10/30/2009 - Campaign Asks Bankers To Donate Bonuses To Homeowners Risking Foreclosure - Economist and writer Katerina Alexandraki has launched a creative idea for easing the housing crunch this holiday season. She's asking Wall Streeters getting big bonuses to contribute them to folks in danger of losing their homes. - www.businessweek.org
Read More: BONUS for HOMES, ADDIE POLK'S EVICTION

10/27/2009 - U.S. schools homeowners to spot loan rescue scams - launched on Monday by government agencies, local leaders and housing advocates to stop scammers preying on desperate borrowers nationwide. - www.reuters.org

10/27/2009 - Thousands Protest Bankers' Conference - Taxpayers Rally Outside Chicago Convention For Third Day In A Row - Thousands of people gathered in Chicago today in front of the American Bankers Association annual convention to protest what they consider to be the group's long history of resistance to financial reform - www.huffingtonpost.com

10/26/2009 - Home prices continue rebound - Case-Shiller index shows fourth straight month-over-month increase. Year-over-year decline moderates more than expected. - www.cnn.com

10/26/2009 - Borrowers Should Beware Home Equity Loans - Bank charge-offs - loans written off as uncollectable - have reached $116 billion year to date, or 2.9 percent of outstanding loans on an annualized basis, Moody's said in a report. By comparison, bank charge-offs were about 2.25 percent in 1932, the third year of the Great Depression, Moody's said. - www.cnbc.com

10/26/2009 - Detroit Housing Auction Fails To Move Properties - Taken together, the properties seized by tax collectors for arrears and put up for sale last week represented an area the size of New York's Central Park - www.huffingtonpost.com

10/25/2009 - Capmark Financial files for bankruptcy protection - Capmark Financial Group, one of the nation's largest commercial real estate lenders, has filed for bankruptcy protection amid mounting bad debt. - www.seattletimes.com

10/25/2009 - Borrowers Should Beware Home Equity Loans - While some borrowers seek out loans, Shore said that many people with fragile financial situations are sought out by predatory lenders who present credit opportunities in appealing packages, typically hiding the cons of the options. - www.news4jax.com

10/25/2009 - New wave of commercial foreclosures looms - Nationwide, $1 trillion in commercial real estate loans comes due next year. Many borrowers are unlikely to be able to refinance, causing defaults that could lead to more bank failures and could even knock the economy back into recession. - www.heraldtribune.com

10/25/2009 - South Florida homeowners walking away from underwater mortgages - Many South Florida homeowners who can afford to make their mortgage payments are choosing not to, forcing the lender to foreclose. It's called strategic default. - www.http://www.miamiherald.com/.com
Read More:
CALCULATE THE RECOVERY PERIOD FOR AN UNDERWATER HOME MORTGAGE
HOW IS YOUR CREDITSCORE AFFECTED?

10/25/2009 - Foreclosures, unemployment to peak next year, chief economist of Mortgage Bankers Assoc. says - The forecast sees median home prices for existing homes declining in the next two quarters to reach $164,200 in the first quarter of next year. - www.sun-sentinel.com

10/25/2009 - Obama: It's Time For Big Banks To Step Up And Fulfill Their Responsibilities - Big banks that got big bailout bucks should return the favor by lending more to qualified small businesses, President Barack Obama says. - www.youtube.com

10/25/2009 - The Next Financial Crisis Hits Wall Street, as Judges Start Nixing Foreclosures - The judges' decisions have raised serious questions as to the legality of hundreds of thousands of foreclosures that have transpired as well as the legal standing of the subsequent purchasers of those homes, who are more and more frequently the Wall Street banks themselves. - www.counterpunch.org

10/24/2009 - $8,000 tax credit's hoops frustrate house hunters - Smith found monthly fees on the condos would have cost more than mortgage payments. He endured a trail of "junk" houses that needed new roofs and other repairs. Some of the foreclosed properties had no power, and he had to view them by flashlight or cell-phone light. And finally, the four-bedroom pool home he wanted the most failed to meet federal lending rules. - www.orlandosentinel.com

