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Standard Form Proposed for Monthly Mortgage Statements The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has proposed a monthly mortgage statement aimed at making it easier for borrowers to understand their home loans and help them avoid unnecessary fees. The proposed form shows how much of the monthly statement goes to the loan principal, interest and fees. Richard Cordray, the bureau’s director, said in a statement that the information would help homeowners keep track of their payments and keep mortgage servicers — the companies that collect the payments and manage the loans — accountable for fixing any errors that occur. Read more on: NY Times A Good Rental History Can Help Borrowers IF you’re planning to buy a home for the first time later this year, your chances of qualifying for a mortgage might be better if you’ve had a history of paying the rent on time. Last year Experian, one of the three leading credit-reporting companies, added a section to millions of credit reports showing on-time rent payments, and raised the credit scores of many people. The company said that this year it would add in negative marks, including mentions of bounced checks or of tenants’ leaving before a lease was up. Read more on: NY Times Most European Leaders Agree on Fiscal Treaty European leaders, meeting until the early hours of Friday, agreed to sign an intergovernmental treaty that would require them to enforce stricter fiscal and financial discipline in their future budgets. But efforts to get unanimity among the 27 members of the European Union, as desired by Germany, failed as Britain and Hungary refused to go along for now. Read more on: NY Times Nevada Says Bank Broke Mortgage Settlement The attorney general of Nevada is accusing Bank of America of repeatedly violating a broad loan modification agreement it struck with state officials in October 2008 and is seeking to rip up the deal so that the state can proceed with a suit against the bank over allegations of deceptive lending, marketing and loan servicing practices. Read more on: NY Times Bank Fees The news on Thursday that Bank of America is imposing a $5 monthly fee on people who have the nerve to use their debit card to buy things probably should not have come as much of a shock. Wells Fargo, the other giant coast-to-coast bank, had already revealed its plans to test a $3 fee in the wake of new federal rules that made the cards less profitable for many banks. Read more on: NY Times Home loans rates drop again in Freddie Mac survey Fixed-rate mortgages continued their descent into record territory early this week, but now may be poised to move higher again. Lenders surveyed Monday through Wednesday were offering the 30-year loan at an average 4.09% and the 15-year mortgage at 3.30%, Freddie Mac said in its weekly report. Those were the lowest levels since the big mortgage-finance company started tracking the 30-year loan in 1971. Read more on: LA Times Delinquent loans on the rise again, a grim sign for housing It's an ominous sign for housing. The percentage of homeowners who have missed at least one mortgage payment has risen for the second straight quarter, the Mortgage Bankers Assn. says. "It is clear that the downward trend we saw through most of 2010 has stopped," the Mortgage Bankers Assn.'s chief economist, Jay Brinkmann, said in a news release. Read more on: LA Times The nest-egg myth As the debate over the federal deficit heats up, Americans are going to hear a great deal about "greedy geezers" who are supposedly bankrupting the nation with Social Security and Medicare. Politicians will no doubt be more circumspect than former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson, who, as the Republican co-chairman of the federal deficit commission, described Social Security as a "milk cow with 310 million tits." Read more on: LA Times 30-year mortgage interest rates slide back below 5% Freddie Mac's widely watched survey of the mortgage market provided homeowners and would-be home buyers with another round of good news Thursday: A third straight week of falling interest rates has taken the average rate on 30-year fixed-rate home loans below 5% again. According to Freddie Mac, the rate on that standard mortgage averaged 4.99% this week, down from 5.06% last week and 5.16% a year ago. Read more on: LA Times Will 2011 be a turning point for the economy? The U.S. economy keeps climbing out of the deep hole left by the financial crash and the Great Recession that followed. But the recovery's benefits have been dispensed unevenly, to say the least — which is why many Americans don't believe things have improved, and lack faith that 2011 will bring better times. Those doubts, however, could have a silver lining: The bar is low for what might constitute good news that could feed on itself and give the economy significant momentum. Read more on: LA Times Credit scores to be revised amid soaring mortgage defaults Changes in consumer behavior mean that borrowers who were once considered outstanding credit risks may no longer be so today. Reporting from Washington: With foreclosures soaring - and homeowners with unblemished payment histories abruptly walking away from their houses with no warning to lenders — the two major producers of credit scores have begun changing how they evaluate consumers' risks of default. The revisions could affect you the next time you apply for a loan. In late October, both Fair Isaac Corp., developer of the FICO score, which dominates the mortgage field, and VantageScore Solutions, a joint venture by the three national credit bureaus and marketer of the competing VantageScore, outlined modifications they were making to handle the vast credit disruptions caused by the housing bust, the recession, high unemployment and behavioral changes by consumers. More information on: LA Times |
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