Borrowers

The Obama administration is engaged in a broad push to make more home loans available to people with weaker credit, an effort that officials say will help power the economic recovery but that skeptics say could open the door to the risky lending that caused the housing crash in the first place. President Obama's economic advisers and outside experts say the nation's much-celebrated housing rebound is leaving too many people behind , including young people looking to buy their first homes and...

As the nation's economy struggled, JPMorgan Chase filed hundreds of lawsuits a day against Americans for credit-card default using erroneous or flimsy evidence, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday by California Attorney General Kamala Harris. The suit alleges that the nation's largest bank ran "a massive debt collection mill" to obtain default judgments and wage-garnishment orders against about 100,000 credit cardholders in California from January 2008 to April 2011. On one day in April 2010, JPMorgan filed 469...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Wednesday issued a series of proposals to create more flexible repayment plans for the millions of Americans struggling with private student loans. Such loans, which are offered by banks and other financial firms, account for $150 billion of the $1 trillion in outstanding student loan debt, but they have come under increased scrutiny. They generally carry higher interest rates and fewer protections than federal loans, and borrowers are rarely afforded wiggle room...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California's attorney general sued one of the nation's largest banks Thursday, alleging that JPMorgan Chase & Co. used illegal tactics in its efforts to collect debts from more than 100,000 credit card holders. It's the first such lawsuit in the nation, said spokesmen for both the company and the attorney general. The lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court says the company filed thousands of debt collection lawsuits each month between 2008 and April 2011...

President Obama on Monday responded to growing concerns about the nation's battered housing market by unveiling a plan to help reduce the monthly mortgage payments of homeowners who owe more than their properties are worth. As he met with distressed homeowners in Las Vegas, the foreclosure capital of the nation, Obama announced steps to allow "underwater" borrowers to refinance their mortgages at today's ultra-low rates — near 4 percent. The move comes amid a rapidly growing consensus that the...

On Monday, the federal government announced that it would revise the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP), implementing changes that The Washington Post's Zachary A. Goldfarb reported would "allow many more struggling borrowers to refinance their mortgages at today's ultra-low rates, reducing monthly payments for some homeowners and potentially providing a modest boost to the economy. " The HARP program, which was rolled out in 2009, is designed to help. Those...

It's time to retire the American Dream — or at least give it a long vacation. We ought to drop it from our national conversation. This would be a hardship for politicians and pundits, who use "the American Dream" as a rhetorical workhorse embodying goals embraced by almost all Americans. That's the problem. The American Dream has become so expansive in its meaning that it stifles honest debate and harms some of the very people it is intended to help. Who can oppose the American Dream?

In one of the largest fair-lending payouts in history, Wells Fargo agreed on Thursday to spend at least $175 million to settle federal accusations that it steered black and Latino borrowers into high-cost loans and charged them excessive fees. The settlement with the nation's largest home mortgage lender is rooted in a lawsuit filed four years ago by Baltimore over fair-lending violations. It culminated Thursday in what federal officials called "systemic discrimination"...

The federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act forbids third-party debt collectors from doing any of the following: -- Threatening borrowers with violence or jail. -- Threatening borrowers with a lawsuit or garnishment of wages, unless that action will actually be taken. -- Harassing borrowers by calling several times a day at home, after 9 p.m. or before 8 a.m., or by calling the borrower at work. -- Using intimidating language or tarnishing borrowers' character. -- Deceiving borrowers about their identity...

The refinancing wave that swept the nation when mortgage rates hit historic lows last year is petering out, leaving behind millions of homeowners who could not qualify for the best rates. Half of the nation's borrowers have mortgages with rates above 6 percent even though the average rate on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages has been about 5 percent for most of the past year, according to research firm First American CoreLogic. More refinancing activity would have helped household budgets, but also the national economy because...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Wednesday issued a series of proposals to create more flexible repayment plans for the millions of Americans struggling with private student loans. Such loans, which are offered by banks and other financial firms, account for $150 billion of the $1 trillion in outstanding student loan debt, but they have come under increased scrutiny. They generally carry higher interest rates and fewer protections than federal loans, and borrowers are rarely afforded wiggle room...

Correction: This story is updated to reflect that the Federal Reserve became aware of a problem with the compensation checks on Tuesday, not Friday. Thousands of victims of foreclosure abuse got an unpleasant surprise in the mail last week: compensation checks for less money than they were owed. The Federal Reserve said Wednesday that about 96,000 homeowners who are entitled to a cut of a $3.6 billion settlement with mortgage servicers accused of faulty and fraudulent foreclosures received less than...

WASHINGTON — Americans cut back on using their credit cards in March, suggesting many were reluctant to take on high-interest debt to make purchases. Consumer borrowing rose just $8 billion in March from February to a seasonally adjusted $2.81 trillion, the Federal Reserve said Tuesday. It was the smallest increase in eight months. The gain was driven entirely by more loans to attend school and buy cars. The category that measures those loans increased $9.7...

WASHINGTON — US consumers increase borrowing $8B to $2.81T, but cut back sharply on credit cards. Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

A few times in its short four-month history in the District, micro-finance nonprofit Kiva has run out of people to loan money to. The San Francisco-based nonprofit launched in D.C. this January, aiming to connect local entrepreneurs with lenders worldwide online. Kiva City D.C., a Web site dedicated to borrowers in the D.C., Maryland and Virginia area, has so far featured 20 entrepreneurs. All have received the amounts they requested, suggesting that enthusiasm from lenders has outpaced eligible borrowers in the...

The housing market, finally, is recovering. Home prices are up 8 percent over the past year. And that is providing relief to a particular set of homeowners — the underwater borrowers who owe more than their properties are worth. Over past year alone, 1.7 million homeowners have regained equity in their homes.. These positive developments have boosted the overall economy, even as it faces other headwinds. But they also raise a difficult question: How much has the phenomenon of people being underwater on their...

Q: Do you agree with the advice contained in a recent USA Today article , in which you were quoted, on how to save on settlement costs? A: That article made me realize that my views on how borrowers can best avoid overpaying on settlement costs are very different from those of most counselors. The author listened to my views but understandably went with the majority. This article will compare the different approaches. The consensus view is that borrowers should challenge individual settlement charges for...

After more than a decade of steep growth, home prices peaked last year and have been falling rapidly. Over 9 million mortgages are "under water," meaning that more is owed on them than the home is worth. As foreclosures mount, additional homes come on the market, intensifying downward pressure on prices. Congress is debating loan guarantees that would help homeowners renegotiate mortgages in default. In his initial response to the proposed legislation, Sen. John McCain argued that "it is not the duty of government to bail out and...

If you buy or own an energy-efficient house, are you less likely to default on your mortgage? Is there a connection between the monthly savings on utility costs and the probability that you'll pay your loan on time? A new study by the University of North Carolina suggests that the answer to both questions is a resounding yes. Using a massive sample of 71,000 home loans from across the country that were originated between 2002 and 2012, researchers found that mortgages on homes with Energy Star...

Federal housing regulators took a significant step on Wednesday toward helping borrowers who are falling behind on their mortgage payments — a move that will help more people but also introduce new risks that some homeowners could deliberately stop paying in order to become eligible for assistance. The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, announced that borrowers who are more than 90 days late on their mortgages will become automatically eligible...