Foreclosures lead to vacancies and crime
A band of new suburban neighborhoods that held promise for thousands of Charlotte families is now struggling with crime, blight and falling home values.These neighborhoods were hit hard by the wave of foreclosures rattling the nation. Damage is most visible in starter-home subdivisions across northern Charlotte, and in pockets in the east and southwest.

Charotte Observer Update Reports
Foreclosures lead to vacancies and crime - Loan defaults a growing burden for lower-income neighborhoods - Easy home buy turns risky - Foreclosure filings reach record high in N.C. - Real estate agency took bonuses from builders it vowed to fight - Concord subdivision proves lucrative for builder and costly for 1st-time owners - Easy-credit loans can be hard on us all - Observer series shows destabilizing threat to entire communities

Kick 'em when they're down
Unions representing hotel and textile workers have created a Web site advocating a boycott of Countrywide Financial Corp.'s banks and financial institutions. Countrywide's not doing enough to help out troubled borrowers, the unions claim, so consumers shouldn't let the lender use their savings to make more loans...If Countrywide can be accused of kicking borrowers while they're down, the same might be said of the boycott, depending on your point of view.

N.Y. State To Form Mold Task Force
It is a common site yet often dangerous to your health. Mold is suddenly the focus of medical experts.  And now New York state is investigating what can be done to protect the public from its effects...  People are hoping they escaped the plague before it had the opportunity to inflict life-threatening damage. The panel has invited members of the public to speak at each of its meetings.

Five-Year Mortgage Rate Freeze Looms
The Bush administration has hammered out an agreement to freeze interest rates for certain subprime mortgages for five years to combat a soaring tide of foreclosures, congressional aides said Wednesday. The aides, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the details have not yet been released, said the five-year moratorium represented a compromise between desires by banking regulators for a longer time frame of up to seven years and mortgage industry arguments that the freeze should last only one or two years.

Report: lenders agree to five-year freeze on ARM loans
A coalition of lenders, loan servicers and investors have reportedly agreed to a plan that would freeze interest rates on some subprime mortgage loans for five years. Borrowers with loans made between Jan. 1,  2005, through July 30 of this year who face interest rate resets between Jan. 1, 2008, and July 31, 2010, would be eligible for interest rate freeze...

Mandatory Arbitration Stacks Deck Against Credit Cardholders, Data Show
In the report, Public Citizen pulls back the curtain to reveal the cozy and dangerous relationship between credit card companies and the private arbitration firms that decide their binding mandatory arbitration cases. The result of an eight-month investigation, the report provides, for the first time, a comprehensive analysis of data on nearly 34,000 arbitration cases...The report focuses on the National Arbitration Forum (NAF), the go-to arbitration forum for the credit card industry and a major player in the California arbitration business. Between Jan. 1, 2003, and March 31, 2007, arbitrators working for the Minneapolis-based NAF ruled for businesses in 94 percent of the California cases examined. In fact, 90 percent of the NAF cases were handled by just 28 arbitrators, who awarded businesses $185 million.

New York Launches Investigation of Toxic Mold
In a name that sounds more like something from a super heroes comic than anything spawned by government, a newly formed 14-member panel will taken on the threat from toxic molds in New York. The Toxic Mold Task Force will soon meet with the  goal of studying the problem and preparing a report for the governor, reports Newsday. New York State legislators had urged the panel be formed back in 1995, after hearing complaints of debilitating exposure to potentially lethal indoor air.

Officials try to discover source of mold in Westbury
The architects and engineers who helped design and construct the Archstone Westbury rentals -- where water damage and mold are driving hundreds from their homes.  Deery said most construction is completed when inspectors aren't watching. Architects and engineers certify their own work, swearing in affidavits that their projects comply with codes.

U.S. bill offers homeowners financial hope against mold
A bad mold infestation can cost tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars to fix and can turn a home into a den of wheezing, coughing or worse. However, homeowners insurance companies in Arizona exclude mold from coverage. As a result, some Valley homeowners say they have had to abandon houses and belongings they believe were making their families sick. Sponsored by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the "Melina Bill" would create a national insurance program to protect homeowners against major losses as a result of mold. The program would be similar to the national flood-insurance program already in place. It also would mandate mold inspections in public housing and certification for mold inspectors. Mold experts say it could help protect Americans from a threat to their health and homes.

State task force to focus on mold
Various types of mold - especially toxic forms - have long been a public concern, and now a New York State task force will investigate related health issues in a first-of-its-kind meeting next week...State legislators in 2005 urged that the panel be formed after hearing complaints of debilitating exposure to potentially lethal indoor air and concluding that toxic mold is an under-recognized health problem.  In 2004, an Institute of Medicine panel concluded that while indoor mold and dampness are linked to respiratory symptoms and asthma in vulnerable people,.. The institute, an arm of the National Academies, advises Congress on health issues.

Housing Slump's Third Year to Be `Deepest' Since WWII
As the U.S. housing slump enters its third year, there is no sign of dawn in the darkness that is paralyzing home building, home buying and home lending.The outlook is bleak with new home sales projected to fall 13 percent in 2008, according to estimates from the National Association of Realtors in Chicago, even as interest rates drop. Losses at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two biggest U.S. providers of mortgage financing, may restrict the availability of home loans, and chief executive officers at D.R. Horton Inc. and Centex Corp. expect another tough year.

Mold forcing residents out brand-new luxury complex
More than 400 residents of the 21-building Archstone Westbury community received notice that they have four months to evacuate the premises. The company has given everyone in the building a deadline of March 31, 2008 to relocate. Reconstruction and fixing the mold problem is expected to take at least one year. Archstone-Smith says water has seeped through the exterior skin of the property.

Foreclosure swallows new subdivisions before opening
The white paint has barely dried on the cathedral ceilings. And some of the stacked-stone chimneys have yet to crackle with that first fire. Here, in a half-built neighborhood near Grayson, everything is freshly minted, down to the suburban dreams. Yet earlier this month, outside the Gwinnett County courthouse, nearly half the subdivision was auctioned off — the latest casualty of a foreclosure crisis that has pounded model-home sales offices around metro Atlanta.