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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2009
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State Lenders Choke Bush's Fight Against Foreclosures

Housing agencies won't risk lending to debtors

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(Newser) – President Bush’s goal of helping subprime borrowers by offering tax-exempt bonds is meeting resistance from state lenders, Bloomberg reports. Risk-averse state housing agencies are already turning down over half the applicants to their own programs intended to help those affected by the crisis, due mainly to applicants’ existing financial woes. The agencies’ caution could cripple Bush’s scheme to fight foreclosures.

States’ ambitious programs have yielded weak results: New York has made only three of the 500 loans it originally estimated, and Massachusetts has made four with an allotted $250 million. “Often the borrower just has too much debt and the home does not have the value to support the refinancing,” said one official at mortgage-insurance giant MGIC.

An employee of Countrywide, the biggest US mortgage lender, walks into the Northridge branch in Los Angeles, Calif., in this Aug. 22, 2007 file photo. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian, file)
An employee of Countrywide, the biggest US mortgage lender, walks into the Northridge branch in Los Angeles, Calif., in this Aug. 22, 2007 file photo. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian, file)   (Associated Press)
A foreclosure sign tops a sale sign outside an existing home on the market in northwest Denver in this Aug. 29, 2007 file photo. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, file)
A foreclosure sign tops a sale sign outside an existing home on the market in northwest Denver in this Aug. 29, 2007 file photo. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, file)   (Associated Press)
A home in foreclosure is seen in Pasadena, Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2008. The median home price in a six-county region of Southern California plunged more than 13 percent in December from the same month a year ago, as the national housing slump kept eating away at home values, a...
A home in foreclosure is seen in Pasadena, Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2008. The median home price in a six-county region of Southern California plunged more than 13 percent in December from the same month...   (Associated Press)
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