All Posts Tagged With: "predatory"
FBI Expanding Fight Against Mortgage Scams
The FBI is adding a large number of agents to fight mortgage fraud and predatory lending, but will it be enough?
Speaking before the Senate Judiciary Committee last year, FBI Assistant Director Kevin L. Perkins noted that the FBI now has new funding to chase mortgage fraudsters under the Financial Intelligence Center (FIC).
The FIC, says [...]
Stock Prices At Heart Of Mortgage Crash
A new and revealing study by the Mortgage Bankers Association argues that the introduction of risky loan products during the past few years was caused in large measure by efforts to pump up lender stock prices.
Written by Clifford V. Rossi, a business professor at the University of Maryland, Anatomy of Risk Management Practices in [...]
Federal Rules Make Predatory Loans Legal & Lawful
With all the yelling and screaming in Washington regarding financial reform the fact remains that predatory lending remains perfectly legal and will be perfectly legal once a financial reform package is passed.
“The Wall Street reform bill in Congress represents the strongest consumer financial protections in history,” says President Obama. “You’ll be empowered with the clear [...]
What’s a Hard Money Mortgage?
When we think of mortgages we usually think of long-term financing insured by the FHA, VA or with private mortgage insurance. If we have enough cash for a down payment of at least 20 percent then we don’t need mortgage insurance and can just get a conventional loan.
However, there are situations where owners run [...]
Mortgage Reform Now — 6 Ways To Fix What’s Broke
For all the talk of reform on Wall Street, a quicker and easier way to assure that big banks don’t fail and small borrowers don’t get screwed is to simply fix the mortgage origination system.
Fixing the mortgage system is crucial if we’re to prevent another financial meltdown. If the mortgages are done right than mortgage-backed [...]
SEC — No Help For Mortgage Borrowers
The news is now filled with SEC accusations that Goldman Sachs defrauded investors who bought mortgage-backed securities, allegations Goldman Sachs strongly denies.
But nowhere in the news do we hear of any effort to help the mortgage borrowers whose screwing made the financial meltdown possible. While the SEC is concerned about helping securities investors who lost [...]
Mortgage News: The Crime of the Century
In New York two stock brokers have been found guilty of securities bait-and-switch.
The two men face decades of jail time for defrauding investors by selling securities which were described as being backed by federally-guaranteed student loans when in fact they were actually auction-rate securities, a more risky financial product.
So, let’s review. It’s illegal for stock [...]
No Predatory Lending In 2008?
The FBI is out with its latest annual mortgage fraud tally and the news is fairly grim: Despite a reduction in loan originations, fraud filings from financial institutions increased 36 percent to 63,713 in fiscal 2008 compared to 46,717 filings a year earlier.
This is an unhappy statistic, but it does not tell the whole story. [...]
Can You Trust Your Lender?
There is something new in the marketplace, what is being called the Fair Market Collaborative. As someone who has been looking for fairness in the mortgage marketplace since the 1970s you can bet that I welcome any effort to create a level playing field for borrowers.
But will the new collaborative really change marketplace [...]
Are Late Mortgage Payments Ever Okay?
Question: We have paid our mortgage several days after the due date but before the lender charges a late fee. Does this lower our credit score?
Answer: You need to look at this very carefully. A mortgage is a contract. It has certain terms and conditions. You want to honor all conditions.
In the usual case [...]
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