| Restitution notice is not a scam
If you received a notice in the mail recently involving a settlement with mortgage lenders Ameriquest or Town and Country Credit, don't throw it away. It represents, in effect, your ticket to a payment of as much as $4,000. Here's the deal: Ameriquest Mortgage Co. faces allegations that the company and its affiliates — including Town and Country Credit Corp. — misrepresented to consumers some important details about their home loans. State regulators sued. As part of a settlement reached with Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch and other regulators, Ameriquest has agreed to pay $325 million to more than 481,000 borrowers nationwide. "This settlement agreement provides Rhode Island residents who were victimized by Ameriquest's deceptive practices and predatory lending schemes with the opportunity to gain restitution," Lynch said in a statement.
Federal agency establishes agency to probe home lending practices
With the number of home foreclosures continuing to rise, the Department of Housing and Urban Development has created a Fair Lending Division to review lending practices.It will investigate complaints against lenders who might have violated the Fair Housing Act by refusing mortgage loans, refusing to provide the same information regarding loans or imposing different terms or conditions for granting a loan."Lending cases are complex and require extensive resources to review and compare mountains of loan data," said Kim Kendrick, Housing and Urban Development assistant secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. "The addition of the Fair Lending Division will allow the department to enhance the quality and speed of the investigations."The division will also conduct oversight investigations into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to ensure their underwriting policies and practices comply with fair lending laws.Home foreclosures in Clay and Platte Counties, as well as the Kansas City area, are well ahead of a year ago, and are likely to reach record highs this year.Counseling services are also getting inquiries from homeowners who are on the brink of foreclosure and looking for a way to save their homes.At ACORN Housing in Kansas City, the number of persons seeking help because of threatened foreclosures have risen from 10 a year to 10 a month, according to Carmen Blatt, the office director.The Community Services League has received an increasing number of calls from homeowners stuck in adjustable rate mortgage loans they can't pay."We have one client who has a $250,000 home," said Bruce Bailey, director of housing for the league.
Make yourself at home
I HATE to haggle. Those television advertisements where customers are urged to haggle for the best price for household goods scare the pants off me. When travelling overseas, I let my wife do the bargaining for $2 T-shirts at the markets while I stand quietly and cowardly in the shadows. The fear of haggling disappears, however, when it comes to getting the best deal for a home loan or an investment loan. This is partly because lending managers at banks and credit unions don't say they cannot afford to feed their children if they knock 0.3 per cent off my loan. But mostly it's because in today's financial services world, the customer has the power. Intense competition - which began in the 1990s when Aussie Home Loans took on the big banks - has forced lenders to fight hard for new business, and that means offering sweeteners such as no fees and lower interest rates.
MPs to investigate easy credit and loan defaults
A FEDERAL parliamentary economics committee has called a snap inquiry into home lending practices amid concern over declining credit standards and rising defaults. A round table of heavy hitters - including the Reserve Bank, the banking regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, banks and consumer groups - will meet next month to talk about lending standards and the treatment of troubled borrowers. The move follows a Herald investigation into the boom in easy credit, evidence of rapidly rising bankruptcies and regulator concern about lending practices. The committee's chairman, Bruce Baird, said it would be a "short, sharp review", focusing, among other things, on the length of time lenders give home owners before foreclosing on their loan.
HDFC may cut home loan rates, awaits RBI cue
MUMBAI: The country's largest mortgage finance company, HDFC, may reduce lending rates if the central bank does not tighten rates or resort to a monetary squeeze by hiking the cash reserve ratio (CRR). The company has already seen a decline in borrowing costs in July and is waiting to see whether the decline in rates will be sustained before reducing lending rates. Although interest rates have gone up during the first quarter of 2006-07, liquidity generated by forex inflows has helped bring down rates in the money markets. Towards July, interest rates have eased and borrowing costs have come down for institutional borrowers. Some banks, which had hiked their lending rates in the fourth quarter of last year, said they would bring down home loan rates. "We have seen a reduction in borrowing costs in July.
Tighter regulation of home loan lenders needed: Tucker
ACT Greens senate candidate Kerrie Tucker is calling for tougher regulations for 'sub-prime' lenders in the home loans market as the ALP housing affordability summit continues in Canberra. Ms Tucker said committing to "real action" on affordable housing was the only way for Labor leader Kevin Rudd to distinguish himself from the government on the issue. "Deregulation of the financial system has enabled new non-deposit taking lenders, or sub–prime lenders, to take on a growing share of the market," she said. "This has resulted in a serious decline of consumer protection which is seen to have contributed to the explosion in home prices and the growing number of people unable to meet their mortgage debts." "We need to see regulation which ensures first homebuyer grants and shared equity schemes are linked to good lending standards, Commonwealth regulation of consumer credit and Commonwealth legislation for mortgage and finance brokers." The ACT candidate said a promised Labor review of capital gains tax arrangements needed to be widened to include all existing subsidies and incentives for housing and property investment, including negative gearing.
FirstAgain Introduces Nation's First Completely Paperless Consumer ...
SAN DIEGO, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 07/11/07 -- FirstAgain LLC (www.firstagain.com), a new venture from the founders of PeopleFirst.com, today introduced its AnythingLoan, the country's first paperless consumer loan. The company's innovative product is an unsecured loan that can be used for any purpose including home improvements, vehicle purchases, medical or educational expenses, timeshares and loan refinancings. The product is tailored to the needs of consumers with excellent credit, a market the company estimates to be one trillion dollars in size. "A completely digital loan has been the holy grail of consumer lending for several years now," said Gary J. Miller, FirstAgain's co-founder and CEO. "While important, it's just one of the many critical components we have developed, enabling us to reinvent the loan experience for individuals with excellent credit.
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