Daily News and Information for the Mortgage Loan Originator
Realtors Seek To Protect Borrowers From Predatory Lending
Friday, February 09, 2007
-
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The National Association of Realtors® told a Senate panel that NAR supports stronger anti-predatory lending legislation and more consumer education on nontraditional mortgage products.
In testimony on “Preserving the American Dream: Predatory Lending Practices and Home Foreclosures” presented to the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, NAR said that abusive and predatory lending practices are putting our nation’s communities at risk. These practices can cause more families to lose their homes and savings through higher foreclosure rates. The vacancies that result can deflate the value of surrounding homes, as well.
“Predatory lending can be disastrous not only for the borrower and his or her family, but also for the entire community,” said NAR President Pat Vredevoogd Combs, of Grand Rapids, Mich., and vice president of Coldwell Banker-AJS-Schmidt. “High foreclosures of single-family homes are a serious threat to neighborhood stability and community well-being. Realtors® help families achieve the dream of homeownership, and NAR supports responsible lending with increased consumer protections to ensure that the ‘dream’ our members help fulfill does not turn into a family’s worst nightmare.”
“Real estate professionals have a strong stake in preventing predatory lending,” said Combs. “We have to make sure that while addressing predatory lending, the legislative and regulatory responses to lending abuses do not go too far and inadvertently limit the availability of reasonable credit for prime as well as subprime borrowers.”
Related
Articles :
State Limits on Subprime Mortgages Don't Hurt Consumers It pays - immensely - to enact state restrictions on America's booming subprime mortgage industry, the Center for Responsible Lending reported. Consumers with marred credit or tight finances still get home loans easily and usually for a lower price when states govern subprime loans, researchers at the Durham, N.C.-based consumer advocacy group found.
Women Are More Likely To Receive Subprime Loans Women are more likely to receive subprime home mortgage than men and these higher rates of subprime lending make it harder for households headed by women to build wealth through homeownership. In 2005, about a third of women took out mortgages with interest rates over 7.66 percent (well above the average prime mortgage rate of 5.87 percent) compared to about a quarter of men, according to a new study released today by the Consumer Federation of America.
Group Says 2.2 Million Borrowers Face Foreclosure on Subprime Loans A new study by an industry watch group claims that 2.2 million American households will lose their homes and as much as $164 billion due to foreclosures in the subprime mortgage market. The group goes on to claim that one in every five subprime loans outstanding will result in a foreclosure.
Foreclosures Jump an Additional 19% According to a national foreclosure tracking service, foreclosures jumped 19% percent from the previous month and increased 25% from one year earlier. Nevada reclaimed the top foreclosure spot from Colorado.
Federal Regulators Ask Banks To Evaluate Subprime Lending Practices The subprime mortgage business is starting to have the whiff of the troubled airline industry. At least 20 U.S. subprime lenders in recent months have closed, retrenched, filed for bankruptcy, delayed earnings reports, taken financial hits, or been sold or downgraded amid a rise in delinquency rates. And federal regulators have noticed.
How Britain Has Avoided the Subprime Blues Britain's housing market had its own meltdown about 15 years ago, so the troubles roiling the U.S. subprime-mortgage lenders have revived some painful memories on the other side of the pond. So far the U.K. housing market has been spared the pain currently being felt across the Atlantic, though experts have warned for years that the market could turn nasty very quickly.
U.S. Foreclosures Rise a Whopping 90 Percent From One Year Earlier According to a national foreclosure tracking service, foreclosures increased 19 percent from the previous month and nearly 90 percent from one year earlier. Nevada continued to post the highest state foreclosure rate for the fifth month in a row followed by Colorado and California.
