The Federal Housing Authority (FHA) announced that it has served subpoenas on 15 mortgage companies with suspiciously high default rates and foreclosures for loans backed by the FHA. On Tuesday, Department of Housing and Urban Development's inspector general, Kenneth Donohue, said he wanted to determine why defaults are so elevated among the 15 companies being [...]
Many Americans drowning in student loan debt and many of those considering college listened to President Obama with much anticipation as he tackled the issue of crippling debt burdening most Americans who pursue a college education. President Obama announced that he was working with Congress to create a national program which would ease the burden [...]
Senator Christopher Dodd and other members of the Senate Banking Committee are proposing legislation that would create a special bankruptcy process for failed financial institutions. Members are discussing a two-stage process that would create a preferential option for bankruptcy followed by a regulator-managed resolution if bankruptcy fails, the person said. The source requested anonymity because [...]
The U.S. has lost more than 7.2 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007 and job losses are continuing as we enter the new year. The biggest and most recent job losses are coming from defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. which is implementing 1,200 job losses and shipping giant UPS which is implementing [...]
Check Into Cash seems to be tweaking it's payday lending business in a way that would allow it to charge higher interest rates and offer longer term loans, a move that could help it get around existing payday lending regulations. Could other payday lenders follow Check Into Cash's lead? Blogger W. Bolton, summed it up [...]
Since the passage of the Credit Card Act, many credit card lenders have been dreaming up new ways of getting more money out your pockets. One of the newest tricks on the block is the infamous "inactivity fee." Inactivity fees were at one point commonplace for credit cards; but eventually fell out of fashion. But [...]
When the foreclosure crisis first began, there was a lot of finger pointing mostly at the supposedly "irresponsible" homeowners who "bought too much house" in a quest to keep up with the Joneses. We were even treated to televised rants about how "good people" shouldn't be forced to pay for their bad neighbors' financial decisions [...]
Barry Corbin, the actor who played Maurice Minnifield, the patriarch of Cicely, Alaska, in the TV show Northern Exposure; Uncle Bob in the movie Urban Cowboy; and Sheriff Fenton Washburn in Dallas has filed for bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Texas. After becoming a respected Emmy Award-nominated character actor, [...]
What good is it to modify a mortgage, only to owe three times what the house is actually worth? Well for many homeowners facing foreclosure, it's just not worth the paper the modification is written on. For them, foreclosure looks better than the false hope of mortgage modifications that don't truly-well, modify the mortgage. The [...]
The 400-room Four Seasons Resort in Irving, which hosts the annual Byron Nelson golf tournament, is facing foreclosure. In 2009, more than 2,400 commercial properties were posted for foreclosure in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, but none of the foreclosures were nearly as large as the Four Seasons Resort in Irving. The property, well known [...]