10/24/2009 - Florida's down-payment help for first-time homebuyers is a bust - The program was meant to complement the federal government's $8,000 tax credit for first-time buyers by lending the money upfront - on the condition they repay it when they get their tax credit. - www.orlandosentinel.com

10/24/2009 - House to Subpoena Documents on VIP Mortgages for Members of Congress - The chairman of the House oversight committee agreed to subpoena documents from Countrywide Financial Corporation about its VIP loan program that offered special mortgages to members of Congress and other influential figures. - www.foxnews.com

10/23/2009 - Obama: It's Time For Big Banks To Step Up And Fulfill Their Responsibilities - Big banks that got big bailout bucks should return the favor by lending more to qualified small businesses, President Barack Obama says. - www.youtube.com

10/23/2009 - `Shadow market' clouds housing recovery - The number of properties on the market may be much larger than anyone thought and appears likely to swamp South Florida with more deeply discounted homes, clouding the prospects for a housing recovery. - www.http://www.trashoutpro.com/.com
Read More: MONICA HATCHER,

10/23/2009 - How bad can it get? 'America will collapse' - Dmitry Orlov author of "Reinventing Collapse" argues that the US will turn into the former USA, same as the Soviet Union. Rebuilding the economy is the wrong move. A different economy needs to be started. - www.youtube.com

10/23/2009 - Elizabeth Warren Speaks With Michael Moore - 3 parts - Financial products, and they are products, just like toasters, are sold today with the most dangerous features embedded in them because that's what drives profitability. - www.huffingtonpost.com

part1, part2, part3

10/23/2009 - Bank failures stack up: Now 106 for 2009 - Banks in Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin, were shuttered, costing the FDIC an estimated $356.6 million. - www.cnn.com

10/23/2009 - Existing home sales jump 9.4% - Sales of existing homes bounce back to their highest level since July 2007, boosted by first-time homebuyers. Prices continue to fall. - www.cnn.com

10/23/2009 - Why The Numbers Are Flawed - Existing Home Sales FALL in September 2009 - NAR continues to bullshit America with their garbage data and spin, month after month, with few people calling them on it. Well, I’ve had it up to here with their garbage. - www.ritholtz.com

10/22/2009 - For The "Lucky Few" Who Renegotiate Their Mortgages, Towering Debt Remains - In short, there is some relief for homeowners who haven't lost their jobs and were paying high interest rates - but not so much for people who've lost their jobs. - www.huffingtonpost.com

10/22/2009 - Freddie Mac, Given Oversight of Mortgage Mod Program, Falls Down on Job - A little-noticed conclusion in a government report released on Wednesday reveals that the program's auditor is no different: Freddie Mac-yes, that Freddie Mac [3]-has been given responsibility for auditing the program. And it turns out, Freddie is stuck at square one. - www.propublica.com

10/21/2009 - WSJ: Is The Housing Market About To Get Even Uglier? - Over the next few years, housing analysts believe, millions of other homes are heading for bank ownership, but no one can say how long that will take or when a sudden torrent of bank-owned properties may swamp certain local markets. - www.wsj.com

10/21/2009 - Foreclosures Are More Profitable Than Loan Modifications, According To New Report - While homeowners, lenders and investors typically lose money on a foreclosure, mortgage servicers do not, says report author Diane E. Thompson, of counsel at the - National Consumer Law Center. Servicers are the companies that manage the mortgages and collect payments.www.huffingtonpost.com

10/21/2009 - Bailout Shifts to Main Street - Obama Expanding Bailout to Small Banks, Businesses - New effort comes as the administration takes heat from liberals to shift the massive bailout fund's spending away from big financial institutions and toward reducing foreclosures, creating jobs - www.foxnews.com

