Oregon home builder files for bankruptcy
1 of Oregon's largest home builders has filed for bankruptcy after its parent company made some bad land investments. Legend Homes' chief executive officer, David Oringdulph, says ill-timed purchases made in the once hot areas of Bend, Vancouver, Washington and Southern California prompted the bankruptcy.

Controversial president of SAHA posts resignation
But current Chairman Ramiro Cavazos said Alvarez likely would have received mixed results on his evaluation by the new board...Cavazos said. “I think an area where we probably would have said might have needed improvement would be in connecting better to grass-roots organizations ... that really are the service providers of the folks that we house.”

SAHA Forced To Remove People From Voucher Program
The San Antonio Housing Authority handed out more vouchers than federal government will fund. SAN ANTONIO -- The San Antonio Housing Authority must now find a new president and CEO after its previous head decided to move to the West Coast. Henry Alvarez leaves the authority after four years at the helm to become the executive director of the San Francisco Housing Authority. That agency is the 17th largest in the country, boasting more than 6,000 public housing units. The SAHA Board of Commissioners is still discussing the process to replace Alvarez.See video report  - Related HUD Letter

The Magazine of the National Association of Home Builders
Parallel Universe
The worldview of Home Builders versus that of the people who post negative web sites about them is so different that some might wonder whether the two groups live on the same planet.
The negative Web postings depict builders as unscrupulous businesspeople who market shoddy, hastily built products and force people into binding arbitration agreements that forfeit the legal rights of home buyers.

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Mandatory Binding Arbitration Still Sucks
BusinessWeek has published a pretty substantial cover story on arbitration, and why it disadvantages consumers. Consumerist readers will be familiar with many of the story's criticisms: one study finds 99.8% of arbitration cases are decided in the corporation's favor, some arbitration firms market themselves to companies as a sympathetic and partial judge, the arbitration process is intentionally structured to handicap consumers, and more. Read more: Business Week: Banks vs. consumers (Guess Who Wins)

81% Of Americans Hate Mandatory Binding Arbitration
According to science, even the President is more popular than mandatory binding arbitration. A recent poll shows that Americans hate everything about the extrajudicial resolution system, from its inescapable omnipresence, to its unappealable decisions that rob consumers of their day in court. The poll provides a refreshing contrast to a different study commissioned by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which found that Americans love mandatory binding arbitration more than pie. Public Citizen Reports: New Poll - Americans say "No Thanks" To Binding Arbitration

Arests expected soon in two other schemes based here
Eleven members of that 16-person ring -- which includes three real estate agents, an attorney, a mortgage broker and a former Wells Fargo bank officer -- are set to be sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Austin after being found guilty of wire fraud, money laundering and falsifying information on loan documents as part of this scam that hit Austin and that San Antonio neighborhood...Texas is among the top 10 states for mortgage abuses, and San Antonio is involved in three such scams so far this year, the Austin case and two San Antonio-based rings under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The San Antonio rings used more than 50 people to inflate prices in Stone Oak, Spring Branch and Dallas. FBI special agents investigating the cases have said that arrests would happen soon this summer.

Building codes aren't big priority in Texas even after Rita
Hurricane and disaster experts say they are stunned that Texas has done nothing to bolster building codes nearly three years after Hurricane Rita blasted its Gulf coast, the Houston Chronicle reported Sunday. "Texas is an aberration," said Leslie Chapman-Henderson, chief executive of the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes, a nonprofit organization. "It's eerily quiet in the state. Why are they not having a conversation about codes?"

Homeowners' concerns heard by state
It's not a block party or a home tour, at least not the kind you're used to. It was a tour of Hutto's defective homes. Neighbors said a majority of houses in three different neighborhoods built by Lennar Homes have been plagued with cracks, nail pops and mold, among numerous other problems. Tuesday night, representatives from the state heard homeowners' concerns.

Mortgage turmoil snares Ed McMahon
Ed McMahon, the longtime sidekick to Johnny Carson on "The Tonight Show," is fighting to avoid foreclosure on his multimillion-dollar Beverly Hills estate. McMahon defaulted on $4.8 million in mortgage loans with a unit of Countrywide Financial Corp., which filed a notice of default in March, according to ForeclosureRadar, a company that sells default data pulled from public records.McMahon won a $7.2-million insurance settlement after claiming that mold in his house killed his dog Muffin and sickened him and his wife.According to a lawsuit he filed, the trouble began when a pipe broke and water flooded a den. Mold was later discovered throughout the house. McMahon and his wife, Pamela, blamed faulty cleanup. "When your family loses its health and your home is a wasteland, that's a colossal disaster," McMahon said at the time.