January 2011

(Source: By Christine Stapleton, The Palm Beach Post, Fla.) – Somewhere, presumably Georgia, lives a woman named Linda Green. According to investigators, her signature — and variations of it — appears on hundreds of thousands of questionable mortgage documents. Linda [...]

(Source: Arkansas Business) – THE LAST SIX MONTHS PRODUCED dramatic events at First Southern Bank of Batesville. During the third quarter, the five-year-old lender boosted its capital with a $5.5 million stock offering and recorded a noticeable jump in local [...]

(Source: NY Times) – The first sign that something was amiss with Garfield Gillings’s house on Strauss Street in Brownsville, Brooklyn, came in the fall of 2003, when Mr. Gillings called a collection agency to negotiate a payment of outstanding [...]

(Source: By Robert Lewis, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.) -For nearly five years, from 2000 to 2005, Vera Jackson drove every workday from her home on a well-manicured Elk Grove street to the hair salon she owned and operated in Sunnyvale. [...]

(Source: By The Record, Stockton, Calif.) -  A federally funded mortgage-assistance program to bring $2 billion to struggling homeowners in California has received thousands of calls since launching Monday. But since help is given on a first-come, first-served basis, a [...]

CARSON CITY – After getting six complaints, the state has issued a stop order against an unlicensed Las Vegas company that has been billing itself as loan and foreclosure consultants.

(Source: By Allison Schaefers, The Honolulu Star-Advertiser) – Mortgage fraud helped propel Hawaii’s foreclosure rate to 11th highest in the nation this year, and it is still augmenting filings, according to investigators and real estate industry watchers. Last year, lenders [...]

(Source: By Greta Guest, Detroit Free Press) –Detroit-area real estate agents say up to 40% of their deals have unraveled in the past year as stringent laws regulating home appraisals have made it tougher for homeowners to get the dollar [...]

(Source: Arizona Daily Star) By DALE QUINN – When the 104-room Wingate by Wyndham Hotel opened in Oro Valley early in 2009, it was thought that business travel fueled by the area’s biotech industry would keep it full. It didn’t [...]

(Source: Firedoglake.com) – In a major ruling Friday, a coalition of nonprofit defense lawyers and consumer protection advocates in Maryland successfully got over 10,000 foreclosure cases managed by GMAC Mortgage tossed out, because affidavits in the cases were signed by [...]

(Source: New American Media) – “This is not an attack on any one entity, but in the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr., injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” he said Anger at the banks among the homeowners [...]

(Source: By Elizabeth Mohr and MaryJo Webster, Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.) – Hyder Jaweed and Asgher Ali have figured out how to skirt the rules, say numerous housing inspectors. The landlords — who have owned at least 17 rental [...]

(Source: By Lee Howard, The Day, New London, Conn.) – Federal Housing Administration Commissioner David Stevens told a group of New England mortgage leaders Friday at Foxwoods Resort Casino that reining in the home-loan industry “is a natural outcome of [...]

(Source: Sacremento Bee) – “I wanted the American dream,” Jackson said. Now, 10 years after moving to Elk Grove, Jackson is like millions of other Americans buried by the subprime mortgage crisis and ensuing recession: She’s fighting to keep her [...]

(Source: Richmond Times – Dispatch ) – By CAROL HAZARD – Terry and Donna Hunt have never missed a mortgage payment. But their original lender has tried to foreclose on their house in Amelia County three times. The Hunts weren’t [...]

(Source: By Merced Sun-Star, Calif.) -WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congressman Dennis Cardoza (CA-18) encouraged struggling Central Valley homeowners to apply as soon as possible for emergency assistance to enable them to meet their mortgage payments and avoid foreclosure. To apply, homeowners [...]

(Source: By Vic Kolenc, El Paso Times, Texas) – The city has issued $15 million in mortgage bond money to help first-time homebuyers with low to moderate incomes finance a home and provide down-payment assistance. The new issue of money [...]

(Source: By Bill Wilson, The Wichita Eagle, Kan.) – If you’re a home buyer, the numbers from the Federal Housing Administration look good — credit scores as low as 500 are eligible for some home loans, according to the government’s [...]

(Source: By Kevin G. Hall, McClatchy Washington Bureau) – TORONTO — Maybe Canada has something to teach the U.S. about housing finance. One in 4 U.S. homes is thought to be worth less that the mortgage being paid on it. [...]

(Source: The New York Post By MAX GROSS) – IN the past couple years, the phrase “new condo” has been treated like an obscenity by banks that have been asked for mortgages. So, developers have taken it upon themselves to [...]