months, in part, because foreclosure moratoria earlier this year helped to limit the supply of homes coming on the market. - www.wsj.org
08/21/2009 - Why the 'Wave' of Foreclosure Listings Might Never Happen - Until recently that was mostly based on a gut level feeling that banks (servicers) simply didn't have the will to complete more foreclosures given the anti-foreclosure backlash. - www.wsj.org
08/21/2009 - Waiting to catch a wave? Surge of REO listings is unlikely. - One possibility: foreclosures will simply stay at an elevated level for the next couple years, he says, but there won't be a huge wave of inventory added all at once. - www.wsj.org
08/21/2009 - While Debt Mounts, Couple Chases BofA Loan Mod - There's all this propaganda, but when you try to work with them, nothing happens. We're in a holding pattern. - www.propublica.org
08/21/2009 - Most Failing Banks Are Doing It the Old-School Way - They did not make loans that they expected to sell quickly, so they had plenty of reason to care that the loans would be repaid. - www.nytimes.org
08/21/2009 - Sarasota-Bradenton home sales spike 30 percent in July - In Charlotte County-North Port, sales rose 24 percent in July, but the median sales price of $105,000 was down 26 percent from a year ago and 28 percent from June. - www.heraldtribune.org
08/21/2009 - Goodwill Profits During Recession - Goodwill of Southwest Pennsylvania CEO Michael Smith on the state of business. - www.foxbusiness.org
08/21/2009 - Existing homes sell at record pace - record fast - The volume of home re-sales has been on the upswing for four consecutive months. The only region reporting a slip in sales was the West, where they fell 1.7% to a rate of 1.13 million. - www.cnn.org
08/21/2009 - Homes still affordable - really affordable - The bright side of the housing bust: Homebuying has not been this affordable in a generation. Median income of $64,000 a year, could afford to buy 72.3% of all homes sold. - www.cnn.org
08/21/2009 - 4 million home loans are delinquent - Mortgage lenders say the flood of foreclosures has not yet crested. Highwater mark should come this fall. The number of Americans who have fallen at least 30 days behind on their home loan payments jumped 44% in the second quarter from a year ago, according to an industry report. - www.cnn.org
08/20/2009 - Foreclosure Woes Spread To Areas Once Thought Safe - Amid record levels of home foreclosures nationwide, there are worrying signs that the foreclosure crisis could be spreading to parts of the country that had previously been relatively unscathed. - www.npr.org
08/20/2009 - Credit card relief: Phase one Starts Today - The first part of Obama's crackdown on the credit card industry will give consumers more notice when contracts are changed and the option to reject interest rate increases. - www.cnn.com
08/19/2009 - Mr. Cleans for Hire Tasked With Tidying Foreclosed Homes - "I'm not ashamed of what I do, if that's what you're asking ... Someone's always got to do the bad work, the ugly work. If I don't do this job, somebody else will." - www.foxnews.com
08/19/2009 - Foreclosure cleanups erase a home's history - Business of restoring order to empty houses booming in Florida. - www.sun-sentinel.com
08/19/2009 - Harriet Johnson Brackey: Loan modification can hurt your credit - Starting in September, there's a new guideline for how lenders can report a loan modification to credit bureaus. They can classify it as a "partial payment" of your mortgage. And that can be a big negative mark on your credit report. - www.sun-sentinel.com
08/19/2009 - Commercial real estate tenants benefiting amid downturn - Just as the housing market cratered following a five-year boom, the commercial sector is struggling amid a similar meltdown. Values have tanked, leading to building foreclosures, and credit is tight for business owners and developers alike. - www.sun-sentinel.com
08/19/2009 - Unemployment Spike Compounds Foreclosure Crisis - unemployment is overtaking subprime mortgages as the main driver of foreclosures, according to bankers and economists, threatening to send even higher the number of borrowers who will lose their homes and making the foreclosure crisis far more complicated to unwind. - www.washingtonpost.com
08/18/2009 - Mediation urged before foreclosures - A special foreclosure task force established by the Florida Supreme Court has recommended that lenders and borrowers try to resolve their disputes outside of the courts before a foreclosure case can proceed. - www.sun-sentinel.com
08/18/2009 - Homestead woman's house auctioned by mistake - Anna Ramirez was evicted by a man who bought her house - even though her house wasn't for sale. The bank, Washington Mutual, auctioned the house off by mistake while Ramirez was in the process of modifying her loan.