10/21/2009 - Top banks cut small business lending by $8 billion - As small business loans continue to dry up, the President readies a new set of initiatives aimed at reversing the trend. - www.cnn.com

10/21/2009 - Mortgage applications plummet - Industry group says activity sank by 13.7% last week as interest rates inched higher and tax credit expiration drew nearer. - www.cnn.com

10/21/2009 - Is it time to dump your ARM? - Some 1.5 million adjustable-rate mortgages reset soon. If yours is one of them, you need to decide whether to lock in your rate and refinance into a new loan. - www.cnn.com

10/20/2009 - Home prices: About to get much cheaper - National home prices are forecast to shrink another 11%. Miami, Las Vegas and Phoenix will record steep declines, but a few cities will actually post gains. - www.cnn.com

10/20/2009 - IRS Investigating More Than 100,000 Suspicious Tax Break Claims From Home Buyers - credit has helped generate about 350,000 home sales that wouldn't otherwise have occurred. But some lawmakers and tax experts now say there is evidence that a significant number of the claims might prove to be unjustified, or even fraudulent. - www.wsj.com

10/18/2009 - Foreclosures Force Ex-Homeowners to Turn to Shelters - Growing numbers of Americans who have lost houses to foreclosure are landing in homeless shelters, according to social service groups and a recent report by a coalition of housing advocates. - www.cnn.com

10/16/2009 - Obama Briefed on Commercial Real Estate - The briefing occurred as many on Wall Street fear commercial mortgage-backed securities, commonly known as CMBS, will be the next set of loans to begin placing stress on banks' balance sheets. - foxbusiness.cnn.com

10/15/2009 - Inflation: Our Next Worry? - We break down if inflation will be the next economic hurtle to cross the recovery line. - www.foxnews.com

10/15/2009 - Francine Hardaway: Last Words From the Vanishing Middle Class - After I heard the government had put more pressure on the lenders to restructure mortgages, I reapplied. Once again, I had to send all those documents, and once again I was told they couldn't help me. Their "investors" had said no. - huffingtonpost.cnn.com

10/15/2009 - Foreclosures: 'Worst three months of all time' - Despite signs of broader economic recovery, number of foreclosure filings hit a record high in the third quarter - a sign the plague is still spreading. - www.cnn.com

10/15/2009 - Foreclosures: 'Worst 3 months' ever | Map - The number of homes receiving foreclosure filings is skyrocketing across the country. Here's the rate in your state. - www.cnn.com

10/15/2009 - Insurers Dropping Coverage For Thousands Of Homeowners Over Defective Chinese Drywall - At least two home insurers in Florida have begun dropping policyholders who filed claims for property damage linked to drywall imported from China. - www.wsj.com

10/15/2009 - Foreclosures Rise 5 Percent From Summer To Fall - Affected nearly 938,000 properties in the July-September quarter, compared with about 890,000 in the prior three months, according to RealtyTrac Inc. That puts foreclosure-related filings on a pace to hit about 3.5 million this year, up from more than 2.3 million last year. - www.huffingtonpost.com

10/15/2009 - Foreclosures rise in 3rd quarter - Most disturbing is that all foreclosures -- not just repossessions -- are rampant despite efforts to corral them. Not only has the - Making Home Affordable foreclosure prevention program taken a bite out of REOs but lenders themselves have scaled back repossessions over the past few months to give the program time to work.www.cnn.com

10/13/2009 - Firms poised to bet billions on real estate - With roughly $500 million available to sop up distressed residential lots, soured real estate loans and undeveloped property, Starwood Land is in an enviable position to capitalize on what it believes will be a significant change in the way home builders operate from now on. - www.heraldtribune.com

10/13/2009 - JPMorgan Wants To Offer Interest-Only Periods On Some Mortgage Modifications - seeking to bring more homeowners into the initiative while recognizing concern that it may only postpone defaults, according to - JPMorgan Chase & Co. Our primary goal for the next few weeks is to make sure we convert all of those borrowers, or as many as possible.www.bloomberg.com

