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The recent Obama administration scandals shift the spotlight from the economy. Yet the recovery remains depressingly sluggish, with the labor force participation rate at a 34-year low as millions of able-bodied, able-minded Americans simply stopped looking for work. With President Obama in the fifth year of his presidency, let us examine the effect of the stimulus program, tax hikes, Obamacare and additional regulation on the economy. It isn't pretty. For the richest Americans, their net worth has fully recovered. For the non-rich, the recovery tells a very different story. At the start of "recovery" in 2009, the mean net worth...

President Barack Obama says Congress must give more homeowners the chance to refinance their mortgages to save money. Obama says more than 2 million people are saving about $3,000 a year after restructuring their loans under his administration but that more deserve the same chance. …

Home prices are rising at levels not seen since the real estate boom, but American homeownership remains on the decline. The two trends underscore the nature of the housing rebound: Gains in pricing have been driven significantly by investors, leaving many would-be buyers behind. Prices are rising because of strong demand, a lack of supply and a sharp recovery in the hardest-hit markets. The number of foreclosed homes coming to market has also dropped dramatically. But because lending standards remain tight, the everyday home shopper is often losing out to investors able to pay cash. "What we are seeing right...

This week financial news organization CNBC gave some mainstream attention to the largest money laundering and racketeering lawsuit in United States History, in which “Banksters” and their U.S. racketeering partners are being accused of laundering of 43 trillion dollars worth of ill gotten gains. The lawsuit is said to involve officials located in the highest offices of government and the financial sector. Since this information was surprisingly revealed by the mainstream news organization there has been a very suspicious and deadly fallout at the CNBC headquarters. Within hours the original page for the article was taken down, and CNBC senior...

Ok, I guess the best adage is to be nice until that doesn't work. But my agent keeps telling me, "don't worry, they'll pay." My policy language is very vague and open to a lot of interpretation. Without going into detail, I'm not getting the impression the adjuster will be that accomodating. You know, I'm 51 years old and have never had to file a homeowner's claim before I sort of feel like the difference between my agent and and the adjuster is like the difference between a military recruiter and the drill sergeant. Am I wrong?

EHLP Overview The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act provided $1 billion to HUD to implement the Emergency Homeowners' Loan Program (EHLP). The EHLP is designed to provide mortgage payment relief to eligible homeowners experiencing a drop in income of at least 15% directly resulting from involuntary unemployment or underemployment due to adverse economic conditions and/or a medical emergency. Other EHLP eligibility requirements include: * Income Limit: Applicant has a total household income equal to, or less than, the greater of either $75,000 or 120 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI) for a household size of four...

Homeowners facing foreclosure can now tap into a $1 billion program of emergency loans to help tide them over a temporary financial crisis, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has announced. Beginning today, homeowners in 27 states can file preliminary applications for the Emergency Homeowner's Loan Program (EHLP). Eligible homeowners can obtain interest-free loans of up to $50,000 to help cover mortgage expenses for up to two years. The program is available to homeowners who have seen their incomes fall and who could lose their homes to foreclosure due to circumstances beyond their control, including involuntary unemployment, underemployment,...

Robin Aaron thought it was the end. A ferocious storm ripped through Westmoreland County on Wednesday afternoon, leveling some houses and peeling roofs off others, tearing tops off trees and gouging the auditorium and athletic field at Hempfield Area Senior High School. As chunks of hail rained down, a churning funnel cloud screamed through Sewickley Township, leveling six homes on General Braddock Road. "I was outside taking my dogs in. I looked at the sky. It was getting real bad," Aaron said. "I grabbed my daughter and called to my son. ... We were all curled into a ball (in...

...Homeowners who believe their cases were improperly filed should seek help from a nonprofit housing counseling agency, Robinson said. Those agencies — which can be found at mdhope.org — refer cases in need of legal assistance to Civil Justice and other attorneys with foreclosure expertise. Pending cases with paperwork problems can be dismissed and refiled properly, Robinson said. He added that the really troubling question is what can be done about the homes — potentially thousands in Maryland — that have already been auctioned off in cases involving robo-signed or improperly signed documents. Ten former homeowners called his office in...

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--U.S. stocks closed modestly lower Thursday as investors retreated from financials because of concerns over banks' foreclosure practices. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.51 points, or 0.01%, to 11094.6, snapping a four-session winning streak in a day of choppy trading. Financials led the Dow's declines. Bank of America dropped 69 cents, or 5.2%, to 12.60 and J.P. Morgan Chase fell $1.12, or 2.8%, to $38.72. Both are among the wave of banks reviewing their foreclosures after temporarily suspending evictions due to concerns over "robo signers," who approve hundreds of foreclosure documents a day. Among other banks...

