The complaints about the success — or lack thereof — of the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) are getting louder.
By all accounts, the program is far less successful than government officials had hoped. Out of 1 million homeowners who received a temporary loan modification from their lenders, just 116,000 — or 11 percent — have received a permanent loan modification.
But the number of people who have received permanent loan modifications is probably only a small fraction of the entire number of people who either applied for a loan modification under the Obama plan or wanted to. The number is far short of the 4 million homeowners President Obama said would be helped when he announced the program. more…
Another of Tempe Town Lake’s upscale-condominium developers is hoping to close a difficult chapter in its history by putting all its leftover properties up for auction.
WestStone Communities, a Canadian developer, plans to auction off 22 units inside its five-story Northshore condos project, on the north side of Tempe Town Lake in Tempe. more…
Things got worse in 2009 for homeowners and sellers in northeast Phoenix.
Until last year, the northeastern ZIP codes that cover the area between the Phoenix Mountain Preserve and Pinnacle Peak Road were holding up to the economic recession reasonably well.
But not at the rate they were doing so last year. more…
WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve, still dusting itself off from a fight that threatened to trim its powers, could emerge from a congressional overhaul of banking rules as the top cop over the nation’s largest financial institutions.
Senate negotiators are considering giving the Fed the authority to supervise non-bank financial institutions that are so large and intertwined that their failure could pose a risk to the entire economy, according to people familiar with the evolving legislation. more…
Throughout the 1990s, Phoenix-based Right Place Properties had a solid reputation as a boutique developer and real-estate brokerage.
It bought low-rent apartment buildings - about one a year - and renovated them with funds from a small pool of private investors. The units were then sold as condominiums for a healthy profit. more…
Filings in the Phoenix area have been hovering around 2,000 a month for the past year as a sluggish economy puts pressure on people who are unemployed as well as certain business owners and homeowners who have suffered big losses in real estate. more…