Connecticut Foreclosure Crisis Appears to Be Worsening
Wall Street Journal
Federal regulators seized Florida's BankUnited FSB on Thursday, the biggest bank failure this year, one that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. estimates will cost its weakened insurance fund $4.9 billion. BankUnited, which was owned by holding company BankUnited Financial Corp., is the second-costliest bank failure of the financial crisis, trumped only by IndyMac Bank, which failed in July at an estimated cost to the FDIC of about $11 billion.
For Small Banks, It's Eat or Get Eaten
CNNMoney.com
Despite just a handful of deals so far this year, consolidation in the U.S. banking industry is poised to soar in the months ahead. Even after last year's mega deals, including the acquisitions of Wachovia and Washington Mutual, experts are predicting a robust period of mergers that should consolidate the industry even further.
Connecticut Foreclosure Crisis Appears to Be Worsening
New York Times
Mortgage delinquencies of at least 90 days are up in Connecticut. The boarded-up home in Bridgeport is among the thousands in foreclosure. More than 27,000 homes in Fairfield, Hartford, Litchfield and New Haven Counties were in some stage of foreclosure between January 2005 and August 2008, according to an analysis by The New York Times of data from the Warren Group. These counties have fared better than other parts of the New York metropolitan area. Their 3.3 percent average foreclosure rate falls below New York City’s rate of 4.6 percent and Long Island’s 3.7 percent rate.
New York Times
Peter Bergamini is barely making his mortgage payments on a $330,000 loan from the Countrywide Financial Corp. that he took out in 2006. The Bergaminis are not in foreclosure, but they are tied to a mortgage whose interest rates, he said, are “ready to explode on me” by September 2013. It is an adjustable rate mortgage whose payments at 6 1/2 percent interest are now $2,200 a month but in 2013 will reset and could spiral up to 11 1/2 percent, with principal payments starting as well. “Thank God I’m working,” he said. “But if I had a hiccup right now I’d be done for.”