As the state of the economy hovers around dangerous lows, many Americans have faced financial hardships. In the past, people that suffered from overwhelming debt loads and the risk of foreclosure were those who simply mismanaged their money. A new report now shows an interesting trend away from personal responsibility towards unavoidable economic factors. Economic  … Read more

A recent study conducted by analysts at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago compared foreclosure rates in their own city with those in four other major Midwestern metropolitan areas: Des Moines, Milwaukee, Detroit, and Indianapolis. While Chicago had an overall foreclosure rate similar to that of the other cities (except Des Moines, which came in  … Read more

The plan enacted by three Rhode Island cities to prevent foreclosures and ease their impact on homeowners, has had little effect. The plan involved requiring lenders to try mediation procedures before pursuing a full foreclosure initiative have helped only a small percentage of Rhode Island homeowners struggling with debt. The most recent statistics released by  … Read more

This summer, around 250 Southern California homeowners fell victim to one of the largest foreclosure scams on record. After cheating struggling homeowners out of $1 million in debt, the perpetrator was sentenced to 25 years in prison for his crimes. How It Began In the beginning, the perpetrator used a corporate front to pay real  … Read more

For many struggling homeowners, foreclosure can seem like the worst possible scenario. To owe so much money that the bank reclaims your home is a terrifying notion to consider, yet, this is not always the end of the ordeal. Unbeknownst to most homeowners facing foreclosure, it is possible to still owe large sums of money,  … Read more

A state agency in Arizona, originally founded to help homeowners resist foreclosure, has turned instead to helping people sell their homes at reduced prices through short sales. Insiders claim that this turn is due chiefly to a lack of funding and resources, which has forced them to find other means of assisting struggling homeowners, besides  … Read more

When the recession first hit three years ago, the majority of foreclosures and bankruptcies fell on those who had overextended their finances by buying above their means and developers who over-invested their resources. Now, the burden has fallen on the middle class. At first, most middle-class Americans were able to pay their mortgages by cutting  … Read more

In Orange County, California, foreclosures are taking longer and longer to process. It now takes lenders in Orange County 30 percent longer to complete a foreclosure, with the time necessary to process a sale or repossession stretched to over a year. Recent studies have shown that foreclosures now take an average of 411 days to  … Read more

These days it can seem as though the American economy is caught in a never-ending downward spiral. Many Americans have lost their jobs and their homes, and the number of victims doesn’t seem to be improving. With such a seeming lack of progress, it is common to feel frustration with our banking industry’s apparent lack  … Read more

When a neighbor’s house falls into debt and is foreclosed on by the bank, it can do damage to more people than just the owners of that particular property. When a house gets foreclosed on, it can be an absolute nightmare for neighbors. Perhaps the biggest issue is that a property in financial difficulty can  … Read more