The House and Senate are reviewing legislation that could allow bankruptcy courts to treat private student loans like other unsecured debt such as credit cards, which could mean that borrowers would have the ability to discharge private student loans in bankruptcy. Currently, both private and government backed student loans are treated like other hard to [...]
North Texas commercial foreclosure filings have increased by more than 60 percent so far this year. Since January nearly 1400 commercial property foreclosure filings have been posted in the Dallas-Fort Worth area alone-compare that to last year's 900 commercial real estate foreclosure filings in the same period. When the commercial real estate foreclosure crisis first [...]
Magic Brands LLC, the parent of Fuddruckers and Koo Koo restaurants has filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy and announced it will close 24 corporate owned locations by April 30th including one of its Dallas-Fort Worth area stores located in Garland. None of the 135 franchised Fuddruckers has been included in the Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Magic Brands [...]
Eighty percent of the approximately 360,000 residential properties reappraised this year will show decreases or no change in value, according to the Dallas Central Appraisal District. This is the second year in a row that the majority of homes in Dallas County have either decreased in value or remained stagnate. Last year 55 percent of [...]
The number of foreclosures filed by homeowner associations (HOAs) and home equity lenders has risen dramatically this year. Already 350 Dallas-Fort Worth area homes are facing foreclosure sale in May because the owners owe money to homeowners associations or home equity lenders. "Especially from the homeowners associations, we have seen significant increases in postings," said [...]
This month the Treasury Department will begin paying mortgage servicers $1,500 for approving the sale of homes for less than the balance of the mortgage, also known as a short sale. Also, if the mortgage servicer modifies a mortgage under the HAMP program, they will receive $1,000, plus additional money over the course of three [...]
MGM Studios, a movie studio which has been teetering on the edge of bankruptcy for months, just announced that the development of the movie BOND 23 will be put on hold indefinitely. "Due to the continuing uncertainty surrounding the future of MGM and the failure to close a sale of the studio, we have suspended [...]
Derivatives in the world of finance are financial instruments or agreements between two parties that has determined the value of something by its estimated future value. More simply put, it is the bet that a certain asset will be worth a certain price in the future. For example, a derivative might say if this group [...]
As many companies contract due to job losses and bankruptcy, many office space landlords are facing a high vacancy rate that is decimating their profits and forcing them to make huge concessions in order to win tenants. "The strength of the Dallas-Fort Worth economy will return in 2010, though office operations will remain relatively weak [...]
What is the American Dream? Before the economic recession began 3 years ago, many Americans may have described the American dream as having a big house, big car and access to lots of credit so that they too could live like the rich and fabulous. But after millions of Americans lost their jobs to business [...]