Bad Credit? Buy a Piece of Someone Else's

Numbers 'unprecedented'

(AP) - More than 1 million American households are likely to lose the roof over their heads to foreclosure this year, as lenders work their way through a huge backlog of borrowers who have fallen behind on their loans. Nearly 528,000 homes were repossessed by lenders in the first six months of the year, putting 2010 on pace to eclipse the more than 900,000 homes repossessed in 2009, according to data released today by RealtyTrac. "That would be unprecedented," a RealtyTrac VP said. More»

Well-to-do buyers weren't immune to wacky loans, and they're coming due

(NEWSER) - The country's most expensive homes are now making up a larger segment of foreclosures in the most recent spike of mortgage defaults. An analysis of recent data shows that 30% of June foreclosures involved homes valued in the top third based on location; that’s up from just 16% at the beginning of the crisis. “The slope of that curve in recent months is much sharper than it was recently,” an economist tells the Wall Street Journal. More»

Healthier lenders no longer anxious to cut deals

(NEWSER) - As banks get healthier, they're getting stingier with one of the few remaining lifelines for underwater homeowners—short sales. To keep home sales moving in leaner times—and to get bad loans off their ledgers—lenders would forgive the difference between the outstanding mortgage balance and the purchase price. Such deals are harder to come by these days, a development that could spell trouble for the nascent housing recovery, writes Christopher Palmeri in BusinessWeek. More»

(NEWSER) - Would-be homeowners with good credit are finding themselves shut out of the mortgage market by stiff restrictions from wary lenders, the New York Times reports. Many believe that in an effort to move away from the laxness blamed for the financial crisis, lenders have gone too far the other way and are now turning away people who should be considered perfectly good risks. As a result, non-foreclosure sales are still at a quarter-century low. More»

(AP) - Freddie Mac said today it will ask the government for nearly $31 billion in additional aid after posting a gargantuan loss of more than $50 billion last year as the US housing market worsened. The mortgage finance company posted a loss of $23.9 billion, or $7.37 per share, in the fourth quarter of 2008. That compares with a loss of $2.5 billion, or $3.97 a share, in the year-ago period. More»