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As massive consumer tailwinds like excess savings fade, one wonders what — if anything — could help fuel the next leg of the consumer spending boom that has been juicing economic activity.In a research note Tuesday, Wells Fargo economists Tim Quinlan and Shannon Seery put a spotlight on a potential whopper: home equity."Strong home price appreciation in the years following the pandemic may be an underappreciated tailwind for the household sector," the economists wrote. "The total value of the U.S. single-family market breached $40 trillion last year, and the mix between debt and equity has shifted over time with the...

The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 on Thursday in favor of a 94-year-old widow in her battle with a rapacious Hennepin County, MN, government which sold her home for a small tax debt and pocketed the change.The story starts in 1999 when Geralidein Tyler bought a condo in Minneapolis. In 2010, she decided, for a variety of reasons, to move into a retirement community. The financial strain of paying a mortgage, condo fees, and rent on her retirement apartment caused Tyler to fall behind on her property taxes. By 2015, she owed $2,300 in back taxes, onto which the county had...

It was a dream come true—or rather about to come true—when the Halls bought their forever home. It had everything they needed and more: five bedrooms, four bathrooms, a family room, a dining room, a roomy garage, good schools, and a good neighborhood. Sure, a fixer-upper, but they felt up to it. Prentiss Hall, a home improvement contractor, made it his life project, and everybody lent a hand—his wife, Tawanda, and six children, cousins, and friends. “We were really excited,” Tawanda told The Epoch Times. They negotiated the price down to $67,000—a bargain, perhaps, but the home demanded a daunting...

Hennepin County, Minnesota homeowner Geraldine Tyler in an undated photo. (Courtesy of Pacific Legal Foundation) The Supreme Court decided late on Jan. 13 to hear the appeal of a 94-year-old homeowner who is challenging the constitutionality of laws that allow local governments to take the full value of a home as payment for much smaller property tax debts. The decision came after the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), a public interest law firm that is representing the homeowner, released a report last month saying that 12 states and the District of Columbia allow local governments and private investors to seize dramatically...

At hardware stores along the U.S. East Coast in recent weeks, TD Bank has been trying to persuade shoppers to think bigger than paint and plumbing supplies: The bank wants them to start taking cash out of their homes again. The TD Bank tour bus, equipped with a galley kitchen and iPads where homeowners can start the application process, is part of a marketing push unusual for the mortgage industry since the housing bust. As the broader mortgage market remains in the doldrums, banks are again touting home-equity lines of credit, which allow homeowners to draw down the equity in...

Dear Dave, My son has a $115,000 mortgage at 5.8 percent. He also has a home equity line of credit of $40,000 at 9 percent. Currently, he can get a 30-year loan at 3.5 percent, or a 15-year note at 2.75 percent. His take-home pay is between $70,000 and $80,000 a year, and these are his only debts. Should he combine the mortgages into one loan? Daniel Dear Daniel, First, I only recommend mortgages of 15 years or less. Now we’re looking at a 2.75 percent loan versus a 5.8 percent loan versus a 9 percent loan. I advise people...

Hocking the house for quick cash is a lot harder than it used to be, and it's causing headaches for homeowners, banks and the economy. During the housing boom, millions of people borrowed against the value of their homes to remodel kitchens, finish basements, pay off credit cards, buy TVs or cars, and finance educations. Banks encouraged the borrowing, touting in ads how easy it is to unlock the cash in their homes to "live richly" and "seize your someday." Now, the days of tapping your house for easy money have gone the way of soaring home prices. A quarter...

JPMorgan sees home equity losses and 12,000 WaMu cuts 2 hrs 18 mins ago NEW YORK (Reuters) – JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) warned that up to 41 percent of its more credit-worthy home equity borrowers will owe more than their homes are worth by the end of 2010, up from 27 percent at the end of 2008. At an investor presentation on Thursday, the second-largest U.S. bank said it expects losses of $1 billion to $1.4 billion in each quarter this year from such lower-risk home equity loans because house prices are falling. /snip The bank expects a total...

Posted on Wed, Aug. 27, 2008 Wachovia cutting home-equity credit lines By Harold Brubaker Inquirer Staff Writer In the middle of remodeling the kitchen of their Gloucester County house, Paul and Julianne Gablin received a letter from Wachovia Bank canceling the line of credit they were using to pay for the project. Luckily for them, the Gablins own a house in Florida with another line of credit from Wachovia and were able to tap it to pay for the custom cabinets delivered yesterday. Still, the episode has soured him on Wachovia because he has always made his loan payments, Paul...

Crisis shifts to regional lenders By Saskia Scholtes and Francesco Guerrera in New York Home equity loans are rapidly emerging as the next front of the credit crunch, as falling house prices and lax underwriting lead to growing losses for US regional banks that have huge portfolios of such loans on their balance sheets. The rising defaults on home equity loans, used by people to raise funds by taking out a second mortgage on their houses, underscore how the financial crisis is shifting from big banks' writedowns on complex derivatives to consumer-related problems for smaller banks. Mounting losses on home...

IT was the nation’s lending institutions and mortgage originators that got us into this credit mess, but it is consumers, taxpayers and those companies’ shareholders who will end up shouldering most of the costs. The latest example of this is in the mass freezing of home equity lines of credit going on across the country. Reeling from losses on their wretched loan decisions of recent years, lenders are preventing borrowers with pristine credit and significant equity in their homes from tapping into credit lines that they paid dearly to secure. In the last 30 days, lenders have sent several hundred...

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - The white bus rumbles into the quiet suburban neighborhood, heading toward a foreclosed home that sits empty. Neighbors, young and old, cock their heads in curiosity or point at the slow-moving coach. Once the vehicle stops, about 20 potential buyers file out and become detectives, opening and closing cabinets and drawers, knocking on walls and asking about the price, the previous owners and what repairs may be needed. Welcome to the Foreclosure Bus Tour, a six-hour expedition to show Orlando-area homes and educate potential buyers on the vagaries of snatching foreclosures in a state where the...

THINKING OF REFINANCING your mortgage? Welcome to the club. With mortgage rates so low over the past few years, the question hasn't been "should you refinance?" but "when"? While conventional wisdom once said you had to shave at least 2% off your loan in order for refinancing to make sense, these days it could be worthwhile with an interest reduction of just 0.75%, says Doug Perry of Countrywide's consumer-markets division. That's because soaring home values, increased competition and automated underwriting (which can approve or reject your refi application in a matter of minutes) have made refinancing quicker, easier and potentially...

GERMANTOWN, Md. — Credit-counseling company AmeriDebt (search), charged by federal regulators with using deceptive marketing to bilk hundreds of thousands of customers, filed for bankruptcy Saturday, the company announced. [snip] In November, AmeriDebt became the first credit counseling company to have a federal lawsuit filed against it. Minnesota, Illinois and Missouri are among five states that have filed separate lawsuits against the company. [snip] Regulators said AmeriDebt made customers think that an initial fee would be part of their debt-reduction payments to creditors. Instead, it went to AmeriDebt. AmeriDebt has disputed the FTC's characterization of the company, saying it provides...

<p>The number of home foreclosures in Jefferson County has nearly tripled since 1996 and shows no signs of slowing.</p> <p>While no section of the community is immune — people are losing $300,000 and $400,000 houses in Cherokee Triangle and Lake Forest — most foreclosures are in western Louisville and, to a lesser degree, portions of south Louisville.</p>