The new, 49-state investigation into foreclosure frauds comes as no surprise to people who follow the mortgage service business. Shoddy, deceptive paperwork has plagued homewowners for years. In the industry’s slimy underside, firms push borrowers into default and foreclosure, even when they’ve been making payments on time. Their business model makes defaults profitable, says Marie McConnell who has been auditing mortgages for 24 years. The ugly chain of deception starts with the way the servicers handle your escrow account. A mortgage service company collects your monthly payments, deducts a fee, and passes the remainder to the investors who own the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Treasury Department on Friday acknowledged that the number of homeowners in trouble again despite getting help from the administration's signature mortgage aid program was higher than earlier estimates. Treasury officials blamed the error on mortgage finance giant Fannie Mae, which acts as the program administrator for President Barack Obama's $50 billion Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), which helps subsidize new terms for borrowers struggling to keep up with their mortgage payments. Treasury said about 4,764 borrowers, who had obtained a permanent HAMP modification, were behind by at least 90 days, while about 53,041 borrowers were behind...

Treasury Denies Talk Of Massive Homeowner Bailout Joe Weisenthal Aug. 5, 2010, 12:50 PM Image: AP Alright, well for now The Treasury (via CNBC) is denying this morning's talk that Fannie and Freddie are planning to engage in a massive mortgage forgiveness scheme as a way of bailing out the homeowner. That's fine, though we're still not convinced that the Treasury isn't trying to figure out ways right now to further use the GSEs to goose the housing market. Remember, they were given a total blank check last year, add it's clearly the desire of the Treasury and the Fed...

Wildlife officials have killed a grizzly bear in Wyoming and a grizzly bear in Montana to head-off potential lawsuits. The Montana grizzly killed and partially consumed Kevin Kammer at a Gallatin National Forest campground near Cooke City, Mont. on July 29. The Wyoming grizzly killed 70 year-old botanist Erwin Evert on June 17 on the Shoshone National Forest near the East Entrance of Yellowstone National Park. The circumstances were quite different, but the decision to kill the bears was undoubtedly influenced by a 1996 court case over the terrible bear mauling of 16 year-old Anna Knochel at a U.S. Forest...

siding back on the. When the crew was here, they noticed a lower ding on the siding and asked me if I wanted to have it caulked. I said yes (husband wasn't home) and it was no big deal as it's hidden behind the AC unit and behind a shrub. No one ever sees that area. Well, the insurance adjuster did. To boil it down, he said they would only pay to reside the front and back of the house as the caulk job showed we will accept some damage. The problem is our siding is likely discontinued. It will...

An early point about the Obama administration's new plan to help homeowners by forcing banks and lenders to reduce monthly mortgage payments to 31 percent of income, usually unemployment insurance: The new push, which the White House is scheduled to announce Friday, takes direct aim at the major cause of the current wave of foreclosures: the spike in unemployment. As noted in several places, the new health-care bill has already made the cost of employees more expensive and taken away capital that could otherwise have been used to hire workers. Farm-equipment manufacturer John Deere "said it expects its expenses to...

NEW YORK - One of every five U.S. homeowners owed more on their mortgage than their home was worth in the fourth quarter, a trend that poses a serious threat to the U.S. housing market's recovery, real estate Web site Zillow.com said on Wednesday. Homeowners with "underwater'' mortgages are more prone to defaults and foreclosures. They typically do not qualify for refinancings and are unable to sell their homes because they would need to cough up cash at closing time to pay off their mortgage.

A landmark ruling in a recent Kansas Supreme Court case may have given millions of distressed homeowners the legal wedge they need to avoid foreclosure. In Landmark National Bank v. Kesler, 2009 Kan. LEXIS 834, the Kansas Supreme Court held that a nominee company called MERS has no right or standing to bring an action for foreclosure. MERS is an acronym for Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, a private company that registers mortgages electronically and tracks changes in ownership. The significance of the holding is that if MERS has no standing to foreclose, then nobody has standing to foreclose on 60...

(11-29) 04:00 PST WASHINGTON -- Go ahead. Break the chains. Stop paying on your mortgage if you owe more than the house is worth. And most important: Don't feel guilty about it. Don't think you're doing something morally wrong. That's the incendiary core message of a new academic paper by Brent T. White, a University of Arizona law school professor, titled "Underwater and Not Walking Away: Shame, Fear and the Social Management of the Housing Crisis." White argues that far more of the estimated 15 million American homeowners who are underwater on their mortgages should stiff their lenders and take...

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Nov. 5, 2009) — Today, Congressman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) announced that Congress has approved H.R. 3548, the Worker, Homeownership and Business Assistance Act. The bipartisan legislation would extend unemployment benefits for 14 weeks and for six weeks in states with unemployment rates above 8.5 percent. Missouri’s unemployment rate was 9.5 percent in September 2009. It would also allow military personnel to fully participate in the first-time homebuyer tax credit program and will make payments tax-exempt under the Military Homeowner Assistance Program, which helps military families recoup costs associated with selling a home that has declined in value and...