Smart Borrower Blog

Archive for July, 2009

Obama’s Anti-Foreclosure Plan is Not Working

Our country is now four months into the Obama anti-foreclosure effort.   According to the White House, their “guesstimate” is that over 50,000 loans modified were at risk.   According to an article in the New York Times, no real precise data is available because there is not a tracking system in place.   A treasury official told The Times’ Peter Goodman that they are on track to modify 20,000 loans a week by the end of August.   To many, this is too little, too late.   Moody’s Economy.com is predicting that approximately 7 million homes will fall into... more »

Mortgage Foreclosures Begin a New Cycle

With the nightly news screaming headlines each night about the number of jobs lost, it is little wonder that we see another large wave of foreclosures looming on the horizon.   With 467,000 jobs lost in June, it is little wonder that we are seeing another cycle of foreclosure defaults happening. Even though the housing market has shown some signs of stabilization, and we see home prices seeking more level ground, rising unemployment will undo any advances that the housing market has made.   This year alone, we have seen record levels of mortgage defaults.   Even though foreclosures have... more »

Citigroup Hikes Up Rates Before New Rules Begin

In a recent statement, Citigroup Inc announced that, "We have adjusted pricing and card terms for some customers as part of our regular account reviews. These changes also reflect the dramatically higher cost of doing business in our industry as we work to preserve the broad availability of credit." This statement comes just before new, stricter credit card regulation goes into effect. These rate increases will affect roughly 15 million credit card holders, especially those who have cards that are co-branded with businesses like Sears and Macy's. One report has found that during the months January through April, Citi raised... more »