Newt a lobbyist for Freddie?
Was Newt Gingrich "working as an influence peddler" on behalf of mortgage titan Freddie Mac, as Mitt Romney charges?
Yesterday, The Gingrich Group released its 2006 contract with Freddie Mac. Here is the contract's complete description of The Gingrich Group's "scope of services:"
"Consultant will provide consulting and related services as requested by Freddie Mac's Director, Public
Home remodeling on the rebound
Consumer spending on home remodeling projects rose slightly last year, for the first time since 2006. The long, slow housing recovery is partly to blame. Experts say many homeowners who want to trade up or who are unable to relocate for a job are realizing they can't sell in this market and have decided to
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Tagged home, Mortgages, remodeling, spending
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Robosigning deal may help
Federal and state regulators are close to reaching a settlement with some of the nation's largest lenders over their shady foreclosure practices.
What's in it for borrowers? About one million borrowers could receive mortgage relief in the form of loan principal reductions, according to reports citing U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan.
Donovan has long
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Tagged Foreclosure, mortgage, Mortgages, principal write-down, settlement
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Low rates spur refinancing wave
Applications for mortgages jumped 23 percent last week, largely due to homeowners taking advantage of record-low rates to refinance, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. The refinance portion of total mortgage activity was 82 percent.
But as a Bankrate article points out, although rates are low, mortgage fees are about to rise. Congress is set to
Can QE3 fix housing?
The Federal Reserve may decide at its meeting next week to give another boost to the housing market with a third round of quantitative easing.
Back in 2008, the Fed announced QE1 to keep interest rates low, which involved buying mortgage-backed securities and mortgage debt. In 2009, the program was expanded to include government debt. Then in
‘Force-placed’ into foreclosure
Did some of America's largest banks profit by purchasing high-priced fallback insurance policies on homes facing foreclosure?
That's what New York's state financial regulators want to know in an ongoing probe of the loan servicing operations at several large banks, including Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo.
The probe centers on "force-placed" insurance, a
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Tagged Foreclosure, homeowners insurance, Mortgages
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FOMC: Fraud is funny!
In February 2007, the subprime meltdown began. Two months before that, members of the Federal Open Market Committee were laughing about borrowers who were having trouble qualifying for mortgages.
Sandra Pianalto, president of the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank, told her fellow Fedsters during the Dec. 12, 2006, FOMC meeting that she had heard that a homebuilder
Last chance for short sales
If you plan to unload your home through a short sale, get moving. 2012 may be your last chance to sell a home that is worth less than what you owe without having to face tax consequences.
When lenders approve a short sale, the difference between the sale price and what is owed on the mortgage
Why have foreclosures dropped?
Foreclosure filings hit a four-year low in 2011, but not entirely for the reasons you'd hope. It wasn't that more people are able to avoid foreclosure, but due, in part, to a processing backlog resulting from the accusations that banks pushed robosigning as a way to get distressed properties through the pipeline quickly without reviewing the
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Tagged 2011, foreclosure filings, foreclosures, Mortgages
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Forbearance for the jobless
Homeowners who are unemployed and struggling to pay their mortgages may get a break on their mortgage payments for up to a year, says mortgage finance firm Freddie Mac.
Freddie currently allows mortgage servicers to give borrowers three to six months to get back on their feet when they are out of work. Starting Feb. 1,
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Tagged forbearance, mortgage, Mortgages, unemployed
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