www.justnews.com - VIDEO -
08/18/2009 - County and most cities in Broward propose tax hikes - Twenty-six of 31 cities, as well as Broward County Florida government, both hospital districts and the local children services agency, are looking at raising tax rates and fees on property owners this year. - www.sun-sentinel.com
08/18/2009 - Mortgage Delinquencies Hit Record In 2Q, Up 65 Percent From Last Year - Deliquency of 60 days is considered a precursor to foreclosure, because of the difficulty homeowners would have coming up with two back payments to bring themselves current. - www.huffingtonpost.com
08/18/2009 - Distressed Borrowers Squeezed By Property Tax Bills - And High Interest Rates - Tax Bills Put Pressure on Struggling Homeowners. Private investors step in and buy tax liens, paying governments upfront all or part of the value of the taxes. The investors then get the right to foreclose on the properties, taking priority over mortgage lenders, and to charge interest rates as high as 18 percent on the unpaid taxes. - www.nytimes.com
08/18/2009 - Condo Owners Look to Fight Foreclosures - Condo Association seeks to become building to become Shoreline Towers Condominium Association VP Chris Simpler on what the association is doing to prevent foreclosures and keep their condo values from declining. - www.foxbusiness.com
08/18/2009 - Housing starts declined 1% in July, confounding analysts, who expected a 2.7% increase - Housing starts declined 1% in July, confounding analysts, who expected a 2.7% increase - www.foxbusiness.com
08/17/2009 - CREDIT CARD COMPANIES RUSHING TO JACK UP RATES - Cost of credit card debt soaring. THE SAVAGE TRUTH | Issuers raising rates, planning more fees as first consumer protections kick in this week - www.suntimes.com
08/16/2009 - Toxic Loans Topping 5% May Push 150 Banks to Point of No Return - Missed payments by consumers, builders and small businesses pushed 72 lenders into failure this year, the most since 1992. More collapses may lie ahead as the recession causes increased defaults and swells the confidential U.S. list of "problem banks," which stood at 305 in the first quarter. - www.bloomberg.com
08/16/2009 - Home Prices: There's No Quick Recovery Ahead - But before we break out the champagne, look out for further potential problems just down the road. Case-Shiller Home Price Index - www.wsj.com
08/16/2009 - The Second Wave of the Credit Crisis - First in a three-part series; with reporting from Fox News analyst James Farrell - www.foxbusiness.com
08/15/2009 - BB&T Takes Over Colonial's Deposits, Branches; 5th-Biggest Bank Failure - The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. estimates the failure will cost its deposit-insurance fund $2.8 billion. - www.foxbusiness.com
08/15/2009 - BB&T buys Colonial bank; 4 other banks fail - Southern regional bank Colonial BancGroup sees rival grab its branches and deposits. - www.cnn.com
08/15/2009 - Colonial's failure could make mortgages more scarce - Colonial BancGroup controls 25% of all warehouse-lending funds. If that money disappears, mortgage loans will be even harder to get. - www.cnn.com
08/15/2009 - 'Short Payoffs' Help Ohioans Keep Homes - In Ohio, foreclosure rescue funds were intended to help borrowers become "current" on mortgage payments. Now the funds are being coupled with whatever some mortgage holders can afford to complete a buyout of their loan obligations - sometimes for as little as 10 cents on the dollar.
www.npr.org - LISTEN TO THE STORY -
08/15/2009 - Foreclosures Loom Large For Middle Class - And as the crisis expands, it's dragging down more middle-class Americans who are making less money because of the battered economy.
