A group of middle of the road Democrats joined the Republicans today in blocking the scheduled vote on the Helping Families Save Their Homes in Bankruptcy Act of 2009. More debate is, apparently, needed, so the vote has been put off until Tuesday, March 3. Hopefully the bill will pass the House then.
Posts under ‘News’
California Adopts Moratorium On Home Foreclosures
Governor Schwarzenegger signed into law a 90-day moratorium on home foreclosures. That’s great news for families struggling to keep their homes, but does it do enough?
A close examination of the law shows there are some significant loop holes for mortgage companies. They don’t have to comply with the moratorium if they are offering modifications to [...]
We Need To Stop Foreclosures NOW!
There is a new foreclosure in the United States every 13 seconds according to a report by the Center for Responsible Lending. That number is staggering. So is the number of families that have lost their home since January 1, 2009 alone (365,000 and growing).
The Helping Families Save Their Homes in Bankruptcy Act is the [...]
Speak up now for a solution to foreclosures
The Helping Families Save Their Homes in Bankruptcy Act is expected to come to the floor of the House as early as Wednesday February 25th. The bill will give bankruptcy judges the same power to modify mortages on family homes as they now have for vacation homes, apartment buildings, and commercial property.
The bill would give [...]
Obama Speech: Help For Homeowners
President Obama made a nice speech yesterday in Arizonian. He spoke about the mortgage crisis and the need to help homeowner. And he identified a new plan to do that.
The ideas presented focus on encouraging lenders to modify mortgages. It sounded, to some extent, like the same old rhetoric: “the mortgage companies can voluntary work [...]
Foreclosures in California Drop 31.5%
Completed foreclosures in California dropped 31.5 percent from December to January, according to a report Wednesday in the San Francisco Business Times.
14,351 foreclosures were completed in January, compared with 20,952 in December. The state still had more foreclosures than any other state, however.
California also ranks second in pre-foreclosure filings, which dropped to 33,008 in January [...]
Lenders Stop Foreclosures
JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. are halting foreclosures for owner occupied homes. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had done much the same thing at the end of last year, but lifted their moratorium in early January. JPMorgan and Citigroup may be the first privately owned companies to stop foreclosing until the administration has [...]
The Stimulus Package, Without A Fix For Foreclosures, Is Edging Closer To Passage.
CNN reported this morning that the Senate worked on a Saturday to reach a compromise on President Obama’s stimulus package. As originally written the package contained a foreclosure fix: letting bankruptcy judges modify mortgages. Today’s package lives on without any help at all for a family about to lose their home.
But, if the stimulus package does [...]
The U.S. Census Bureau Reports That a Record 19 Million Homes Were Vacant at the End of 2008
The foreclosure rate is skyrocketing! According to Bloomberg News, there were nineteen million homes seized in 2008! The largest increase came in the fourth quarter of the year when there was an increase of 6.7 percent over the 4th quarter in 2007.
The vacancy rate, the share of empty homes for sale, rose to 2.9 percent [...]
House Bill 200, With Amendments, Approved By Committee And Sent To House Floor
The , “Helping Families Save Homes in Bankruptcy Act of 2009” was approved by the House Judiciary Committee, voting strictly on party lines, and sent to the House Floor late on January 28, 2009.
The committee added several amendments to the bill. Several of these are discussed in the post, “Changes to HR 200 [...]