Monthly Archives: March 2011
Housing Market: 13% of All U.S. Homes are Vacant
High residential vacancies are killing many housing markets, as foreclosed homes sit on the market and depress sale prices and property values.And it’s only getting worse: The national vacancy rate crept up to just over 13% according to last week’s decennial census report. That’s up from 12.1% in 2007. “More vacant homes equal more downward pressure on home prices,” said Brad Hunter, chief economist for Metrostudy, a real estate information provider. Maine had the highest proportion of empty housing stock, at 22.8%. Other states with gluts of empty houses included Vermont (20.5%), Florida (17.5%), Arizona (16.3%) and Alaska (15.9%). The […]
Ex-lawyer Gets Jail in Bankruptcy Fraud
A former Wakefield, Mass., lawyer was sentenced Tuesday to three years in prison for failing to disclose winning lottery tickets he had purchased to a bankruptcy trustee and for filing a false tax return. James Gregson, 40, bought two $1 million winning tickets prior to filing for bankruptcy in 2005. Prosecutors in U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz’s office said Gregson failed to disclose the value of those tickets to the trustee handling the case. After the trustee was tipped off, prosecutors said, Gregson lied about the tickets’ origin, saying his parents had paid for them. In addition to ordering jail time, […]
Comptroller: NY home foreclosure filings decline
New mortgage foreclosure filings dropped last year in New York while still edging up nationally, according to state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, who cautioned the fallout continues from the U.S. housing crisis and recession. The state decline can be attributed partly to a temporary suspension of foreclosure activity by banks, not an improvement in the market, DiNapoli said. “In general the foreclosure crisis in New York State and New York City was less severe than in other parts of the country,” he said. “But neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx were especially hard hit.” In November 2009, New York lawmakers […]
Credit Card Rules Amended by Fed to Avoid Issuance to People Who Cannot Pay
The Federal Reserve approved a rule that would require credit card issuers to consider consumers’ individual incomes before extending credit, Bloomberg News reported on Friday. Credit card applications generally cannot request “household income” because that term is too vague for issuers to evaluate whether customers will be able to make the required payments on the accounts, according to a statement from the Fed on Friday. The rule is needed to prevent making credit available to consumers who lack the ability to pay, the Fed said. The change is supposed to limit issuers from giving cards to college students, yet some […]
U.S. Senators Consider Ban On Bankruptcy “Forum Shopping”
U.S. lawmakers are considering a requirement that companies seed court protection where their primary operations are located rather than where they are incorporated, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) is considering offering an amendment that would narrow where companies may file for bankruptcy protection. The amendment was one of 20 circulated among Senate Judiciary Committee members ahead of a business meeting last week. The amendments, only one of which–not Cornyn’s–has been officially introduced, would apply to the Limiting Investor and Homeowner Loss in Foreclosure Act. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) introduced the bill in late January […]