www.npr.org - LISTEN TO THE STORY -
08/14/2009 - Levels from 2008 is Where Housing Will Be in 2012 - Home prices are likely to fall for the next year, then stabilize, with a rebound in 2012 as the overall economy takes off again
www.businessweek.com - VIDEO -
08/14/2009 - Toxic Loans Topping 5% May Push 150 Banks to Point of No Return - The number of banks exceeding the threshold more than doubled in the year through June, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, as real estate and credit-card defaults surged. - www.bloomberg.com
08/14/2009 - Survey: More Home Sellers Cutting Prices - A total of 24.4% of homes had their prices reduced in July, up from June's 23.6%. The average discount was 10% from the original price, or $40,173 of a median house value. - www.foxbusiness.com
08/14/2009 - Orlando remains foreclosures 'hot spot' - Orlando ranked 15th out of more than 200 metropolitan areas across the country. In June it had ranked 14th - and in May, eighth. Florida dropped from third place among U.S. states in June to fourth in July. - www.orlandosentinel.com
08/14/2009 - Report says Sarasota among nation's most undervalued markets - US News & World Report's list of the nation's 12 most undervalued real estate markets in the country. Sarasota is the second city mentioned, after Houston and before Las Vegas. Also on the list: Atlanta, San Francisco, Naples and Oklahoma City. - www.realestatetoday.com
08/14/2009 - Loophole in government program to buy toxic securities could cost taxpayers - Without safeguards, traders in the $40-billion program could use inside information to profit -- and any losses would be largely borne by taxpayers. - www.latimes.com
08/13/2009 - Bankruptcy Filings Up 35 Percent Over Previous Year - Individuals and businesses filed 1.3 million bankruptcy cases in the year ended June 30, an increase of 35 percent over the previous year, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts said today. - www.legaltimes.com
08/13/2009 - Nothing Has Changed On Wall St: The Casino Ethos Is Alive And Well - Recent evidence suggests not only has Wall Street survived, but it is essentially unchanged. The casino ethos is alive and well in the record value-at-risk numbers at some firms and the hand-wringing at rivals that temporarily short-leashed trading desks and suffered lower profits as a result. Bonuses are rising and banks are hiring again to capture gains in the volatile commodities and other speculation-fueled markets. - www.wsj.com
08/13/2009 - If the recession did not get you, the recovery might - Difficult and dangerous times lie ahead. They will test businesses to the limit. I am referring not to the recession - old news from the viewpoint of the City and the media - but to the recovery. - www.ft.com
08/13/2009 - Citi's Toxic Pools, dirty pool of assets - Reuters: Bank's Bad Assets Are A Government-Guaranteed "Cesspool". The bank's finance team has stuffed neatly into something called the "Special Asset Pool." - www.reuters.com
08/13/2009 - Foreclosure Plague "Continued To Devastate" In July - The housing market is still sick, with a record number of foreclosure filings posted in July. - www.cnn.com
08/12/2009 - Take This Mortgage and Cram It - "Cram-downs" are bankruptcy-court-ordered mortgage modifications. They usually involve reduction of mortgage principal and lowering of debt service payments. Cram-downs are allowed for most types of debt but are specifically prohibited for home loans. - www.huffingtonpost.com
08/12/2009 - Unsold Central Florida mansions bedevil builders - Some are trying to unload masterpiece homes at half the price they had been asking in 2007. Others are faced with having to wait for buyers for the first time in more than a decade. And still others warn that this may be the end of the speculative, high-end-home market in Orlando. - www.orlandosentinel.com
08/12/2009 - 47 percent of South Florida homeowners underwater on mortgages - South Florida homeowners underwater in their mortgages grew between the first and second quarter of the year, figures from Zillow.com show. - www.miamiherald.com
08/12/2009 - Toxic Assets May Still Pose A Risk, Says Oversight Panel - Despite signs that the financial system has stabilized, banks remain threatened by billions of dollars of bad loans on their balance sheets, and more could fail if the economy worsens, a congressional watchdog reports. - www.huffingtonpost.com
08/12/2009 - Elizabeth Warren Talks Toxic Assets On MSNBC (VIDEO) - "By and large, the toxic assets that brought us to this point are still on the bank's books," she said.
