July 2008

Finally! It looks like one of the peoples representatives, Barney Frank, has got hip to the fact that servicers have been giving a lot of lip service lately to everyone. From the homeowners reaching for help and to our government [...]

Sweetheart mortgages given by Countrywide Financial, the nation’s biggest mortgage lender, to elected officials and government bureaucrats seem tailor-made for an ethics inquiry by Congress, especially as the country is seeing a rising tide of voter anger in this presidential [...]

The chairman of the House Financial Services Committee called on lenders to stop filing foreclosures until a new foreclosure-prevention program takes effect. On Wednesday, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) had called on lenders to make immediate use of the program, which [...]

SAN DIEGO — City Attorney Mike Aguirre filed a civil complaint Wednesday against Countrywide Financial Corp. in an attempt to stop foreclosures in San Diego. Aguirre said the suit targets subprime loans where homeowners face balloon payments after two or [...]

The Experts: Stress is a huge factor in suicide, and looming very large is stress related to the economy,” said Dr. Charles Nemeroff, chairman of psychiatry at Emory University in Atlanta, Ga., and president of the American Foundation for Suicide [...]

A number of senators on the banking committee – from both parties – characterized Paulson’s request as asking lawmakers for a “a blank check,” and they were none too keen on the idea, knowing they have to answer to taxpayers. [...]

The House approved a massive plan Wednesday to try and put the brakes on the foreclosure crisis that is sweeping the nation and causing the worst housing decline since the Great Depression. The goal of this new bill is to provide aid [...]

The line of eager people was wrapped around the Capitol Hilton in downtown Washington D.C. as my crew and I unloaded our gear out of our taxi. The crowd was thick and deep as a sea of yellow shirts offered [...]

I am proud to announce that the Loan Safe crew will be heading to Washington D.C. this evening to assist NACA and struggling homeowners in this historic 5-day event . Yesterday evening I had the privilege to speak with Bruce Marks, [...]

WASHINGTON — After a tense and at times testy meeting on Wednesday between Congressional Republicans and the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., over his plan for a possible government rescue of the nation’s two largest mortgage finance companies, the [...]

When it rains it pours and when a bank fails, the FBI is going to find out why. The facts are that the fraud and financial crimes ran rampant from all sides of the mortgage and real estate equation. From the [...]

Wall Street is playing games with our economy and betting on the consumer and also the down fall of many financial institutions. Welcome to the wonderful and highly profitable world known as “shorting” or “hedging”. The Securities and Exchange Commission [...]

WASHINGTON — Democratic Congressional leaders on Tuesday pushed back their timetable for approving emergency housing legislation after Republicans voiced growing skepticism and, in some cases, angry opposition to the Bush administration’s proposal to rescue Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the [...]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 14, 2008 Media Contact: Andrew Gray (202) 898-7192 angray@fdic.gov Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chairman Sheila C. Bair today issued the following statement on the Federal Reserve Board’s approval of a final rule for home mortgage loans. [...]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 13, 2008 Media Contact: In Washington: Andrew Gray (202) 898-7192, Cell: 202-494-1049 angray@fdic.gov   FDIC Chairman Sheila C. Bair, today issued the following statement about IndyMac Federal Bank, FSB, the conservatorship created by the FDIC to [...]

Can’t afford your home or your loan? Heck, just put in on your charge card and forget about it. Well, at least until your credit card bill comes due next month and now Guido wants his money. One more month with your [...]

PASADENA, California (CNN) — California bank IndyMac will reopen as a “strong and safe institution” under federal management and a new name Monday, days after regulators closed it, the firm’s new CEO said Sunday. “Come Monday morning, it will be [...]

Loan Safe & Moe Bedard in the New York Times By Gretchen Morgenson DAN A. BAILEY JR. was desperate when he sat down on May 19 to send an e-mail message to his mortgage lender, the Countrywide Financial Corporation, pleading, [...]

He is speaking to a packed house at a Town Hall Los Angeles luncheon, and I will update later with video clips and Q&A. But here are highlights from an advanced copy of the speech. Lewis says BofA wants to [...]

First, Countrywide Financial Corp. went down, as the nation’s biggest mortgage lender was acquired in a rescue operation July 1 by Bank of America Corp. Now Countrywide’s offspring, IndyMac Bancorp Inc., is on the ropes.

Nomi Prins, what are the five ways that Washington and Wall Street has brought us to this crisis? NOMI PRINS: Well, it’s a historical matter, and basically there’s been a lot of legislation that has weakened the regulation of the [...]

By Paul Kiesel Over the last 15 years, there have been five “avoidable events” stemming from Wall Street’s or Congress’ actions (or inaction), that led directly to the mortgage crisis.

July 8, 2008 hp-1070 Remarks by Secretary Henry M. Paulson, Jr. on U.S. Housing Market before FDIC’s Forum on Mortgage Lending to Low and Moderate Income Households Washington, DC–Good afternoon. Thank you Chairman Bair for convening this forum, and thanks [...]

Some 122,000 borrowers with Countrywide home-equity lines of credit, or HELOCs, received letters in January informing them that they could no longer withdraw funds from their lines. A few months later, thousands of customers of other major lenders — including [...]

This can be important because there are many ways to be tricked into thinking you are at, for example, a bank website, when you are really viewing a well-crafted, scam copy designed to steal personal information. Flagfox can go a [...]