10/13/2009 - 'Unbanked' but No Longer Ignored Americans - - Talking about Lenders - And Lawmakers - Are Targeting The Fringes Of The Banking System.www.washingtonpost.com

10/13/2009 - One Company Responsible For Nearly Half Of All Permanent Mortgage Modifications - Ocwen Financial - declared Monday that it was responsible for 45 percent of the 1,711 modifications that have become permanent after a three-month trial period under the Obama administration's $75 billion foreclosure prevention plan.www.huffingtonpost.com

10/12/2009 - Student Loans are the New Indentured Servitude - The Wall Street Journal's - article on the credit crunch among lower income groups highlights a problem that is forcing cities to quickly respond. What they didn't go into is that their primary interviewee is drowning not on expensive cars loans but student loans.www.theatlantic.com
Read More: STUDENT LOANS - COSTLY BURDEN, THE UNEDUCATED AMERICAN

10/12/2009 - Bank Of America VP: 'There's A Difference Between Hardship And Entitlement' Racing the Clock to Avoid Foreclosures - Bank of America Scrambles to Modify Loans Ahead of Government Deadline, trailing well behind the other large banks, according to Treasury Department data. - www.washingtonpost.com

10/12/2009 - Foreclosures Grow in Housing Market's Top Tiers - New data suggest that foreclosures are rising in more expensive housing markets. About 30% of foreclosures in June involved homes in the top third of local housing values, up from 16% when the foreclosure crisis began three years ago. The bottom one-third of housing markets, by home value, now account for 35% of foreclosures, down from 55% in 2006. - www.wsj.com

10/11/2009 - The 'Democratization of Credit' Is Over -- Now It's Payback Time - The financial crisis and recession have reversed what some economists dubbed the "democratization of credit," forcing a tough adjustment on both low-income families and the businesses that serve them.www.wsj.com
Read More: DISCUSSION & COMMENTS, TWITTER TWEETMEME

10/11/2009 - Financial Literacy a 'Civil-Rights' Problem? - Today's - article on the credit crunch among lower income groups highlights a problem that is forcing cities to quickly respond.www.wsj.com
Read More: LANGUAGE of MONEY, TWITTER TWEETMEME

10/11/2009 - $8,000 tax credit's hoops frustrate house hunters - The real-estate industry continues to hope that the tax incentive will revive the sagging market. A study released earlier this month by the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics at the - University of California showed the credit has spurred sales. - www.orlandosentinel.com

10/10/2009 - Small Banks Failing As Big Banks Grow Stronger - In what has become a ritual, the - Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has swooped down on a handful of troubled lenders almost every Friday, seizing 98 since January alone and putting their assets into the hands of another bank. - www.nytimes.com
Read More: JPMorgan Chase, U.S. Bancorp, Goldman Sachs

10/10/2009 - Panel Says Obama Plan Won't Slow Foreclosures - The report rebuked the administration for failing to shape a program that addressed the most significant engines of the foreclosure crisis - soaring joblessness and exotic mortgages with low introductory interest rates that give way to sharply higher payments over the next three years. - www.heraldtribune.com

10/09/2009 - Banks still stuck with the junk - Buoyed by raising billions of dollars in fresh capital in recent months, some lenders may instead opt to hold onto their troubled assets rather than sell them and record losses. - www.cnn.com

10/09/2009 - Foreclosure fix not working - Elizabeth Warren of the Congressional Oversight Committee says positive news in housing is only part of the story. - www.cnn.com

10/09/2009 - Mortgage Delinquencies: SEE Which Counties Have Been Hit the Hardest (MAP). - Where is the mortgage crisis wracking the most damage? The New York Fed, track changes in mortgage delinquency rates by county. To see how your area is faring, check out the map below. (NOTE: The New York Fed's map has full data on each county. Check it out here.) - www.huffingtonpost.com