www.huffingtonpost.com - VIDEO -
08/12/2009 - Saving homes with a 'right to rent' - This "right to rent" policy would require no taxpayer money, no new bureaucracy and could immediately benefit homeowners facing foreclosure. - www.latimes.com
08/12/2009 - NAR: Existing Home Sales Fall in Second Quarter - fell 2.9% in the second quarter from the year-earlier period, the National Association of Realtors said Wednesday. - www.foxbusiness.com
08/12/2009 - Isn't Missing an $8 Trillion Housing Bubble a Mistake? - It would be difficult to imagine a more catastrophic mistake by an economic policymaker (Bernanke) than missing such an enormous economic behavior. - www.prospect.org
08/12/2009 - Mortgage Applications Drop as Loan Rates Rise - reflecting a drop in demand for home refinancing loans as interest rates soared to their highest levels since June - www.foxbusiness.com
08/12/2009 - Going, going, gone. Goodbye local bank branch - Lenders are culling locations as a result of the recession and industry consolidation. How deep will they go? - www.cnn.com
08/11/2009 - Toxic Assets May Still Pose A Risk, Says Oversight Panel - If unemployment rises sharply or the commercial real estate market collapses - as many economists fear - the banking system could again lose its footing, the panel says in a report to be released Tuesday. - www.huffingtonpost .com
08/11/2009 - Making Home Affordable: The Waiting Game - Last week, the US Treasury reported that only 9% of eligible homeowners had been helped by the Obama Administration's Making Home Affordable program. - www.huffingtonpost .com
08/11/2009 - You didn't really lose in housing free fall - New research shows that current home values are just about where they would have been if the real-estate bubble had never inflated and burst. - www.orlandosentinel .com
08/11/2009 - South Florida a hot spot for 'underwater' borrowers - Nearly half of the single-family mortgage holders in South Florida owe more than their houses are worth, a worrisome reminder of the region's 3 1/2-year housing slump. - www.sun-sentinel.com
08/11/2009 - Distressed real estate. Visa opportunity drawing foreign investors to Florida - As the region's real estate market continues to buckle under unsold properties, widespread foreclosures and failed condo projects, new interest in investor visas is helping whet the already hearty appetite of foreign nationals being drawn to the market by steep bargains. - www.cnn.com
08/11/2009 - The incredible shrinking home - The size of newly built homes fell in 2008 for the first time in almost 15 years. Is the McMansion era on the wane? - www.cnn.com
08/10/2009 - Bank Bailout Money Into the Abyss - Where Is The Bank Bailout Money Going? (VIDEO)
www.huffingtonpost.com - VIDEO -
08/10/2009 - Lack of Financing in Commercial Real Estate? - Marcus and Millichap CEO Harvey Green on the problem in the commercial real estate market. - www.foxbusiness.com
08/09/2009 - Shrinking homes: - Economy, lifestyle changes are spurring a demand for smaller houses. Planned a 3,000-square-foot retirement home, downsized their dream into a 336-square-foot country cabin. - www.miamiherald.com
08/09/2009 - Buy foreclosures now - before it's too late - In many markets, if you want to buy a repossessed property, you better come with your best offer first -- and fast. - www.cnn.com
08/09/2009 - Banks line up for second round of TARP - Overwhelmed by loan losses, some hard-hit lenders are hitting up the Treasury Department for even more money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program. - www.cnn.com
08/09/2009 - Just Say No! - No end in sight for bank bailouts - After rescuing the nation's banking system from utter disaster last fall, Washington now faces an arguably much trickier task: putting the bailout genie back in the bottle. - www.cnn.com
08/07/2009 - Bad Credit, Bankruptcies Prevent The Unemployed From Getting Hired - Another Hurdle for the Jobless: Credit Inquiries - Digging out of debt keeps getting harder for the unemployed as more companies use detailed credit checks to screen job prospects. - www.nytimes.com
08/07/2009 - Why Loan Modifications Don't Happen - Part of the problem is that investors have a say in which loans get modified and which don't. Karen Weise from ProPublica reports.
