Banks Yanking Homeowners' Last Hope: Short Sales

Stop meddling and the let the private sector take over

(NEWSER) - Joseph Stiglitz lends his Nobel clout to the notion that the government is doing more harm than good by over-managing the housing crisis. "Government policies to support the housing market not only have failed to fix the problem, but are prolonging the deleveraging process and creating the conditions for Japanese-style malaise," he writes in the Guardian . More»

Today's loans 'designed for yesterday's borrowers'

(NEWSER) - In an op-ed headlined "The 30-Year Prison," Katherine Stone lays out what she sees as a big problem contributing to the housing crisis: "Today's mortgages are designed for yesterday's borrowers." Long gone are the days when people had the same stable job for life, and it's time for the 30-year mortgage as we know it to go away, too. More»

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»

So-called rescue firms promise to negotiate lower rates, then take money and run

(NEWSER) - Mortgage brokers who made a mint during the housing boom setting up homeowners in toxic loans are now profiting from a different sort of shady deal. So-called foreclosure rescue firms are proliferating across the US, taking money upfront and promising to negotiate with homeowners’ banks for better interest rates. Instead, they mostly take the money and run. And so far, states have been largely powerless to stop them, reports Pro Publica. 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»