(LA Times) — The day is coming when lenders will no longer turn their clients loose after they leave the closing table, never to be heard from again unless someone misses a payment or two. Think of it as crisis intervention. Rather than waiting for previously solid borrowers to ask for help, lenders will monitor […]
(Danbury News Times) — A national consumer coalition plans to file a series of landmark federal fair housing complaints beginning Monday challenging a widespread practice by banks and mortgage lenders: Requiring borrowers who apply for FHA loans to have FICO credit scores well above the 580 minimum score set by the FHA itself for qualified […]
(Time) — It has become taboo to defend anything having to do with subprime lending. Why would you? It’s clear now that banks and mortgage brokers handed out expensive loans to many people who had little ability to make the payments. It’s also clear that the result was not benign. The result was a terrible […]
(Businessweek) — Brad Sterl didn’t think getting a $1 million line of credit from a bank would be difficult after his pizza crust manufacturing company in Pittsfield, N.H., returned to profitability in 2009. Rustic Crust, founded in 1996, had been doubling sales each year since 2005 when it raised venture capital. It hadn’t booked a […]
(Inc) — The four largest banks in the U.S. are making good on their promises to increase lending to small businesses. Bank of America pledged to increase lending to small business by $5 billion this year, and this week reached the halfway point, with $45.4 billion loaned in the first half of 2010. That is nearly $9 […]