By Paul Owers July 29, 2007 Mounting mortgage defaults across South Florida threaten to hurt more than just those homeowners who lose their properties to lenders. Experts say foreclosures could drag down already sluggish housing prices throughout...
Alexander Gourse August 2007 Geoff Smith, Woodstock Institute research director discussese recent Woodstock research on disparities in the subprime market and possible state and federal solutions. From the article: “Subprime lenders,” says Smith, “are taking...
By broadening access to responsible credit and well-priced banking, financial and insurance services, Woodstock Institute has helped expand economic opportunity for individuals and strengthened targeted communities. “We have always sought to document how national financial and economic policy and...
HSBC, JP Morgan Chase, and Santa Barbara Bank & Trust, all of which offered variations of the pre-tax season refund loan, announced last March that they would not longer offer these loans through their tax preparation partners. Woodstock Institute...
Instead, they found glaring omissions, inconsistent evaluation methods, and in some cases, little more than cursory praise of the banks modest effort.Geoff Smith, research director, described the examinations as plagued by insufficient quantitative data, superficial and inconsistent qualitative data,...
In addition to enacting consumer protections for the payday loan industry, increasing the number of lenders competing to provide affordable short-term loans is critical to driving down the cost of credit, said Williams. As part of this strategy, Woodstock...
In many respects, the widespread availability of mortgage credit has had a positive effect on communities throughout the country. Home ownership rates are at a record high and families that, in a previous era, would have been lifelong renters...
In recent years policymakers and employers have increasingly shifted the responsibility of retirement planning from employers to employees, often to the determent of lower-income workers whose biggest retirement asset is a pension from their employer. As a cost cutting...
As a result, foreclosure rates have spiked. Between 2005 and 2006, the Chicago region saw a one year increase of over 36 percentwith every indication that the trend will continue into 2008. The Office of the Comptroller of the...
Immediate Release Tom Feltner Policy and Communications Director (312 427-8070) New Federal Credit Encourages Lower-Income Workers to Save for Retirement But low personal savings rates still threaten retirement security, Says new Woodstock Institute report Saving for retirement just got...