marketplace.publicradio.org - LISTEN -
08/07/2009 - Analyzing the Loan Modification Process - Homeowners with securitized mortgages could be disproportionately denied modifications under the federal Making Home Affordable program. - www.huffingtonpost.com
08/07/2009 - Banks line up for second round of TARP - Under regulatory pressure and facing few capital-raising options, some small lenders are looking to the government for help. Again. - www.cnn.com
08/06/2009 - Commercial Real Estate's Ticking Time Bonds - Second in the three-part series, "The Second Wave of the Credit Crisis"; with reporting from Fox News analyst James Farrell. - www.foxbusiness.com
08/06/2009 - Countrywide Financial to begin making settlement payments - making cash payments of at least $3,000 to each of its Florida customers who have experienced a foreclosure or fallen behind on mortgage payments within four months of getting their loan. - www.miamiherald.com
08/06/2009 - Countrywide mortgage not living up to deal, critics say - eight months after Countrywide launched a court-approved program that was supposed to aggressively modify mortgages -- borrowers trapped in the problem loans say the company is not living up to the terms of settlement. - www.miamiherald.com
08/06/2009 - Half of mortgage borrowers will be 'underwater' - If our home-price forecast is correct, roughly one in two mortgage borrowers and one in three homeowners will owe more than their home is worth, - www.cnn.com
08/06/2009 - Homeowner rallying cry:
show me the note - Homeowners facing foreclosure may be able to hold onto their homes by making a simple request of their bank: Show me the note. - www.myfoxorlando.com
08/06/2009 - FOX Orlando TV Station Spreads Word on "Produce the Note" - If you believe you've been treated unfairly, fight back. We have created templates for a legal request, a letter to your lender and a motion to compel to help you through the process. Read the step by step "how to" under the videos. - www.consumerwarningnetwork.com
08/06/2009 - Produce The Note "How-To" - If you believe you've been treated unfairly, fight back. We have created templates for a legal request, a letter to your lender and a motion to compel to help you through the process. Read the step by step "how to" under the videos. - www.consumerwarningnetwork.com
08/06/2009 - Mortgage program is enriching middlemen, not homeowners - Billions of dollars the government is spending to help homeowners avert foreclosure are passing through --and enriching -- companies accused of preying on the people they are supposed to help. - www.heraldtribune.com
08/06/2009 - Drywall discovery sets off a struggle - When a home inspection yields bad news, a Manatee County couple's dream deal turns ugly. - www.heraldtribune.com
08/05/2009 - Why Taxpayers Should Say Goodbye To The TARP Bailout Money: Fortune - TARP bailout money we can kiss goodbye. The government made money on American Express and Goldman Sachs, but 628 banks with outstanding debts are in considerably weaker condition. - www.cnn.com
08/05/2009 - Half Of All U.S. Mortgages 'Underwater' By 2011: Deutsche Bank - Underwater Mortgages to Hit 48%, Deutsche Bank. Underwater loans may rise to 48 percent, or 25 million homes, as prices drop through the first quarter of 2011 - www.bloomberg.com
08/05/2009 - Obama Administration Considers Splitting Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac - U.S. Considers Remaking Mortgage Giants 'Bad Bank' Would Wipe Slate Clean for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac by Taking Their Toxic Loans - www.washingtonpost.com
08/05/2009 - Goldman Under Fire: Regulators Inquire About Bank's Bonuses, Derivatives Trading - In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Goldman said it is cooperating with the requests from undisclosed regulators. - www.huffingtonpost.com
08/05/2009 - Luxury prices keep falling: - Mansions priced at $1 million-plus are harder to sell, so owners ask for less and add perks. - www.miamiherald.com
08/05/2009 - New appraisal rules hurt buyers and sellers - The new federal Home Valuation Code of Conduct requires appraisers to be hired by middlemen rather than local loan agents, with the hope of improving accuracy. - www.miamiherald.com
08/05/2009 - New home-appraisal rule brings turmoil to real estate industrys - Hillestad said the code has the potential to kill the country's budding real estate recovery by depressing prices even more than the foreclosure crisis. If willing sellers and buyers agree on a price, the appraisal shouldn't scuttle the deal, he said. - www.miamiherald.com
08/05/2009 - U.S. criticizes Bank of America, Wells Fargo - In its first monthly report on mortgage modifications, the U.S. found fault with Bank of America and Wells Fargo. - www.miamiherald.com
