Why It's Time To Buy

Why It's Time To Buy
June 4, 2011, Wall Street Journal

Back in June 2006, when the housing market peaked, the prospect of a five-year national housing bust seemed unimaginable to most people. And yet here we are, with the latest Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller index showing that prices hit new bear-market lows, falling back to 2002 levels nationally and to 1990s levels in some battered regions.

Florida Homeowner Forecloses on Bank
June 5, 2011, WFMY-TV

Have you heard the one about a homeowner foreclosing on a bank? Well, it has happened in Florida and involves a North Carolina-based bank. Instead of Bank of America foreclosing on some Florida homeowner, the homeowners had sheriff's deputies foreclose on the bank.

For the Jobless, Little U.S. Help on Foreclosure
June 4, 2011, New York Times

The Obama administration’s main program to keep distressed homeowners from falling into foreclosure has been aimed at those who took out subprime loans or other risky mortgages during the heady days of the housing boom. But these days, the primary cause of foreclosures is unemployment. As a result, there is a mismatch between the homeowner program’s design and the country’s economic realities — and a new round of finger-pointing about how best to fix it.

At Bank of America, More Incomplete Mortgage Docs Raise More Questions
June 3, 2011, Fortune Magazine

Are Countrywide mortgage-backed securities really mortgage-backed? Do banks even have the legal right to foreclose on certain homes? These are just a few of the questions raised since the foreclosure crisis revealed shoddy mortgage servicing practices at many of the big banks – practices that have led to countless investigations and lawsuits. Court testimony by a former Countrywide employee added to the intrigue last fall, because she confessed that many loans there weren't properly handled, bringing into doubt the validity of Countrywide's securitization process. Bank of America, which owns Countrywide, quickly silenced the discussion with firm denials.