10/09/2009 - Lawmakers Worry That FHA May Be Creating Another Housing Bubble - The percentage of loans backed by the agency that are delinquent or in foreclosure hit nearly 8% at the end of June. Critics say borrowers don't have enough of a stake in keeping up with payments. - www.latimes.com

10/09/2009 - Anti-foreclosure programs Not Enough - TARP Oversight Panel Criticizes Administration's Mortgage-Modification Program - www.foxbusiness.com

10/09/2009 - Mortgage Loan Modification: More Offers Extended, Fewer Homeowners Accepting -- Are Homeowners Losing Hope? - In August, about 81 percent of homeowners accepted their modification offers; last month, just 54 percent of homeowners did so. - www.huffingtonpost.com

10/09/2009 - Woman Blames Bank Of America For Husband's Death blames - Bank of America after her late husband, John, died after months of struggling to change their mortgage plan once Darleen was laid off. - www.silive.com

10/09/2009 - NY Times : Another Mortgage Giant May Need A Bailout - Problems at the Federal Housing Administration , ow down payments, are becoming so acute that some experts warn the agency might need a federal bailout. - www.nytimes.com

10/09/2009 - Elizabeth Warren: Serious Questions Remain About Obama's Loan Relief Plan - The Congressional Oversight Panel , charged with making regular assessments of the $700 billion financial rescue fund enacted last year, said the Treasury Department should consider whether to improve the current $50 billion program or adopt new programs to meet an expected rise in foreclosures fed by increased unemployment. - www.huffingtonpost.com

10/09/2009 - $50B foreclosure plan falling short - $50 billion plan to curb foreclosures isn't big or fast enough to keep up with the growing problem, a congressional watchdog concludes in a report being released Friday. - www.politico.com

10/09/2009 - Bush administration blocked efforts to prevent housing crisis - A research paper shows that the Office of the Currency Comptroller told states they could not enforce predatory-lending laws, and all banks would be subject only to less-strict federal laws. - www.foxbusiness.com

10/09/2009 - TARP Oversight Panel Criticizes Administration's Mortgage-Modification Program - The panel said that is because HAMP is "limited to certain mortgage configurations" and "was not designed to address foreclosures caused by unemployment, which now appears to be a central cause of nonpayment." - www.foxbusiness.com

10/08/2009 - Bailout Watchdog Elizabeth Warren: "The Middle Class Is Under Terrific Assault" - These include her take on how the TARP money basically vanished into thin air ("When Secretary Paulson first put this money out into the banks, he didn't ask, 'What are you going to do with it?' He didn't put any restrictions on it. He didn't put any tabs on where it was going to go; in other words, he didn't ask. - www.washingtonpost.com

10/08/2009 - Home Prices Cut By $28.4 Billion In U.S., Trulia Says - "Consumers have to be slashing the prices of the homes they list," Pete Flint, chief executive officer of Trulia, said in an interview. There's a "significant inventory" of homes for sale. "You're still going to see further price declines before the market stabilizes in 2010." - www.bloomberg.com

10/08/2009 - Homeowners Hit With "Junk Fees" As Mortgage Lenders Profits Soar - Despite Housing Slump, Mortgage Lenders Making Record Profits From Fees - www.huffingtonpost.com

10/07/2009 - Congress is riled up - Overdraft fees - Banks make good money on overdraft fees, which consumers say often snare them unfairly. Lawmakers are raising their pitchforks and vowing action. - www.cnn.com

10/07/2009 - Fannie, Freddie Testing Program for Independent Lenders - WSJ - are working to create a program that would allow independent mortgage banks obtain short-term credit to continue to originate mortgages, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. - www.foxbusiness.com