08/05/2009 - Defective drywall could slash Broward property tax bills - Suspect Chinese drywall could reduce home values further, in the midst of an already depressed South Florida real estate landscape. - www.miamiherald.com
08/05/2009 - Miami Urban revival as planned - A once-seedy area of Biscayne Boulevard has been brought to life. Could the Miami 21 rezoning plan do the same for the rest of the city? - www.miamiherald.com
08/05/2009 - The Second Wave of the Crisis - Can the government rescue the commercial real estate market? - www.foxbusiness.com
08/05/2009 - Is Obama's foreclosure rescue plan working? - CNNMoney.com readers tell us their tribulations and triumphs trying to get their loans modified or refinanced. - www.cnn.com- PICTURE GALLERY -
08/05/2009 - Lured back to prime neighborhoods - Thanks to sinking home prices, these 5 homebuyers were able to score deals in areas they couldn't previously afford. - www.cnn.com- PICTURE GALLERY -
07/30/2009 - Senate Probes Goldman, Deutsche Bank For Mortgage Meltdown Fraud - A Senate panel has subpoenaed financial institutions seeking evidence of fraud in last year's mortgage-market meltdown, according to people familiar with the situation. - www.businessweek.com
08/05/2009 - Buy foreclosures now - before it's too late - In many markets, if you want to buy a repossessed property, you better come with your best offer first -- and fast. - www.cnn.com
08/04/2009 - How Mortgage Companies Fared - The Treasury released its first report ranking mortgage companies' loan modifications - www.foxbusiness.com
08/04/2009 - LOST DECADES: Income Loss Persists Long After Layoffs - After Layoffs, Income Levels Can Take 15-20 Years To Recover - www.nytimes.com
08/01/2009 - Q&A with Michael Lewis - (Part 1): - "A Real Chance There's Going to Be an Uprising". Liar's Poker author. As a former Salomon Brothers trader, Lewis could understand how individuals got caught up in the high-risk bubble. - www.huffingtonpost.com
08/04/2009 - Q&A with Michael Lewis - (Part 2): - The Rules of the Game Were Totally Screwed Up. Liar's Poker author - www.huffingtonpost.com
08/04/2009 - Joseph Stiglitz On Bank Bailout - "We Got A Bad Deal" - Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz appeared on Yahoo's Tech Ticker recently, and had some pointed words regarding the massive bank bailouts.
www.huffingtonpost.com - VIDEO -
08/04/2009 - Geithner Unleashes Profanity-Laced Tirade On Bank Regulators - blasted top U.S. financial regulators in an expletive-laced critique last Friday as frustration grows over the Obama administration's faltering plan to overhaul U.S. financial regulation. - www.huffingtonpost.com
08/04/2009 - Financial Times Op-Ed: Why Banks Need Strict Compensation Rules - While the need to reform pay arrangements is now widely accepted, many believe that such reforms should be left to corporate boards and that government intervention should be limited to ensuring the adequacy of corporate governance processes. - www.ft.com
08/04/2009 - Home Loan Modifications: Only 15 Percent Of Eligible Have Been Offered Mortgage Help - The government's $50 billion program to ease the foreclosure crisis is helping only a tiny fraction of struggling homeowners. - www.huffingtonpost.com
08/03/2009 - Krugman: If You Aren't Outraged, You Aren't Paying Attention - Americans are angry at Wall Street, and rightly so. First the financial industry plunged us into economic crisis, then it was bailed out at taxpayer expense. - www.nytimes.com
08/03/2009 - Bank Of America Settles With SEC For $33M Over Merrill Deal - The bonuses amount to nearly 12 percent of the $50 billion Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America paid for Merrill. - www.huffingtonpost.com
08/03/2009 - The Leaner Baby Boomer Economy - The downturn is putting a crimp on baby boomers' free-spending ways, and the likes of Mercedes and Starwood Hotels are scrambling to keep up - www.businessweek.com
08/02/2009 - Foreclosure rates stabilize in 3 hard-hit states, even while joblessness holds back economy - California, Arizona and Florida - stabilized in June, offering hope that the worst of the real estate crisis is over, according to The Associated Press' monthly analysis of economic stress in more than 3,100 U.S. counties. - www.startribune.com
08/02/2009 - Welcome to the bottom: Housing begins slow rebound - By every measure, except foreclosures, the housing market has stabilized and many areas are recovering, according to a spate of data released in the past two weeks. - www.huffingtonpost.com
08/01/2009 - Bankers Reaped Lavish Bonuses During Bailouts - Nine of the financial firms that were among the largest recipients of federal bailout money paid about 5,000 of their traders and bankers - www.nytimes.com
08/01/2009 - Should Employers Know Your Credit Score? - Matthew Levine, checkpast.com Vice President, on why many job seekers are going into their interviews with a bad hand.
www.foxbusiness.com - VIDEO -
