Posted by admin in : Anti-Predatory Lending Initiative, News, Partners ,
In a sign that banks are stepping up their efforts to combat foreclosures, lenders intervened to help prevent 239,000 foreclosures last month, according to a report released Thursday. Hope Now, a coalition of lenders, investors in mortgage-backed securities and community advocacy groups, said that December marked the fourth consecutive month that its members had arranged [...]
Posted by admin in : Resources ,
US home foreclosures, the epicenter of the global financial crisis, spiked 81 percent in 2008 despite efforts to slow the “tsunami,” a data tracking firm said Thursday. National foreclosure filings — default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions — totaled 3.16 million and were reported on 2.33 million properties last year, said RealtyTrac, an [...]
Posted by admin in : Advocacy, Events, Lunch and Learn, Members, News, Safe Neighborhoods ,
What could the future be for 22 empty school buildings during a recession in a city that has been draining of people for half a century? The Urban Redevelopment Authority has taken on the challenge of finding out by becoming the school board’s real-estate agent, Kyra Straussman, the URA’s real estate manager, told about 50 [...]
Posted by admin in : Advocacy, Anti-Predatory Lending Initiative, News, Resources ,
Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. said on Wednesday that allowing the mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to return to their old operating ways was not an option. Congress and the next administration must decide the proper role government should play in supporting home ownership in light of the severe economic costs [...]
Posted by admin in : News, Resources ,
This is what life in one American city looks like after an industrial collapse:Unemployment is 5.5 percent, far below the national average. While housing prices sank nearly everywhere in the last year, they rose here. Wages are also up. Foreclosures are comparatively uncommon.
A generation ago, the steel industry that built Pittsburgh and still dominated [...]
Posted by admin in : Advocacy, Anti-Predatory Lending Initiative, Research, Resources ,
In a recent interview with the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta on the future of the housing market, National Community Reinvestment Coalition Chief Operating Officer Jim Carr responded to questions about which housing policies would best meet the challenges presented by the foreclosure crisis. The following excerpts discuss measures to address the destabilization of housing [...]
Posted by admin in : News, Research, Resources ,
Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan said he categorically disagrees with suggestions that the Community Reinvestment Act is partly responsible for the ongoing credit crisis. “CRA is not the culprit behind the subprime mortgage lending abuses, or the broader credit quality issues in the marketplace,” Mr. Dugan said in a speech to the [...]
Posted by admin in : Anti-Predatory Lending Initiative, Research, Resources ,
Even in this time of economic and financial chaos, there seems to have emerged a bit of conventional wisdom here in southwestern Pennsylvania that the regional housing market isn’t so bad.
After all, the number of foreclosures here has dropped for two consecutive months and 2008 looks about on pace with 2007. There are plenty of [...]
Posted by admin in : Partners, Resources ,
On December 23, shareholders of PNC Financial Services Group approved the blockbuster acquisition of hobbled Cleveland-based National City Corp., a deal that would catapult Pittsburgh-based PNC to the nation’s fifth largest bank with deposits of $180 billion.
National City shareholders meeting in Cleveland also approved the takeover this morning.
The votes, coming two months after the merger [...]
Posted by admin in : News, Partners, Resources ,
PNC Financial Services’ shotgun courtship of National City Corp. is expected to be consummated on Tuesday, December 23, with a shareholder vote that stands to reconfigure the region’s financial landscape, turning what is already Pittsburgh’s dominant bank into the fifth-largest deposit holder in the country.
Approval by the two banks’ shareholders is the final major action [...]
