Real estate industry flouts anti-blight laws

As bank-owned foreclosed properties pile up across the country, from abandoned houses in hard-hit neighborhoods to empty big box retail stores in failed strip malls, the battle to hold someone responsible for the brick-and-mortar mess left behind by the mortgage crisis continues to heat up.

Loan servicers work the fine print in Obama foreclosure plan

WASHINGTON — Even as the Obama administration presses the lending industry to get more mortgage loans modified, the practice of forcing borrowers to sign away their legal rights in order to get their loans reworked is a tactic that some servicers just won’t give up on.

Rethinking mortgage cramdown legislation as foreclosures roll on

As The Washington Independent reported yesterday, a small group of Senate Democrats is pushing to revive the mortgage loan cramdown idea — a sure sign of frustration as foreclosures continue to pile up. The Senate in April defeated…

Foreclosure crisis worsening; 1.5 million notices in 2009

There’s more proof out today that the foreclosure crisis is only getting worse, despite everything that’s been thrown at it so far: Foreclosure notices reached a new record high during the first half of this year, Bloomberg reports.

Citing…

Foreclosure crisis continues, bound to hobble recovery

WASHINGTON– As new foreclosure notices reach the troubling milestone of 10,000 per day across the nation, it is increasingly clear that measures taken so far to turn back the tide have failed. This week, a number of officials here have signaled that they have decided to support a shift in strategy.

Momentum to halt abusive lending, overhaul mortgage industry stalls

Not long after foreclosures started to take off in 2007 and the mortgage market’s collapse began to cripple the economy, one lesson seemed obvious: The predatory lending practices that led to the crisis had to be reined in.

But despite massive government bailouts of banks and lenders due to losses from toxic mortgages, that reform still hasn’t happened.

Program for first-time homebuyers ripe for abuse, housing advocates charge

When U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan announced last week that first-time homebuyers soon will be permitted to turn their $8,000 tax credit for purchasing a property into downpayment money, he called the development “exciting” and “a real win for everyone.”

But his enthusiasm isn’t universal.

Jump in foreclosures reaches historic high in March

Just as a voluntary ban on foreclosures ended, a record jump in foreclosure activity in March is raising troubling questions about whether lenders and servicers are genuinely willing and able to do loan modifications on a large scale. And it poses an even more worrisome possibility: That many borrowers can’t be helped at all.

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac quietly lift moratorium on foreclosures

A ban on foreclosure sales and evictions from houses owned by mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which began as a high-profile effort just before the holidays to keep people in their homes as the government tried to come up with homeowner rescue plans, is over.

Spokesmen for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac confirmed the ban ended March 31, in a response to an inquiry from our sister site, The Washington Independent. But its expiration didn’t seem to merit the same level of fanfare, with some housing advocates caught by surprise, scrambling for information today and Wednesday on listservs and in phone calls.

NYT: Give AIG staff their bonuses so they will defuse derivatives bomb

Andrew Ross Sorkin takes a shot at explaining why we have to pay those AIG bonuses today in The New York Times. Sorkin explains that he knows it’s not a popular view to even try to justify the bonuses — but it’s the new reality of how the business world works in post-bailout America.

And it’s all far worse than you might think.