10/07/2009 - Fed Concerned About Commercial Real Estate - With Banks Slow to Take Losses, Fears of a Residential-Bust Repeat; 'More Pain Likely Lies Ahead'. Banks in the U.S. "are slow" to take losses on their commercial real-estate loans being battered by slumping property values and rental payments, according to a Federal Reserve presentation to banking regulators last month. - www.wsj.com

10/07/2009 - Florida finally holds a hearing on tainted Chinese drywall - But they start far behind their counterparts in other states -- where the problem is sometimes less pervasive -- and the efforts under way on the national political stage. - www.heraldtribune.com

10/06/2009 - Detroit: Banks Responsible For Maintenance Of Foreclosed Homes - Banks and real estate agents in suburban Detroit, under pressure from citizens tired of seeing their towns turn into graveyards for abandoned homes, will soon be punished if vacant houses they own are not maintained, reports Candice Williams of the Detroit News. - www.huffingtonpost.com

10/06/2009 - Reverse Mortgages Are "Subprime Revisited," Says Consumer Law Group - Such mortgages are increasingly coming under fire: the fact that seniors are at risk makes for "a scary mix," says Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), who says that reverse mortgages "target the most vulnerable" according to a report issued Tuesday. - www.huffingtonpost.com

10/06/2009 - Apartment Vacancy Rate Surges 7.8%, Rents Fall - Apartment vacancies hit their highest point since 1986, surging in cities from Raleigh, N.C., to Tacoma, Wash., as rising unemployment continued to chip away at demand during the traditionally strong summer rental months. - www.wsj.com

10/05/2009 - Banks Denying VA-Backed Mortgages - In a growing trend, banks are refusing to honor VA-backed loan agreements -- which do not require a down payment and are more amenable to customers with bad credit -- preferring instead to sell foreclosed homes for less money, but quick and immediate cash. - www.huffingtonpost.com

10/05/2009 - Commercial Real Estate Still on the Mend - Roberts expects office vacancy rates to peak near 20% sometime in late 2010 or early 2011. - www.foxbusiness.com

10/05/2009 - How The Legal Deck Is Utterly Stacked Against Struggling Homeowners. - Lack of Legal Help: One More Way the Deck Is Stacked Against Homeowners. in New York's Nassau County, in foreclosures involving subprime or non-traditional mortgages (which disproportionately are targeted at minorities), 92 percent of the homeowners did not have a lawyer. - www.huffingtonpost.com

10/04/2009 - Rents drop for warehouses and big-box locations - Warehouse and big-box landlords in the Orlando area are typically getting rents 20 percent to 25 percent below what they were asking. - www.orlandosentinel.com

10/01/2009 - Meredith Whitney: Small Companies Left Out In The Cold In Bailout - Taxpayer dollars have supported institutions that are 'too big to fail.' Small business has been left out in the cold. - www.wsj.com

10/01/2009 - FINALLY: Banks Agreeing To Cut Principal In Mortgage Modifications - That's good news for some homeowners, but may portend more write-offs over the next few years for banks and other lenders now wading through hundreds of thousands of applications for loan modifications. The tradeoff for banks is that by taking the hit now they can boost their chances of being repaid. - www.wsj.com

10/01/2009 - Federal Reserve: Home Loans Denied To One In Three Applicants - Nearly one in three borrowers who applied for a mortgage last year was denied as lenders kept their standards tight as the mortgage crisis accelerated, the government reported. - www.huffingtonpost.com

10/01/2009 - Minorities More Likely To Be Denied Refinancing / - New federal data shows that last year blacks were nearly twice as likely to be denied when applying to refinance a home mortgage as whites. - www.huffingtonpost.com

10/01/2009 - Home Loans Brokered By Nonprofits Helped Fuel The Housing Crisis - A home builder would agree to make a donation to the nonprofit in an amount equal to the down payment. The nonprofit would give the cash to the buyer, often earning a generous fee for its role as middleman. - www.huffingtonpost.com