State-by-state analyses of subprime losses
Court-supervised modifications: Preventing foreclosures and lost community wealth No matter where you live, the subprime crisis is causing unnecessary foreclosures and draining resources in your community. By lifting the ban on court-supervised load modifications for qualified homeowners, Congress can help nearly 600,000 families nationwide keep their homes and help communities retain an estimated $89 million in tax revenues. To find...
Unfair and Unsafe
This report is part of CRL's continuing Countrywide Watch project, which is dedicated to tracking Countrywide's conduct and efforts to reform the company. Analysis of customer complaints, lawsuits, regulatory actions, news accounts, government reports and company documents identifies several areas of concern, including predatory lending, the marketing of dangerous products, loan servicing abuses and weak corporate governance. The Center for...
Voluntary Loan Modifications Fall Short
After denying for months that a foreclosure crisis even exists, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) now claims lenders are making "vast efforts" to prevent foreclosure. Unfortunately, the numbers show little progress. During the third quarter of 2007, mortgage lenders started about 213,000 foreclosures on subprime loans, but offered meaningful fixes ("loan modifications") on only 28,000. What are Loan Modifications? When...
North Carolina Consumers after Payday Lending
The North Carolina Commissioner of Banks found that low- and middle-income families in North Carolina have not been negatively impacted by the absence of payday loan shops that once dotted the state's street corners and strips malls; in fact, many are not aware that they have left. Nine of ten survey respondents think payday lending is a "bad thing," and...
S.2452: Home Ownership Preservation and Protection Act of 2007
>>Take Action: Ask your Senators to support S2452 In brief, the Homeownership Preservation and Protection Act sponsored by Senator Christopher Dodd and other leaders in the Senate will achieve these key goals: Establish new protections for all consumers. It will stop brokers from steering prime borrowers into more expensive subprime loans, create a duty for mortgage brokers to consider the...
Springing the Debt Trap
Read the Executive Summary 36% Cap Springs the Trap Measures short of an interest rate cap fail to fix payday lending problem The debt trap of payday lending persists even in states that have put restrictions on payday loans while exempting them from interest rate caps. In "Springing the Debt Trap," CRL finds that high numbers of borrowers are still...