Citing e-mail messages in which Mr. Mozilo referred to Countrywide loan products as “toxic” and  “poison,” S.E.C. officials said that he had misled investors about growing risks in the company’s lending practices from 2005 through 2007. During this time he also generated $140 million in profits by selling stock in the company, the S.E.C. said.  “This is the tale of two companies,” said Robert Khuzami, enforcement director at the S.E.C. “Countrywide portrayed itself as underwriting mainly prime-quality mortgages, using high underwriting standards. But concealed from shareholders was the true Countrywide, an increasingly reckless lender assuming greater and greater risk.” At a news conference announcing its filing of the suit, the most prominent against an executive involved in the mortgage crisis, Mr. Khuzami said the S.E.C. had made it a priority “to pursue cases at the root of the financial crisis.” As the nation’s largest mortgage lender, Countrywide helped fuel the housing boom by offering loans to high-risk borrowers. See Related Feature: Rise and Fall of Predatory Lending and Housing

Minyanville: Subprime Lending is Back with a Vengeance
This is truly a shell game of the most amazing magnitude and we are simply continuing the practices that got us here. Because Americans are not savers and there are not enough marginal buyers we literally are turning renters into homeowners and they need to bring nothing to the table ... again. So they will have no problem walking away... again. This is the latest outrage via an excellent piece at Minyanville... that $8000 credit we were lauding as an incentive? Well it is no longer being used as it was intended to be... i.e. borrower comes to government with their 3% down and then gets the $8000 the following year.

When Builders Build Bad Loans
The bill’s sponsor, Assemblyman V. Manuel Pérez, says the problem is that many consumers who bought homes from corporate builders ended up caught in a closed loop: forced by hard-sell tactics and deception to use the builders’ in-house mortgage and title companies. The industry promotes the practice as a one-stop-shopping convenience that saves time and money. Too many homeowners found it did neither. They were pressured into buying overpriced homes with interest-only loans that they didn’t understand and couldn’t handle. When the bubble burst in Southern California, that was it for their dreams and homes.

DATELINE: INSIDE THE FINANCIAL FIASCO SERIES BEGINS
For the first hour of a three-part investigative series, "Inside the Financial Fiasco: Mortgage Madness," NBC's Chris Hansen reports on how risky home loans helped cause a chain reaction that led to failures on Wall Street and the near collapse of the American economy. The report also includes exclusive accounts from insiders and whistleblowers speaking out for the first time.Check TheHansenFiles.com afterwards for web-exclusive material.  See NBC main page...

State Law- Predatory Lending & Mortgage Fraud
State AG's Make Countrywide Pay - When will  Board Members, the masterminds be held accountable. Countrywide sold subprime loans, including adjustable rate mortgages ("ARMs") with teaser rates that were unaffordable and unconscionable to West Virginia consumers. These loans exposed consumers to foreclosure and loss of their homes. Countrywide also used unfair and deceptive acts or practices to sell loans and service loans. Read more...

Builders with unsold homes get little leniency from bankers
In his 35 years as a home builder, Bobby Lunceford earned plenty of accolades. Kennesaw Citizen of the Year in 2000, home builder of the year in 2003 and outstanding Georgian, according to a resolution approved by state lawmakers in 2004. None of that mattered, however, when Lunceford tried to work with five banks to save his business, Bob Lunceford Properties, after home sales plummeted. He asked the banks to suspend loan payments until his homes sold, at which time the loans would be paid off. Instead, “the instant we ran out of money all but one bank began foreclosure proceedings,” Lunceford, 56, recalled. He and his wife, Becky, lost their home, their cars, their life savings and their business, and now live in a rented house.

Saying Yes, WaMu Built Empire on Shaky Loans
We hope to do to this industry what Wal-Mart did to theirs, Starbucks did to theirs, Costco did to theirs and Lowe’s-Home Depot did to their industry. And I think if we’ve done our job, five years from now you’re not going to call us a bank.”  As a supervisor at a Washington Mutual mortgage processing center, John D. Parsons was accustomed to seeing baby sitters claiming salaries worthy of college presidents, and schoolteachers with incomes rivaling stockbrokers’. He rarely questioned them. A real estate frenzy was under way and WaMu, as his bank was known, was all about saying yes. Yet even by WaMu’s relaxed standards, one mortgage four years ago raised eyebrows. The borrower was claiming a six-figure income and an unusual profession: mariachi singer. Mr. Parsons could not verify the singer’s income, so he had him photographed in front of his home dressed in his mariachi outfit. The photo went into a WaMu file. Approved.

Why home values may take decades to recover
As painful as the decline has been, history suggests home values still may have a long way to drop and may take decades to return to the heights of 2½ years ago... An extreme relaxation of lending standards inflated the housing bubble. "Shoddy underwriting on mortgages" is the primary cause of the housing crisis, says York, the Wachovia economist. "People got caught off-guard by how bad it was." Millions of home buyers — poor, rich and middle class — were approved to buy homes at prices that had been out-of-reach just a few years earlier. Lenders offered low introductory "teaser" rates on adjustable rate mortgages and approved borrowers based on artificially low mortgage payments, not the higher ones that took effect later.

Debt Watchdogs: Tamed or Caught Napping?
Moody’s, which judges the quality of debt that corporations and banks issue to raise money, had just graded a pool of securities underwritten by Countrywide Financial, the nation’s largest mortgage lender. But Countrywide complained that the assessment was too tough. The next day, Moody’s changed its rating, even though no new and significant information had come to light, according to two people briefed on the change who requested anonymity to preserve their professional relationships.  Moody’s had assigned high grades to many securities containing Countrywide mortgages. Those securities and mortgages, issued during the lending spree of recent years, later soured — leaving investors with large losses and homeowners and communities struggling with foreclosures.  Since the subprime mortgage troubles exploded into a full-blown financial crisis last year, the three top credit-rating agencies — Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings — have faced a firestorm of criticism about whether their rosy ratings of mortgage securities generated billions of dollars in losses to investors who relied on them.

UsHousingMeltdown.org
The Independent Resource for Housing Market Information.  Housing Research -  USHM was created to provide the facts and the truth about the housing market. Our product is quality information. The agenda at USHM.org is to provide non-biased information and commentary whether the information leads to or supports buying houses and real estate or not.  Read more...