Legislators want to make public the names of those linked to loans
Trying to halt record numbers of home foreclosures, legislators want to make public the names of mortgage brokers, appraisers and other professionals connected to each mortgage loan. N.C. Commissioner of Banks Joseph Smith told a special legislative committee on Tuesday that his office needs the names of mortgage brokers and other loan originators to investigate mortgage fraud and resulting home loan foreclosure.

Mortgage crunch
People who finance their homes with ARMs may not realize the risks involved and often find themselves in serious financial situations as a result.

PR Web: The Housing Bubble Gets Ready To Burst
The two largest culprits are homebuilders/mortgage firms that forced real estate appraisers to come up with inflated valuations and the second culprit are teaser rate, adjustable rate mortgage products that are now starting to adjust beyond many homeowners ability to make the payment. The victims are or will be our nation's homeowners, our nation's pension funds and ultimately the U.S. Taxpayer in a Katrina type bail out...the combination of blackmailing real estate appraisers into inflated valuations combined with insane mortgage products creates the perfect storm for a real estate disaster that could be our nations most costly real estate melt down in history.

Foreclosures haunt homeowners
Nearly 850 Bexar County residents lost their homes to foreclosure Tuesday, the third-highest monthly total in more than a decade. Foreclosed homes go up for public auction the first Tuesday of each month outside the Bexar County Courthouse. The slew of foreclosures is reminiscent of the late 1980s when oil busted and the San Antonio real estate market crashed.

Fraudulent FHA loans breaking brokers
Statewide, the FHA reports 337 claims against its insurance fund on Colorado home loans issued in the past two years. One-fourth were originated by just four small Denver-area firms: Primero LLC, Alliance Mortgage Capital Inc., International Lending Solutions Inc. and Creative Mortgage Inc.

FHA program key in surge of foreclosures
A key factor in the state's record-setting wave of foreclosures, critics say, is an FHA program that allows people to borrow more than their houses are worth with little or no money down. Created to extend the dream of homeownership to first-time buyers, the so-called FHA gift program instead has led to rampant foreclosures. Nearly 6,000 FHA loans have wound up in foreclosure in Colorado in the past two years, and during that time the program allowed more than 25 percent of FHA buyers to use gifts as down payments.

Foreclosures still surging
Residential foreclosure filings continue to flood public offices throughout the metro area, with no signs that the record-setting pace of failed home loans will let up. Foreclosures in the seven-county metro area jumped by nearly a third in the first half of the year compared with the same period in 2005, according to public-trustee counts.

Record foreclosure pace
More than 9,500 real estate foreclosures have been filed in the Denver area in the first half of the year, about 34 percent more than in the first six months of 2005.  It's on pace to be the worst year ever in terms of the number of foreclosures, topping 17,122 in 1988, though the area's population growth since then means the total percentage of homes in foreclosure is smaller.

Foreclosures rising with debt, job losses
Nationally, foreclosures are up 38 percent, higher than in any quarter of last year, property tracker RealtyTrac said.The numbers are even grimmer in the Midwest. Michigan and Ohio, battered by automotive-related job losses, together recorded 45,000 mortgages entering some stage of foreclosure in the first quarter. Those are increases of 91 percent and 39 percent, respectively, compared with last year's fourth quarter. There are many reasons for the growing number of defaults, and there are suggestions that the foreclosure trend may soon worsen.