Free Republic

Wells Fargo & Co. acknowledged Tuesday that it failed to offer mortgage modifications to hundreds more borrowers than were due them and that many ultimately lost their homes because of the error. *snip* Now, in a regulatory filing released Tuesday, the bank said it improperly denied modifications to 870 borrowers — nearly 40% more than first thought — and that 545 of those borrowers later lost their homes.

The Portland City Council voted Wednesday to move forward with a plan to foreclose on so-called "zombie homes" for the first time in 50 years as the city grapples with a swelling population and skyrocketing home costs that are locking new homeowners out of the market. Commissioners and the mayor voted 4-0 in favor of the plan, with one member absent. The vote targets five of the city's worst abandoned properties, the first part of a long-term plan to free up housing in an overheated market while clearing out squatters who have plagued developing neighborhoods outside the city's hip core...

A monument to honor the Fair Housing movement and the historic struggles against discrimination in housing has taken a step forward in possibly getting its place in the nation’s capital

The chief executive of HSBC in the US has been threatened with sanctions by a New York judge because of a row over a foreclosured home. A judge has issued an order claiming HSBC and a law firm deliberately misled the court by filing false and “robo-signed” documents in an attempt to foreclose on the house of a Brooklyn resident

In a rare move, a South Side homeowners association has filed to foreclose on 84 homes in the Mission Creek community because of unpaid association dues. That’s 21 percent of the roughly 400 homes in the community, based on data from RexReport.com. The 84 are set to go on the auction block April 7 at the Bexar County Courthouse — an event that would devastate the neighborhood’s property values, experts say. Judith Gray, an attorney hired as the auction trustee, said the association is foreclosing because many homeowners have not paid dues for several years, and the multiyear loss of...

Econ 101: The Problem with Bailouts by Gary Wolfram (more by this author) Posted 09/17/2007 ET The difficulties in the subprime lending market are beginning to generate a chorus for a bailout of the mortgage industry. The media emphasize stories of people losing their homes to foreclosure and potential panic as adjustable-rate mortgages are adjusted up. Yet a bailout, however structured, would be a bad idea. As Sherlock Holmes told Dr. Watson in “Scandal in Bohemia,” one problem is that we see but do not observe. For every homeowner who loses his home and moves into a smaller home or...