TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2012

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HOMEOWNERS NEWS

ForeclosureGate.org Is A Public Service Homeowner Coalition and Cooperative, Created To Exchange News And Information And To Advance Justice For American Homeowners

New Financial Overseer Looks for Advice in All the Wrong Places This entity was created by the Dodd-Frank Act to conduct independent research on the sweeping risks to the financial system. Ah, right, another group of Washington wonks who will issue reports carrying vague warnings of risks looming sometime in the uncertain future. Yawn. I hadn't paid much attention either. But then I spoke to Ross Levine, an economist and specialist in regulation at Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, and I finally got it. The Office of Financial Research is a great idea. And as I grasped it, I felt a minor sense of horror, as when you see a precious ring slip off a finger in slow motion and go down the drain while you are powerless to stop it.

Older homeowners foreclosure

falling

more

into

HousingWire Propaganda Not To Be Believed, Part 1: Re-Analyzing the Data Dear Bankers: If you hadnt falsely inflated principal balances by suborning appraisal fraud and adding fake demand to the marketplace by abandoning underwriting, thus directly and fraudulently increasing the homebuyers debt load; If you hadnt engaged in widespread predatory lending including steering people into more expensive mortgages when they qualified for cheaper ones thus directly and fraudulently.

Homeowners more than 50 years old are falling into foreclosure faster than any other age group, particularly widows whose husbands held the mortgage, said the New York Times. Foreclosures among homeowners over 50 increased by 23% over the past five years, resulting in 1.5 million foreclosures. The main reason for the rise in foreclosures is due to women outliving their spouses and not being.

Country Club Sopranos You wouldn't know it by watching the news or reading the paper, but America's banks are on the largest crime spree the country has ever known. Let's go to the highlight reel, shall we? In July, Wells Fargo paid a $175 million settlement after the feds caught its brokers systematically pushing minority customers into mortgages with higher rates and fees, even though they posed the same credit risks as whites.

Housing-Market Recovery Resounding, Shiller Says

in

U.S.

Not

The U.S. housing recovery is a fragile one and should be spurred by reducing the role of government in the mortgage-finance system, said Robert Shiller, a professor at Yale University and co-creator of the S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values. There are positive signs, the problem is that its not a really strong positive sign yet, Shiller said in an interview on Bloomberg.

Spain Suicides Lead to Eviction Law Spain, responding to street protests and reports of suicides linked to foreclosures, introducedrules to help protect families from eviction, increasing the risk of creditor losses and weakening an already fragile banking system. Banks won't be able to remove families who can't pay their mortgages for two years.

New service offers free help to low-income households facing foreclosure The Oregon Housing and Community Services has contracted with Legal Aid Services of Oregon on the new program, which will be offered over the phone and in person from offices in Eugene, Portland, Medford, Hillsboro, and Bend. Interested households can call 1-855-412-8828 toll-free.

Bank backtracks after improper foreclosure Andu Trisa Long thought her home had been saved. Unemployed for nearly a year, she had fallen behind on her mortgage payments after burning through savings. Through a state-run, but federally funded program, her mortgage company would be receiving thousands of dollars in taxpayer money to stave off foreclosure. But, as the 54-year-old Mableton woman stood in her foyer one October afternoon, she could hardly believe what she was reading. It was an eviction notice and offer to give her as much as $3,000 if she quietly moved out of the house she built with.